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HMS Illustrious World War II Film |
Leading Photographer (A) Bernard Collier, R.N. (1922-2003) |
| My father, Bernard Collier, served on board HMS Illustrious from May 1943 to September 1945. Whilst clearing out my parent's house I came across a reel of 16mm film which I took to the Imperial War Museum. It has now been copied onto DVD and is in their archive under reference ADM 2825 entitled Corsair Fighters Flying Off HMS Illustrious although it actually contains much more including sailors both during and not during action stations and also footage of VIP's or it could be the captain addressing the crew. On June 1, 1998 my father wrote this note about the film. "This spool of 16mm negative and positive film was taken by me and fighter pilots aboard HMS Illustrious 1944-45 in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. I was also responsible for the processing. We were serving with the East Indies Fleet under Admiral "Slim" Summersville, and the British Pacific Fleet led by Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser. Sequences show activity on the flight deck and gun film taken from the wing cameras on Corsair fighters." I would like this video to reach as big an audience as possible with the hope that some of the events or people can be identified. I have provided a copy of this film to MaritimeQuest and it has been converted into a Video Clip file that can be downloaded from this page. This video stands as a tribute to all those men who served in Illustrious during the war. You can also see a collection of my father's photos on this page. Bernard Collier, R.N. Collection |
-Richard Collier New Zealand |
(This download is a large file, over 700 megs.) |
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Bernard Collier seen in uniform. |
Page published Mar. 3, 2018 |