Allied ships on fire in Tunis Port during the North African Campaign. View on shore as a U.S. Navy sailor and a camera man operating a moving image camera view the fire blazing in the harbor on a sunny day. Black and white smoke clouds arise from the ships. Flames leap upward on the ships. Sunken ships in the water. U.S. Navy sailors use water hoses to extinguish the fires at the bow of a ship. Charred gun on the bow of the ship. Sailors survey remains of burned ships and damage at harbor. Men extinguish the fire with water hoses. (This is possibly footage of the surprise day time raid by German Luftwaffe aircraft attacking Allied ships at Tunis harbor on May 19, 1943, six days after the Axis surrender in North Africa.)
On shore at Tunis harbor, a British Navy officer gives a sword salute to a senior Naval officer in World War II. U.S. Navy and British Royal Navy sailors lined up on either side of dock for a salute. General Dwight D. Eisenhower accompanied by Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham and other British and American Navy officers walk past the sailors in review. Cunningham has a walking cane hooked over his left forearm but does not use it. The Union Jack and the British Royal Navy flag are visible. Ship at dock in the background. Eisenhower and Cunningham and the other officers pause and greet in front of a waiting Royal Navy car, RN ME 4096, parked on shore. Eisenhower, Cunningham, and another British officer enter the waiting car and it leaves, passing by a Allied landing ship with number 5 seen on its bow, anchored at the port. Closeup view of U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Richard L. Conolly and another U.S. Navy officer watching after the car drives away. Honor guard sailors march with rifles, departing the dock after the officers leave. (Eisehhower visited Tunis for meetings with British and U.S. Navy officers May 11-13, 1943. This footage is likely during those 3 days.)
Major General James Doolittle and Lt. General Carl Spaatz of the United States Twelfth Air Force, Colonel Willis, as well as French Major-General Bergeret and other American and French officers attend ceremonies at the presentation of Curtiss P-40 Warhawk planes by the U.S. Army Air Forces to the French Lafayette Escadrille in Morocco during World War II. American troops parade before a hangar. Officers stand in front of P-40 planes lined up near the hangar. The band plays in the parade. French Moroccan horsemen. Officers salute the American and French flags. Opening cameraman slate indicates January 9, 1942, but this is an error as the event took place on January 9, 1943.
Pictures taken by military and news cameramen during World War II. North African Campaign: The British Eighth Army enters Tripoli in Libya. Allied soldiers on tanks. Civilians and children watch as the troops move into the city. A British flag. British Army Field Marshal Harold Alexander (1st Earl Alexander of Tunis) stands in a car and greets the troops and civilians as it moves along. Allied invasion of Sicily, 1943: Field Marshal Alexander's British Dominion and U.S. forces advance. The task force underway off the Sicily coast. Soldiers get off landing ships and crafts. They wade through shallow water and advance inward on the beach. Germany: Allied aircraft in flight. The airplanes bomb Nazi industries. The aircraft bay doors open, bombs away as bombs are released, and they descend towards the target area. Smoke due to the explosions.
French civilians and military officials inspect the ruins of Le Portel, France, after its bombing destruction of September 8-9, 1943, triggered by Operation Cockade. Bombed out buildings, debris and destroyed buildings in the resort town. Cars on road with ruined buildings all around. Damage near the Hotel des Bains et Belle-vue Reunis on the sea shore. Military officials look out over beach toward the Fort de l'Heurt. Damaged building of Cafe de la Rade. View of a large destroyed statue with officials in the background. Ruins of various buildings in the French town.Sign for Hotel de la Providence. Sign "Buvette Americaine" written on a French shop. Instrumental soundtrack heard in background of clip.
Elements of the U.S. 36th Infantry Division engaging in the Battle of San Pietro, during World War 2. Opening scene shows U.S. infantrymen of the 141st Infantry Regiment synchronizing their watches on H-Hour, D-Day, the 15th of December, 1943. Next they move forward 400 yards from their positions and are immediately pinned down by heavy artillery fire from German defenders. Soldiers of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 143rd Infantry Regiment advance 100 yards and hunker down at barbed wire barrier close to German defense line. They also come under heavy German artillery fire. American Sherman tanks enter the Town of San Pietro to find and destroy the German artillery interfering with the American advances. Views of U.S. tanks on the move. Narrator states that 16 tanks were dispatched along the road to San Pietro. Three reached the outskirts. German gunfire destroys two of these. Smoke rising from a struck tank. Views of pieces of destroyed tanks. Destroyed and abandoned American tanks. American infantrymen carrying a wounded on a litter past a knocked out Sherman tank. View of one (of four) tanks returning to the Regimental Bivouac area. Parachute flares illuminate the battlefield at night, where small American units succeed in penetrating German defenses, but are forced to move back again due to flanking German artillery and machine gun fire. Closeups of several wounded American infantry being moved on stretchers.
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