Views of Ernie Pyle’s familiar places in New Mexico. Opening shot shows a man stepping from the porch of Ernie Pyle’s house, with great expanse of desert landscape in the background. A car driving along a quiet mountain road. People picnicking at a roadside table. Views of mountains and sky and a man leading a horse walking slowly up a sandy hillside. Horse-drawn wagon in the Pueblo of Isleta. A farmer plowing a field with a team of horses. Pueblo women placing rugs on a line and baking bread in an ancient clay outdoor oven. Pueblo residents celebrating Corpus Christi Day. They walk slowly carrying banners and flags. The local Priest says prayers for American soldiers away in World War 2. Inside the church, a Pueblo mother lights candles for her son, overseas, against a backdrop of stars representing each local man away in the war. Car is seen driving across a low bridge over the Rio Grande River. It drives slowly into the town of Sandoval, where a man leads a cow across the road in front of the car. Farmers cultivating rows of crops by hand. A woman sings accompanied by a guitar. A sheep ranch where shepherds on horseback move a flock. Sheep being herded into pens. View of sheep being sheared by team of men. Wool being piled into a truck. Mailman delivering mail to a country mailbox on a street in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Two girls in jeans walking in town. A girl comes out of a building and embraces a young soldier in uniform, who was waiting for her. Pedestrians on the sidewalks in the commercial district. Women with cut roses; playing cards; baking a cake; and cutting a lawn with a manual reel mower. A wedding party walking along the sidewalk. Two girls reading. People in various settings reading the Albuquerque Tribune (or the Journal) newspaper. Movie houses that show films in Spanish and English. Students walking on the grounds of the New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. More views of ordinary people in towns including people of Hispanic descent or Mexican Americans. Sheriff Harold Hubbell of Bernalillo County, who served with the 200 Coast Artillery on Bataan, in 1942, is seen mailing a letter. Former Governor, Clyde Tingley, now Mayor of Albuquerque, comes down steps of a building. A Navajo indian reading a newspaper. A rancher rolling his own cigarette. A young Spanish American boy (Muchacho). Girl (Muchacha) rides a bicycle. A Navajo man followed by his family. Sign reading “Bataan Relief” announcing a talk by a Bataan veteran of World War 2. View of the speaker, in uniform, speaking to a group of mostly women. (Narrator states they lost a whole National Guard Regiment to the Japanese after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.) Another glimpse of students at the State University. Another repeat glimpse of Pueblo women baking bread in outdoor oven. Views of girls and women. Various Views of Ernie Pyle with American troops overseas during the war.
Inter American conference at Mexico. United States Secretary of State Stettinius and Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller attend the conference. Airplane parked on air base. People gather to greet dignitaries arriving for the conference. Car arrives. Dignitaries come out of car. Other officials greet them. People applaud and greet them. Other dignitaries arrive. People greet them. They enter the conference hall.
A film titled 'Victory' about the first ever atomic bomb test in New Mexico, United States. Exteriors of some of the secure manufacturing and factory buildings that were part of the Manhattan Project production efforts. Military guards watch over the factory. View of the desert in New Mexico. Cactus in the desert. Views of the nighttime first atomic bomb test explosion in history, known as the Trinity test, seen from different distances and camera positions. Smoke cloud rises up from the first ever atomic bomb explosion. (World War II period).
Explosion of the first ever Atomic Bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico in World War II. Brilliant flash at detonation of the Atomic bomb. Huge smoke cloud rises. Smoke all around. Narrator indicates that men 5 miles away were knocked down, that a pressure wave was felt and the sound and quake was noted in an area 300 square miles in size. He indicates that the testing platform was vaporized. He comments on the awesome power of the weapon, its ability to shorten the war, and the important responsibility that rests with those who know the secrets of the weapon.
Activities the day before the Trinity nuclear test conducted at Alamogordo in New Mexico during World War II (part of the Manhattan Project). Technicians and physicists work inside a tent erected on the test tower platform in the Jornado del Muerto desert test site. The men perform final arming of the plutonium core nuclear implosion device nicknamed the "Gadget". White duct tape seen in use in places on and in the enclosure; as a adhesive since welding would be prohibitive. They attach the Gadget, the first atomic bomb in history, to a crane hook. Persons seen in the footage include Herbert Lehr and Louis Slotin. Also seen is Robert Oppenheimer at 0:38-0:40 wearing a soft brimmed hat, shirtsleeves rolled up to elbows, and ID badge at center of chest. Oppenheimer is seen again, no longer wearing hat (now holding it in his right hand), in blue collared shirt, standing behind the device from 1:13 to end of clip.
Activities prior to the Trinity nuclear test conducted at Alamogordo in New Mexico during World War II. This is the day before the first ever atomic bomb test in history (the first ever detonation of a nuclear device). The plutonium core nuclear device nicknamed the "Gadget" being raised up to the top of the steel tower after final assembly. Men arrange drum shaped cushioning pads on platform, under the device, as the hoisting begins, and cover the pads with canvas tarps. The Gadget atomic bomb being hoisted to the top of a 20 meter steel tower for detonation early the next morning.