Chiefs of Allied Invasion Command at the headquarters in England. American General Dwight D Eisenhower meets the soldiers. Military supplies put into action. Trucks, Jeeps and mechanized equipment are assembled. General Montgomery, Deputy Commander General Arthur Tedder and General Eisenhower see new equipment in action. Artillery fired. Aircraft in flight. Paratroopers in sky. General Montgomery, Master of air tactics, General Arthur Tedder and Liberator of North Africa, General Eisenhower. (World War II period).
German troops advance on the Eastern Front during World War 2. Russians employ scorched earth policy . Oil tanks ablaze and dams and structures blown up. Germans lay siege to Stalingrad. A Soviet troops in urban combat in Stalingrad. A German soldier is shot and falls. Views of awful destruction. Animated map showing Leningrad and the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga on either side. Views of Leningrad in snow. Citizens bundled against the cold, walk near historic structures. Food being distributed. Soviet troops in defensive positions. Animated map shows outbreak of Soviet forces in pincer movement that surrounds the German 6th Army. Two Soviet armies meet as they close the pincer. German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendering to Soviet forces on 31 January 1943. Troops of the German 6th Army make their way through the snow as they surrender. Battlefield cemetery, with markers of German soldier's graves. Numerous Soviet citizens, victims of the fighting, seen lying in the snow, as relatives grieve. Scene shifts to the Pacific theater with view of Japanese bombers flying over an installation flying the Rising Sun flag. Scenes of the Pearl Harbor attack. American workers fill yard near a war plant during shift change. Defense industry workers in the plants. Liberty ships being launched. American forces in amphibious assaults. U.S. forces engaged in North Africa and on Pacific islands. American soldiers at battlefield gravesite. General Dwight D. Eisenhower with General Omar Bradley and Allied military leaders, look over a map of Europe, following the June 6th invasion in Normandy. Fields filled with Sherman tanks and other war materiel, in England. The wing of an American airplane in D-day stripes as it takes off. Views from cockpit of an American bomber striking targets on D-day. B-17 bombers in formation at high altitude, leaving condensation trails in the sky. Pilots in cockpit of an American bomber, as they drop bombs. Allied fighters in D-day stripes peeling off to attack. Gun camera views of fighters strafing German targets. Explosions and fires.
Earth moving equipment in the Pacific Theater (World War II). Earth moving equipment at a construction site. A sign reads : 'Sidewalk Superintendents Club'. Cranes, steam rollers, tractors, steam shovels at work. A jungle road and a bridge. Soldiers fire artillery, bomb target areas and battleships attack. Display of man power, fire power, air power and sea power during the war. Engineers lay a steel mesh. An aircraft lands on an airstrip as a bulldozer clears the airstrip. In China, Chinese people work manually. In India, elephants carry wooden logs and load them into a truck. In North Africa, camels carry load. In America, machines are used. A bulldozer levels land.
French Generals Charles De Gaulle and Henri Giraud with the Financial Delegation in Algiers, Algeria in North Africa during World War II. M. Roberts addresses the French Financial Delegation. Officials seated in a balcony. General Giraud addresses the delegation and takes a seat after finishing. General Charles De Gaulle addresses the delegation. People applaud after his speech. Both the Generals shake hands with the members of the committee. French General George Catroux addresses the delegation. Some officials take notes while others listen to the speaker.
U.S. troops board a large troop transport ship via a gangplank. Troops on an intermediate deck of the ship. Some are sprawled out relaxing. View from above of more troops boarding a ship. Men and equipment on the pier below. American forces at various far flung places where the U.S. Army Services Forces facilitated their transport and logistic support. Fleeting glimpses of troops in: Ireland; Alaska; Trinidad; and South America. Troops jam the upper deck of a transport ship. Army Service Forces officers in a planning meeting. Naval officers on deck of a ship look through binoculars as U.S. Naval ships bombard the coast of Solomon Islands and landing craft carry marines in an amphibious assault. Next, a man is seen annotating a map of North Africa. Secret maps pertaining to Allied landings in Tunisia and Algeria. Animated map illustrates amphibious landings on North African coast, highlighting Casablanca, Oran, and Algeria. Landing craft carry troops and supplies that are piled up in the sand beach. Soldiers moving military supplies ashore, in fire brigade fashion. Soldiers working at desks in Offices of the Army Service Forces. Filing cabinet in background. Trucks on the move in remote locations. Supply ship being loaded at a terminal. Fuel drums and army vehicles a being loaded aboard ships. Officers seated at a conference table. Ordinary American enlisted soldiers in a griping session at an Army post in the United States. Camera pans over large formation of soldiers. Animated chart shows more than half of servicemen who are part of Army Service Forces (ASF), are unaware of that. Troops marching in review at a tropical location, where reviewing officers wear pith helmets. Chart illustrates lack of unit pride in ASF. Images of various ASF logos. Chart shows results of polling data from soldiers and service members. Signal Corps and Engineers elements of ASF have the greatest unit pride. But most think better of other branches of the Army. More troops marching, in steel helmets and carrying rifles with bayonets affixed. Troops marching overlaid by "50%" indicating that half don't believe their contributions to the war effort are significant. Troops lined up (for pay?). More charts expressing concern about low morale. A heavy gun firing. German paratroopers jumping from a formation of Junkers Ju 52 aircraft. Charts expressing prevailing U.S. troops view that Germany wouldn't be too hard to defeat. Chart showing lack of understanding about why the U.S. is fighting Germany. Image of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill seated in front of their key military officers at Casablanca Conference in World War 2. Chart shows U.S. soldiers believe that the greatest war effort is expended by the U.S. followed by Russia, with China and Britain providing little. Chart illustrates that only half U.S. troops want to get overseas and fight. Chart shows U.S. War Department films can correct this problem.
French Foreign Legionnaires during practice landings under U.S. Navy supervision in North Arfica. Soldiers climb down landing nets from a transport into a Landing Craft. U.S. Navy sailors and French soldiers in Landing Crafts. Soldiers seated in the crafts. The Landing Crafts head towards the beach. (World War II period).