Opening slate reads: "Quebec Conference August 1943." The English battleship, Prince of Wales, is seen in fog off the Coast of Newfoundland, in August 1941. View of sailor on fore-deck of the British ship. View inside engine room of the ship where sailor manipulates her power. Closeup of engine crankshaft stopping as she drops anchor in Placentia Bay. View of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, greeting U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the Prince of Wales. He proffers a letter to the President, from the King of England. View of Roosevelt and Churchill seated on deck with their respective military leaders standing behind them. Admiral Ernest King, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations converses with U.S. Army Chief of Staff, George Marshall, as they stand behind Churchill and Roosevelt. Wider camera view shows the larger military entourage accompanying the Prime Minister and the President. Glimpse of prisoners and enslaved workers taken by Nazi Germans in Europe. Glimpse of bombs falling from an airplane. Classic film views of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 7, 1941. Bombs exploding along "Battleship Row." Heavy smoke rising from the bombed ships. The USS Arizona tilted heavily and burning. Camera pans along the path of destruction, as the voice of President Roosevelt is heard in the background, asking the Congress to declare that the Japanese attack created a state of War between the United States and the Japanese Empire. View of President Roosevelt speaking to the U.S. Congress. Seated behind him are Vice-President Henry Wallace and Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn. Glimpse of Congress members applauding. Change of scene shows President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meeting in Washington, DC, in December of 1941, during World War 2. Views of war preparations in the United States, including the building of new war production plants and facilities. A large steel ingot being forged into an artillery gun barrel. Machinist at work turning a gun barrel on a lathe in a munitions factory. Views of manufacturing plants in operation and steel being made. A railroad train carrying new Army trucks. Another meeting of Churchill and Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. June, 1942. Standing behind them is President Roosevelt's special assistant, Harry Hopkins, a British naval officer, and an American navy Captain. American soldiers boarding a troop ship, and closeups of them as they enter the ship, looking out of portholes, and waving from the ship's deck. Glimpse of Washington Monument and its image in the reflecting pool in Washington DC. Closeup of a book entitled, "Time Table for Invasion." General George Marshall with several of his generals doing preliminary planning. Series of scenes involving senior military officers engaged in war planning. A convoy of warships is seen at sea during the Operation Torch Allied invasion of French North Africa during 8–16 November, 1942. Views of Allied Navy ship guns firing. Allied troops riding in landing craft, and advancing from beached craft on shore of Algiers. Aerial view of a flight of Douglas Dauntless bombers in formation. "Bombs away" view from Allied airplane dropping bombs. Allied troops firing camouflaged antiaircraft guns from sandy positions near shore. Enemy shells or bombs exploding nearby. Two U.S. Army soldiers holding a document in French entitled, "Message from the President of the United States.
Women's Army Corps in the United States. Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, created in 1942 is converted to WAC (Women's Army Corps) in 1943. A WAC carries a cake. 'WAAC' written on the cake. A WAC walks outside a building. Several men stand and talk. The WACs parade on a field. A United States flag. Duties performed by WACs. Women work as mechanics and handle complicated equipment. They take photographs through cameras. The U.S. Capitol building in view. U.S. Army General George Marshall and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Stimson. Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby is the first commanding officer of WAC. A dramatization depicts recruitment and induction of WAACs. A sign reads 'WAAC, information and recruiting'. A woman appears in an interview. The women undergo physical examination and are then recruited. WAACs undergo a training. They perform physical exercises and swim. Several WACs go to specialization classes. WACs cook food. A woman receives an award for her husband's bravery during World War II.
Workers engaged inside the Jack and Heintz war plant in Bedford, Ohio, in 1943, during World War 2. The company designed and manufactured aircraft starters, automatic pilots, motors, and other aircraft parts and accessories for the U.S. Military. Film opens showing a machinist at his work station. Behind him is a bird cage, containing a facsimile of a turkey, a sign reading "Watch and Pray," and a picture of an American flag. Next, a row of other workers is seen. They stand att individual work stations working on small parts. A pinup picture of girl holding a bugle ia on the wall behind one worker. Closeup of the picture. Another worker has decorated his workplace with flowers. He pauses to smell them. He is smoking a cigar and responding rhythmically to music heard faintly in the background. View of employee chewing candy as he works. When another speaks to him, he shoves some of his candy into the other's mouth.. View of three girl pinup pictures on the wall. Another work station with picture of a pinup girl in a swing. Closeup of that picture.
The Jack and Heintz war plant in Bedford, Ohio, in 1943, during World War 2, where the company designed and manufactured various aircraft parts and accessories for the U.S. Military. First scene shows signs inside the factory reading : "Time is Short," and "Remember our promise, Delivery of the first automatic pilot March 31." And: "Let's Goo Gang, Its up to us to see that its kept." A picture of a war plant worker and a soldier with a machine gun is below the signs. Worker seen in a lab coat, smoking a pipe as he works at a machine. Behind him are two drawings of reclining pinup girls and a sign reading: "Quiet Please, War worker resting." Closeup of worker's hand machining a very small part.
The United States Army Quartermaster Corps in the United States during World War II. A diagrammatic comparison of army manpower of 8,000,000 in December 1943 as against 1,750,000 in December 1941. A diagrammatic representation of huge increase in volume of obligated procurement in 1942 as against 1941. Men wheeling carts of supplies at a store. Men carrying supplies coming down a gangway from a ship onto a dock. Soldiers with guns standing on the dock. Soldiers moving through a wooded area. Men carrying the procured materials for storing. Officers watching the men. Two soldiers wearing their uniforms. People and vehicles moving on a city street. A signboard on a building reads 'Office of the Quartermaster General War Department'. The headquarters building in view. A map of the U.S. showing locations of different procuring offices across the nation. Men and women working in an office at the headquarters. Petroleum, Subsistence and Textile sections at the headquarters. Officers working in the headquarters. Men getting into a truck. Enlisted men being trained in various quartermaster operations at a training center.
New U.S. army recruits seated at benches in the classification center, taking notes, as an instructor at a blackboard tells them how to fill out their classification questionnaires, during World War 2. View of machines processing the questionnaires. Hollerith 88 column punch cards being sorted by machine. Newspaper article about the Air Force efforts to improve classification and assignments of new airmen. A recruit being counseled. An Airmen in barracks, filling out a post card form to complain about his assignment. Servicemen working with sewing machines and at long cobbler's benches repairing shoes. U.S. soldiers in pith helmets, laying communications cable from a truck. A soldier recording information about a shipment of supplies. Soldiers filling 5-gallon "jerry cans" with fuel from a hose. Others serving at a communications center in woods. A soldier fastening a cable to a tank. Soldier standing on a truck. Large group of soldiers gathered to listen to a lecture about explosives. Army draftsmen at their work tables. Soldiers using information and training materials.(Narrator states these materials are often ignored.) An army newsmap for Monday, August 31, 1942 posted on an Army office wall. A sergeant points to July, 1943, on a current calendar next to it, illustrating that the newsmap is long out-of-date. View of another news map and narrator notes they are produced weekly. An officer speaking to an auditorium of soldiers. A soldier arranging his personal gear. Infantry on field maneuvers, firing rifles as they advance across a field. Soldiers firing a Browning water-cooled machine gun; a mortar; and a 105mm M101A1 howitzer. The sergeant using a newsmap to brief his staff about the progress of the war. Opening frames of a War Department Film Bulletin, and soldiers in a theater, watching the film. Opening frames of the film,"Why We Fight," that goes on to show animated map of the German advance across Europe in World War 2. Scenes of German forces on the move, towing artillery, riding on tanks, and entering towns as they invade countries of Europe. Women and children running in streets under bombardment, and civilians fleeing from their homes during aerial bombing. A Bombed out city and civilian corpses lying on the ground. Women in Poland, identifying their dead and grieving over them. German Heinkel He 111 aircraft dropping bombs. Norwegians evacuating the city in trucks, and other vehicles and on foot, during the German invasion. A squadron of German Messerschmitt Bf-109 aircraft in flight. German Ju-87, Stuka dive bombers diving on targets. Civilians rushing to a bomb shelter, and other refugees boarding a truck to evacuate. More He-111 bombers dropping bombs. A Ju-52 trimotor transport (type used to transport German paratroopers). Buildings ablaze in a town. Large formations of German aircraft of various types flying overhead. Building destroyed and burning from bombing. Ju-87s flying close past the camera.
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