British war documentary

Shot in mid-1939 as S.S. Ionian (also shown as Her Last Trip), Humphrey Jennings’s GPO short follows the Royal Mail steamer on a last peacetime run through the Mediterranean—Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Haifa—under the gaze of the Mediterranean Fleet (HMS Barham, Malaya, Warspite). After the Ionian was sunk by a German mine on 29 November 1939 en route from Crete to Hull, the film was recut and released as Cargoes.

Correspondence between young lovers nearly ends in disaster through a mistake in postal district. Fortunately the GPO spots the error and all ends well, but with the moral that correspondents should get the address right.

Drama-documentary, reconstructing a real incident in which a trawler got into difficulties in a North Sea storm. Released 7th March 1938.