Boys at War
WWII Britain through the eyes of mischievous 12-year-olds
A feel-good family film that draws on nostalgia – a contemporary audience will identify with the diverse and appealing characters as the story is revealed with both humour and pathos.
Based on a true story
Award Winning Script
Synopsis
It’s England in 1940, a year into the Second World War. German bombs rain down on the important city and port of Southampton on the South Coast of England, where they build the Spitfire, and many of the children are evacuated to safety.
But is it really safety? A group of poorer boys are not homed with families in the countryside, but incarcerated in an old army camp near the neighbouring city of Winchester. Run to a strict regimen, the boys are treated like prisoners of war, marched to meals each day, hired out as slaves to the local farm. Even the locals are discouraged from any contact by the headmaster, whom the inmates call The Commandant.
One of these children is twelve year old Norman who thinks the Germans have done him a favour by missing the docks and bombing his school, but he is sent to this camp along with his Polish Jewish friend David, and David is terrified because it seems so much like a concentration camp.
Norman befriends the wilful Susan Beltem, daughter of the headmaster, and together they organise a break out from the camp – a hundred boys escape and the army and police are mobilised to recapture them, not an easy task as the boys dodge and hide from the authorities.
Finally they reach Winchester, where the children are met with armed soldiers, bayonets fixed. This showdown is the climax of the film, where locals reason with the soldiers and five of the most homesick boys escape back to their families.
