A transport ship carrying released German prisoners of war arrives at a Baltic Sea port during World War II. Crowds cheer the returning prisoners of war and throw flowers at them. Sailors perform the Nazi salute. Women and children waving bouquets of flowers. Prisoners of war crowd the deck of a ship with a Nazi flag. Nazi officials among the crowd welcoming the soldiers home from North Africa. Former prisoners of war disembark from ship one by one. They are holding bouquets given to them. Sign reads “Die heimat grüßt euch” (“Greetings from the homeland”). An Afrika Korps veteran soldier holding a bunch of flowers besides a smiling woman. Girls offering flowers to an Afrika Korps veteran smoking a pipe. Elderly women admire a young veteran. An Afrika Korps veteran cradling a kitten. A woman writes on a notebook at a table with paperwork processing the incoming soldiers. Stamps and wads of cash on the desk. A nurse and a German soldier together. The soldiers board a waiting railroad train. A woman gives a cup of beer to a soldier, through the train window. The soldier drinks it and smile. A soldier with a cast talking to his friend. Soldiers returning to Germany for rest. Railroad train cars filled with smiling, German soldiers who crowd at the windows and wave to family, friends, women and children crowding the train station platform to see them off. Crowds waving at the soldiers as the train leaves the train station.
Allied ships in a North African harbor. A battle cruiser makes its way across the water. A hill in the background. View of buildings on the coast. Numerous ships anchored off coast. A battle cruiser moves along. (World War II period).
U.S. Army troops approach stationary C-47 'Skytrain' transport planes on ground in Algeria during World War II. Sign on side of one plane identifies its name as "Big Jig." Taxi and takeoff of C-47 as seen in point of view shot through open side door of C-47 aircraft. C-47 in flight. P-38 Lightning fighter plane in flight escorting the paratroopers. Interior of a C-47. C-47 in flight over water. Point of view shots through cockpit window of C-47 aircraft in formations over water. C-47over mountain area. P-38 in flight. U.S. Army paratroopers jump from C-47 near Tunis toward target enemy airport in Tunisia held by Germans. Parachutes descend and land on ground as seen from C-47 aircraft in flight. C-47 parked on airfield.
U.S.Paratroopers attack after a 1500 mile trip from the UK. The load aboard 44 C-47 troop transport aircraft in Algeria and take off. They are escorted by U.S. P-38 Lightning fighters. The C-47s swoop low over the target airfield and paratroopers jump. They secure the airport. The C-47s are seen parked back at their airfield in Algeria, having returned with no losses.
British 8th Army takes Tripoli as Nazis flee Libya during World War II. A land mark. British Royal Air Force aircraft bomb Tripoli. The aircraft drop bombs and smoke rises due to explosions on a field. Commander of British 8th Army General Bernard Montgomery hoists the British flag over a captured German airfield. British ground crew near a captured German aircraft. A crew member paints the tail of the aircraft and covers German insignia with Royal Air Force insignia. A pilot exits a jeep and climbs into the cockpit of the re-purposed German plane, and takes off. British Army sappers locate, disarm, and collect German mines in Libya. Metal detectors are used by soldiers to locate a German Teller mine. Soldiers take out the Teller mine. View of hundreds of captured German land mines. A sign reads 'Safe Lane'. Trucks drive past on a road. The Medjerda River in Tunisian. British 1st Army soldiers near artillery. Aircraft in flight. A soldier signals and fires artillery. Smoke rises in the foreground. Dive bombers in flight. The bomber aircraft drop bomb. Hills in Tunisian. German soldiers fire guns. Soldiers on U.S. made tanks and trucks drive on a dirt road. A road side marker reads "Mateur" The aircraft in flight. British Douglas Boston bombers flying overhead.
At start of film, Allied forces are digging in after retreating from counterattacks by German forces in Tunis, during World War 2.. Rains create mud everywhere. A Lockheed P-38 fighter plane parked in foreground. Ground crews use shovels to free nose wheel of a B-24 Liberator bomber with engines running. A truck tows a C-47 transport plane from mud. Army trucks travel over road inundated by running streams. Soldiers standing in a jeep submerged in water. M2 tanks stuck in mud. Airmen huddled around an outdoor fire. P-38 fighter aircraft parked in the background. Soldiers eating around an outdoor fire. Animated map shows Allied battle lines stabilized in Algerian mountains, while German forces occupy the plains in Tunisia. German artillery batteries firing. British troops sheltering in damaged building. Allied wounded being transported atop, as well as inside a field ambulance. Interior of a transport plane configured for evacuation of wounded on litters. U.S. airmen including a woman in leather flying jacket, presumably an Army flight nurse, tend to the wounded aboard the medical evacuation flight. Wounded being transferred from an airplane to an ambulance. British patrols moving through the night. Heavy artillery firing. British soldiers silhouetted at dawn. They return carrying a wounded comrade on a litter. The British soldiers ("Tommies.") trying to clean mud from themselves and their weapons before heading out on patrols again at dusk. Allied soldiers moving on mules in a long line to obtain needed food and supplies. More views of the interminable mud. A British Hawker Hunter fighter plane taking off. A formation of Hawker Hurricanes peeling off to engage German aircraft. Closeup of one rolling over. A German Heinkel 111 bomber being attacked and trailing smoke. Pilot pressing gun firing button in cockpit and a German Dornier Do 17 bomber hit as British fighter plane passes it in cloud of black smoke. The German plane diving to crash in a fireball on the ground. U.S. B-24 Liberator bombers taking off and flying in formation. Formation of American B-17 bombers in flight. The American planes dropping bombs on Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily. Gunners in the bombers firing machine guns at attacking German fighter planes as their bombs keep dropping. Back on land in Algeria, mud still halted any Allied advance. Animated map showing both Allied and German forces building up on their respective sides of the front. Supply lines illustrated all the way back to factories in the United States and Britain. Allied war plants making bombers and munitions. Allied Soldiers assembling Army vehicles at a port. Lockheed lightning fighters being rolled out of a factory. Sign reading "Railroad Equipment Assembly Plant No. 1." Complete trains from locomotives to freight cars being completely assembled, loaded with freight and sent on their way. A formation of P-38 aircraft equipped with long range fuel tanks being ferried in flight from Brazil. It is led by a B-17 flying fortress bomber providing navigation. British Spitfire and Hawker Hunter airplanes heading to the front are seen taking off from an airfield in Gibraltar. A caterpillar tractor moving earth for a new road at the front. Trucks dropping materials for the road bed as soldiers with shovels smooth them on the surface. Soldiers installing Mardsen Matting pierced steel planking for an airfield surface as C-47 transport planes operate on the field. Crates of food supplies being unloaded at a port. War materiel stored in a large yard at a port.