Fire Over Shingle Street + We Fought Them in Gunboats: Double Bill

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MADE IN EAST ANGLIA FESTIVAL

Fire Over Shingle Street

60 minutes

Fact, Fiction, or Propaganda?

A new documentary by Suffolk-based filmmaker Tim Curtis (Life on the Deben, Stanley’s War) delves into one of Britain’s most persistent Second World War mysteries, asking: Has this enduring enigma been fully accounted for, or are there still unanswered questions?

For decades the Shingle Street ‘Mystery’ has divided the views of locals, journalists and historians alike with incredible and unexplained stories of the sea being set on fire, dead soldiers bodies on the beach and strange happenings in the night.

Was this remote stretch of Suffolk’s coast the site of a German invasion attempt? Did British forces set fire to the sea with petroleum weapons to repel the enemy? Or could it have been part of an elaborate wartime deception, designed to maintain national morale?

The film examines how the Suffolk coast was a hub of military secrecy—home to radar development and experimental weapons testing. Did these classified operations (with some still under wraps) combined with wartime propaganda help create the perfect conditions for rumours to fuel a wartime mystery?

Director

Tim Curtis

Cast

James Hayward, Henry Creagh

We Fought Them in Gunboats
27 Minutes

Felixstowe’s pivotal role in the protection of coastal convoys during the Second World War is highlighted in a new short film, We Fought them in Gunboats, based on the memoirs of war hero Robert Hichens who was killed in action in 1943.

We Fought Them in Gunboats tells the story of the Motor Gun Boats and Motor Torpedo Boats, based at HMS Beehive, which is now part of the Port of Felixstowe. These small craft and their volunteer crews, heroically engaged larger and more powerful German E-Boats, which sought to wreak havoc with Britain’s coastal convoys.

The film uses archive material and interviews to explain and highlight both the role of HMS Beehive and the crews, among them Robert Hichens, who risked their lives in what became known as the ‘Spitfires of the Sea’.

Director

Tim Curtis

Cast

Julia Jones