Bakers cook bread for Italian people during World War II, after the retreating German Army destroyed or removed all bread flour stores. Massive stacks of bags of flour in a warehouse. Workers unpile sacks of grain flour. Bakers empty the contents of the sacks in utensils for preparing bread. Bakers smile as they roll dough and bake bread. Pile of breads. Civilians standing outside the store of bread. Inside, a store keeper cuts bread and weighs it for each customer. They buy breads. At the home of an Italian family, civilian man, woman, and children eat bread and soup, and drink wine.
Allied troops break through the German Gustav line, during World War II. Allies troops fire guns, howitzers, mortars and machine guns on Nazi positions. French troops fire artillery and Sherman tanks fire. Explosions and smoke rise. French troops capture Castelforte, nicknamed 'little Cassino' on May 14. German prisoners are being taken as they surrender. Wounded Allied soldiers. Troops move through the ruins of captured Castleforte. British break through the Gustav line and on May 18 capture destroyed Monte Cassino. View of broken walls of the gutted Benedictine Abbey. Gutted buildings of town. Ruined building. Allied troops move ahead and advance. Bedraggled inhabitants return to their towns. An old woman eats bread. Planes in flight.
Troops in universal carriers (Bren carriers) advance through Italian countryside near Cassino. British soldiers passing at the side of a dirt road. Soldiers walking on foot. German POW soldiers are captured on the road. A captured German prisoner of war in full uniform. Allied soldiers escort and herd German prisoners over dirt roads. Faces of battle weary German prisoners of war.
An M4 Sherman tank drives past the camera, a U.S. Army soldier visible in the hatch, with a ruined building in the background. In an open field, plumes of smoke rise from distant explosions. In the final shot, a military jeep transports a soldier wounded in battle. A medic holds an IV bag above the wounded soldier, whose face is visible.
Destroyed buildings and ruins in Cassino during the Battle of Monte Cassino. German soldiers look through binoculars. Some sit and talk. Soldiers crawl and take cover among the ruins as Allied planes attack. Allied planes drop bombs on the town. Soldiers take cover and fire antiaircraft guns. Smoke from explosions. An Allied plane is hit and falls. Soldiers scout from the ruins. Machine guns fired. Soldiers with explosives in bunkers. A torn Nazi flag with the Swastika. (World War II period).
Mount Vesuvius erupts. United States Army Air Force B-25 bomber planes covered with lava dust at Pompeii airfield, where aircraft of the 340th Bombardment Group and 321st Bombardment Group were stationed in World War II. Damaged wings of bombers from hot volcanic ash and brimstone. Two bombers buried in ash. Scraper clears airfield. Bomber in the foreground of still-smoking Mount Vesuvius.