The U.S. Naval fleet underway in the Pacific before Pearl Harbor. Italian narrator describing names and sizes of various ships including the USS Arizona,USS Oklahoma, USS West Virginia, USS California and USS New Mexico. Footage of the U.S. Pacific fleet ships in heavy seas with water crashing over their bows. Army Air Force biplanes take off from the deck of the USS Langley Aircraft Carrier. Sailors stand by as a biplane aircraft lands on the deck of the USS Langley (CV-1). Biplane aircraft on the deck of the USS Langley. Topic then changes to Air-Raid Defenses in and around Italian naval bases. Italian Sailors roll helium barrage balloon inflation tanks into ships. Sailors direct air into a balloon. Numerous barrage balloons in the sky. Soldiers prepare to release a balloon from a boat and fasten the metal cables. Deck guns in position. Soldiers observe through binoculars, telescopes, other instruments and monitor gauges and radar on a machine. A soldier talks on the radio from amidst sand bag barricades. Soldiers watch as two play a bacci ball game. They run to take their positions as a soldier signals incoming enemy aircraft. Enemy planes attack the Italian base. Explosions near ships in the water. A barrage balloon is hit and bursts into flames. Sailors fire anti aircraft artillery from behind a barricade. Mobile units dash to substitute the destroyed barrage balloon with a new one. Soldiers in a truck hold onto the new balloon and then release it. (World War II period).
Nazi Luftwaffe Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring inspects an air base in Sicily during World War 2. General Kesselring reviews Luftwaffe troops. Luftwaffe officers assist General Kesselring in walking on muddy field after his boot is lost in the mud. General Kesselring and a Luftwaffe officer inspect a Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter. A Luftwaffe Jagdgeschwader 53 pilot returns to air base from a mission. Pilot exits fighter cockpit and salutes to his officer. German soldiers with life jackets on a boat, boarding a Dornier DO-24 seaplane. A cartoon on DO-24 depicting a Pinocchio like figure with telescope and goulashes. The Luftwaffe Seenotdienst (Air Sea Rescue Service) seaplane takes off. View inside cockpit as German pilot operates DO-24 seaplane. A radio operator inside seaplane. A German pilot survivor treading water near Malta. Two German soldiers lower themselves from the seaplane and rescue German pilot. DO-24 seaplane flying before landing in water. On land, German pilot is carried on a stretcher and into an ambulance.