The Way Ahead: Britain in 1944
The relevance of Carol Reed's propaganda film when it was released on 6th June 1944
Inspired by Dan Todman and Jonathan Fennell’s excellent talk on Britain in 1944 at We Have Ways Festival 2024, I wanted to write about Carol Reed’s 1944 film, “The Way Ahead” [1] and its relevance to the topic. Two of my favourite historians on the stage presenting was my highlight at the festival this year and it didn’t disappoint. They covered important social and military themes, including mobilisation (the one final push), antagonism (amongst the Grand Alliance, troops abroad / at home), and the emerging visions for Britain after the war. Although both historians have written at length on the topic, surprisingly, the theme of class was not called out during the talk. As Richard Hoggart said, “To describe the Services without recognising their class nature would be like describing a vehicle without reference to its main frame.”[2] Class, citizenship, fairness, and the building of an esprit de corps were central themes in “The Way Ahead” which was released on D-Day – the 6th June 1944. It tells the story of working- and middle-class new recruits joining a platoon of the Duke of Glendon’s Light Infantry (the “DOGs”) and follows them through training to the invasion of North Africa. Commentary is provided by two old sweats who served in the DOGs ‘back in the day’ and take the role of two Chelsea pensioners worrying about the moral fibre of the youth of today. The film provides a useful platform to explore some of the themes of Britain in 1944.
The story of “The Way Ahead” started in 1942 as the British Army looked to create a call to arms and build on the Royal Navy’s success with Noel Coward’s “In Which We Serve”.[3] At the time, the majority of the British Army were located in Britain, growing bored square bashing and well and truly browned off.[4] The citizen-soldier of 1942 felt no sense of belonging to the British Army according to the War Office Morale Reports cited by Fennell.[5] In response the Army’s psychologists wanted a film that said “Yes, we know how you feel. We Understand. Everyone feels the same at first. But if we don’t feel too sorry for ourselves we can just about make the job worth doing”.[6] This creative brief resulted in a 40 minute short, entitled, “The New Lot” released in 1943. It was deemed as “too subversive verging on the bolshy” by some in the Army and needed some refinement before a bigger screen treatment was provided a year later.[7] The screenwriter of “The Way Ahead” knew his subject matter; as well as working in Hollywood, Ambler had been an officer in the Territorials before the war and commanded an AA battery at Chequers. He later joined the Army Kinematograph Service (AKS) and travelled to Italy, where he collaborated with John Houston on making his seminal film, “The Battle for San Pietro”.[8] Whilst Allport downplays the relevance of “The Way Ahead” when it was released in 1944 as much of the boredom suffered by British troops based on the home front had been replaced by overseas duties, there are still some important themes that were still relevant to the British army and society in 1944.[9]
“The Way Ahead” stars David Niven as the urbane Lieutenant Perry and naturally contrasts with Stan Holloway’s down-to-earth Ted Brewer character, a boiler engineer. Other characters represent different strata of British society, including a travel agent, a department store manager, a car salesman, and a farmer. Hierarchy is shown to exist within civvy life as well as the Army. In the department store it takes the form of a manager (Mr Davenport) and a clerk (Parsons) both being called up on the same day. Parson goes through an interesting journey through training and goes from being an obsequiously subservient junior to Mr Davenport to gaining confidence and becoming an equal. Hierarchy is also seen when Mr Davenport meets an RAF officer and remarks about his Army issue uniform, “I wish we wore a uniform with a collar and tie, it makes me feel like a convict.” Civvy life is never far away from these civilian soldiers and in the film they take two weeks leave at the end of training and are all shown to go back to their pre-Army jobs. The implication here is that, they are fighting in order to go back to civilian life and their previous roles, rather than to realise a politically different future. Rather than dwelling on the obvious class difference between the officer and the new recruits, it’s the relationship between the men and the NCO, Sgt Fletcher, that is given the focus for much of the film. The men first meet Sgt Fletcher at Crewe railway station on their way to camp and one of the men spills beer on him. They convince themselves that the NCO has it in for them during training and go to Lieutenant Perry to complain that Fletcher is being ‘unfair’. The men gain respect for the Sergeant during training and in the same way, Fletcher sees the growing potential of his raw recruits. The mutual respect between the different social groups is strengthened through fairness. Social boundaries are broken down when they discover that the NCO and officer suffer many of the same hardships as they do in the camp.
Welfare is another theme discussed in the film that provides the men with dignity and the ability to thrive in the Army. Although the film was conceived earlier in the war, by 1944 concerns about domestic affairs and extramarital relationships at home were a major cause of low morale, especially for those British troops located abroad.[10] Sparrow’s report on morale in the British Army states, “no disease was more infectious than the anxiety and depression arising from bad news or the absence of reassuring news on this topic.”[11] In “The Way Ahead”, the character of Parsons goes AWOL and is brought back to camp by MPs, where he tells the officer that the reason he ran away was because his wife was being threatened by bailiffs due to outstanding bills. Lieutenant Perry listens sympathetically and tells Parsons, “You’re not alone” in the Army . He provides him with two weeks compassionate leave and a War Emergency Grant to sort out his finances. This provision of welfare proves to be the turnaround that Parsons needs, and his character is transformed as he’s shown to grow in self-confidence. Two week compassionate leave was not easy for men serving overseas, although compassionate home leave on personal grounds became a discretionary option after September 1944.[12] Entertainment in the form of a Concert Party in the film not only combats boredom, but is an important part of building the platoon’s esprit de corp. Eric Ambler’s parents were part of a civilian concert party entertaining the troops during the First World War and it is no surprise that he includes entertainment in the script of “The Way Ahead”.[13] When Lieutenant Perry first asks for volunteers who can perform in a new Concert Party he’s organising, the new recruits refuse because they do not want to be seen to help him. As the film progresses, all the main characters volunteer to ‘do a turn’ and help each other to entertain their fellow troops. Likewise, during moments of tension in North Africa, they all sing together to strengthen morale. Welfare is shown to be a cohesive force within the unit.
By the end of “The Way Ahead”, the citizen soldiers are shown to be working effectively together and restoring the regiment’s honour as they defend a North African town against the Germans. They work together to take out a mortar, and when they are down to 20 rounds each, they fix bayonets and walk out towards the enemy through the smoke of battle. The recruits have proven themselves and have gone from being dismissed by two old sweats at the beginning of the film to delighting them and restoring pride in the DOGs as the Chelsea Pensioner characters read about their exploits in the newspaper. Whilst the film may have had more impact if it had been released a year earlier in 1943, the film ends with the words, “The Beginning”, superimposed across the screen; presenting an optimistic view of the future. I can only imagine how audiences responded to this watching the movie during the evening of the 6th June 1944!
[1] The Way Ahead, dir. by Carol Reed (Two Cities Films Ltd, 1944).
[2] Richard Hoggart, A Sort of Clowning: Life and Times, Volume 2: 1940-59 (Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 6.
[3] In Which We Serve, dir. by David Lean and Noel Coward (Two Cities Films Ltd, 1942); Alan Allport, Browned off and Bloody-Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War, 1939-1945 (Yale University Press, 2017), p. 125.
[4] Allport, pp. 91–105.
[5] Jonathan Fennell, Fighting the People’s War: The British and Commonwealth Armies and the Second World War, Armies of the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 2018), p. 237.
[6] Eric Ambler, Here Lies: An Autobiography (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985), p. 184.
[7] Ambler, p. 185.
[8] The Battle of San Pietro, dir. by John Huston, 1944 <
[accessed 12 March 2024].
[9] Allport, p. 127.
[10] J. A. Crang, ‘The British Soldier on the Home Front: Army Morale Reports, 1940-45’, in Time to Kill The Soldier’s Experience of War in the West 1939-1945, ed. by Paul Addison and Angus Calder (Pimlico), pp. 60–74 (p. 70).
[11] , London, The National Archives (TNA), WO 277/16.
[12] ‘TNA WO 277/16’, p. 6.
[13] Ambler, p. 28.