August 1944: Allied troops in Caen, France. Aerial view of the Allied 21st Army Group Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery's armor advancing in the Normandy countryside. Tanks and artillery advance in fields. A tank on fire. Field Marshal Montgomery shakes hands with three little French girls and accepts flowers from them. He talks to the local residents. Refugees in a church. Children, women, men and elderly people are given food. They take rest. Refugees transferred in trucks. A soldier lights a smoke. French underground soldiers in the street. Women collaborationists who aided the Germans are rounded up and their heads shaved. The bald men and women in a truck. Russian troops near a railway track. The troops march back towards Caen. (World War II period).
U.S. 1st Army troops pass an abandoned German pill box near Cambrai, on their way to the Belgian border, during World War 2. U.S. tanks advancing along road to Saint-Quentin on September 1, 1944.Road sign points toward St. Quentin. Some French civilians watch as troops ride into the city aboard military vehicles. American flag is seen at window of a building.September 2nd, lead elements of the 1st Army pass road sign marking boundary between France and Belgium. A road sign on ground at the old formal border reads "Douane Belge." American tanks speed across Belgian fields in pursuit of retreating German soldiers.US units firing tank guns and machine guns at German positions.Smoke rising.Destroyed and burning German artillery, tanks, halftracks, and other vehicles and equipment along side of road.Destroyed civilian automobile and wagons. American troops entering town where Belgian flags fly. German Army Captain, accompanied by U.S. troops, urges his soldiers to surrender.He steps over wire fencing into a field where German soldier are coming forward. View of numerous German prisoners of war being held in a meadow.
U.S. Army Air Forces C-47aircraft , number 42-93098, of the 9th Troop Carrier Command Pathfinder Group, and its crew. This is the first aircraft and crew to drop American paratroopers (pathfinders) over France during the Allied invasion, in World War 2. The aircraft taxis on a British airfield. Crew of the aircraft are seen in front of it, including pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Joel Crouch, Copilot, Captain Vito Pedone, Navigator, Captain William Culp, Radio Operator, Harold Coonrod, along with two crew chiefs. Crew members shake hands and board the aircraft. Colonel Crouch waves from the cockpit of the C-47 (but has not started engines). Major J.L. Sweetman boards another aircraft. Colonel Crouche's C-47 taxis to where the Pathfinders will load up. View of Control Tower at RAF North Witham, with ambulance parked outside it. Three hours before takeoff.Colonel Crouch, is seen on a path near the airfield, with a Pathfinder Captain and Lieutenant, who will be aboard his aircraft and be the first to jump into France. They kid around. The Pathfinder officers note that Colonel Crouch wears paratroop wings. Later, two Pathfinders, of the 101st Airborne Division , with camouflaged faces and American flag insignia on their right shoulders, step from woods and pose momentarily. Pathfinder Paratroopers line up to board C-47 aircraft as Lt. Col. Crouch rides a scooter at the airfield. Aircrews and Pathfinders pose for photographs before taking off. The lead aircraft, number 42-93098, with Lieutenant Colonel Crouch at the controls, takes off from RAF Station North Witham at 9:54 PM, on June 5, 1944. to begin the invasion of France. (Note: This C-47 was shot down on September 18, 1944, during Operation Market Garden, and crash landed on Haamstede Airbase, Netherlands. Although shot at by German troops on the ground, pilot, Maj Joseph A. Beck, and Navigator Lt. Vincent J. Paterno, survived as prisoners of war. Copilot Capt Fred O. Lorimer and another crew member were fatally shot.)
6 August 1944: A U.S. armored column on the outskirts of Mayenne on their way to Paris, France in World War II. Soldiers in trucks, jeeps and half tracks. Soldiers prepare to fight, push artillery across a field. Troops march into Mayenne. Civilians welcome and greet the soldiers. U.S. troops and a van on the road. The troops and tanks enter Laval. Civilians greet the soldiers. Civilians on bicycles wave to soldiers in a truck. Soldiers and civilians at a bombed bridge. Soldiers fire at Nazis across the river from behind a wall. Civilians with French flags on the streets. A woman collaborationist surrounded by French men, holds pictures and has a Swastika on her dress front. A woman holds a broken picture of German leader Adolf Hitler. People with US, British, and French flags in a building window.
Operations of the U.S. Army Air Forces 394th Fighter Squadron, 367th Fighter Group, at Juvincourt Airfield (Advanced Landing Ground A-68) in France, during Winter of 1944, World War 2. The entire field is covered in snow. Pilots ride to their P-38 aircraft on a train of sleds, pulled by a Carl Eliason Motor Toboggan (Made by Four Wheel Drive Auto Company of Clintonville, Wisconsin). Pilots playfully brush some snow toward the camera as they pass. They stop to let a pilot off at his P-38 (reportedly the pilot is Jack Hallett). Next, P-38 aircraft are seen taxiing for takeoff over the snow, and then, flying very low over the field. The sound of gunfire is heard in the background. An abandoned (crash-landed) RAF Avro Lancaster bomber is seen collapsed on its left wing and elevator, in the snow. (It has been suggested that this might be Lancaster serial no ME850 LS-D of XV squadron RAF that crash landed on January 1st, 1945 or Lancaster VN-G of 50 SQN that crashed there on the same day.)
Former U.S. war correspondents in Normandy, France to mark the 25th anniversary of Allied invasion of France during World War II. Correspondents outside a cafe near Normandy as they prepare to leave a luncheon. Retired General J. Lawton Collins is escorted by a uniformed U.S. Army officer to a waiting car. View of the Normandy coastline from a moving car. American flag on the bonnet of a car as it drives along the road. Graves at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. Wife of a correspondent walks amidst graves at the cemetery. Grave of Wesley J. Rubenstein with a Star of David Jewish headstone. An F-4E Phantom aircraft in flight overhead. American and French flags hoisted at the cemetery. Correspondents tour the cemetery. View of a plaque ad time capsule unveiled by the correspondents and presented that day. It says, "In memory of General Dwight D. Eisenhower and the forces under his command, this sealed capsule containing news reports of the June 6, 1944 Normandy Landings is placed here - by the newsmen who were there. June 6, 1969." A man with a baby tied to his back. Correspondents speak during the ceremony. A photographer clicks pictures.