U.S. Navy film entitled, "the Battle for the Beaches." Several Higgins boat landing craft arrive at a shore and U.S. soldiers leave them to run ashore. Scene is then overlayed by the title slate. View of the White Cliffs of Dover, England. British civilians preparing defenses during World War 2. Civil Youth loading sand bags and erecting sand bag parapets around buildings. Home guard troops march up a road carrying rifles. British defenders occupying fortified positions They stand along a coastline looking out at sea. Street scene in an English village. Guards walking up along a barbed wire fence erected on the outskirts of the village. Film shifts to the German coastal Atlantic Wall defenses. German troops march along sandy shores containing all manner of obstacles at the water's edge. German officers stand on an overlooking cliff, and peer through binoculars. German sentry and large coastal gun barrel under camouflage net are silhouetted against light sky. Three German officers confer over plans for coastal defenses. View from above of slave laborers working and shoveling sand as they build defenses. German soldiers dismantling wooden forms around completed concrete fortifications. Glimpse of a huge German coastal gun being raised by a crane with heavy steel cables, as it is steadied by dozens of workers with hands on its barrel. German troops manning a machine gun in coastal defense position where a twin mounted antiaircraft gun is also seen. Momentary view of two German soldiers walk past rotating barrel of a huge coastal defense gun under a camouflage net. Workers, with shovels, placing fresh concrete to build up a section of concrete barriers along the coast. Allied troops storming a sandy shore from landing craft, as shells explode near them; possibly related to 1944 D-Day. One contingent are British soldiers. American troops landing at a beach from landing craft. Dead allied soldiers lying in the surf. Film shifts abruptly to U.S. Lieutenant General Mark Clark with some officers in Italy. In another switch of war theaters, General Douglas MacArthur is seen congratulating crew of a B-25 named "Smiling Jack." U.S. troops, in a training exercise, storming ashore from Higgins boats directly and closeup at the camera. They take up defensive positions in the sand, and move a jeep towing a field artillery piece.
First scenes show United States Marines riding in a landing vehicle tracked (LVT) heading toward a Japanese occupied island in the Pacific. View from one of the landing craft of heavy smoke obscuring the island coast. Next, a dozen landing craft from the USS George Clymer (APA-27) are seen with mountains of the target island looming in the background. View from a different perspective shows several landing craft heading toward an inlet to the island. View from a landing craft of a Japanese Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" airplane flying overhead. Closeup of American soldiers in a landing craft headed toward a different Japanese occupied island. U.S. soldiers leaving a landing craft in the surf. View from inside a landing craft as U.S. Marines head ashore. Soldiers splashing in the surf. Troops wading ashore. Soldier dug in on beach near underbrush, firing many round from his Browning M1919 machine gun. Marine firing his rifle behind a palm tree. Troops seeking cover at very edge of shore. Some lying in the water, before moving on. A soldier firing an automatic weapon through foliage. A bomb explodes near an invasion ship. Troops descending on rope nets from the troopship, USS Crescent City (APA-21) and entering her Higgins boats. Heavy equipment and ammunition being offloaded from the troop transport ship. Marines coming ashore. An LVT in the background. Marines behind a barricade built by the Japanese. Marines throwing hand grenades and firing Browning M1919 machine guns. Flame throwers being used to force Japanese from strongholds. Marines gathered all along a shore line. A bulldozer driving along the waters edge. Soldiers rolling steel mesh across the sand. An antiaircraft machine gun with a side magazine mounted on a jeep, moves on the sand. Several ensuing scenes show flame throwers being used. Marines near a wrecked Japanese structure and then escorting a Japanese prisoner. A group of Japanese prisoners being spoken to by a Marine with a microphone. Marines hunkered down on a beach. One is cranking a hand powered radio transmitter. Front ramp of a landing craft is dropped down with a splash at waters edge. An M3A1 light tank drives off the landing craft. A truck being offloaded onto the shore. A heavy field artillery piece being moved into position. Troops work to move another field artillery piece into position. Trucks and other vehicles wading through shallow water as they leave an LST. Troops wading ashore from the LST. Trucks arriving on the shore. A tractor pulls a canvas covered vehicle. Soldiers ride aboard a light tank. Unusual view of troops assembled on shore of a mountain with ice seen in places on it (likely in the Aleutians). Crowded beachhead with LST 477 seen beached. Marines looking at destroyed Shore defense installation containing heavy gun. Remains of a 4-engine Japanese Kawanishi H8K2 (Emily) flying boat in the water. Seabees building an airfield with heavy construction equipment. Troops gathered around a Navy F4F aircraft that landed on the new (unfinished) airfield. Closeup of the smiling pilot climbing down from his plane. Troops saluting as the American flag is raised on remains of a Palm tree trunk, on Eniwetok, February 1944. Remains of a Japanese shrine and views of dead Japanese soldiers.
American industrialist, Henry J. Kaiser appeals for donating clothing to war victims in China and Europe during World War II. Seated at desk in office, he addresses the nation and announces a drive, commencing April 1, 1944, to collect used clothing for war victims, all over the world. Scenes shows : War victims in food lines. Starving and wounded civilian victims of war. An American woman and a girl at home in America select clothing for donation. Mr. Kaiser shows a banner which reads "what can you spare that they can wear?"
German rocket pioneer, Gerhard Zucker, attempting to develop postal rockets in the 1930s. Location is Wadden Sea off Cuxhaven, on April 9, 1933, where Zucker follows Nazi Sturmabteilung (also called SA or Stormtroopers) carrying the mail rocket across wet sands. The rocket is set up on a launch stand. Zucker and an assistant ignite the 8 side rockets and the mail rocket takes off. It noses up and loops over backwards, falling to the sand. German Stormtroopers lift up the damaged device. Next, is seen a later, more modern, rocket trial ending in failure. Two German engineers display a model similar to the pulse-jet-powered "buzz bomb" (V-1) employed by the Nazis in World War 2. A brief glimpse of similar American machine on sand flat, as narrator states German acknowledgement of knowledge gleaned from Dr. Robert Goddard's work. A German V-1 flying bomb (aka Doodle Bug) being launched in 1944, during World War 2. View of British houses of Parliament, London, England; an air raid shelter sign in City of Westminster. Londoners waiting out a raid in the shelter. Scenes of fire and destruction during German bombing of London, as narrator speaks about the more advanced German V-2 ballistic missiles employed later in the war. Londoners trudging through debris amongst bombed out buildings. Change of scene to U.S. infantry and armor advancing deep into Germany. Narrator refers to them overrunning rocket bases and other vital war-making facilities, near the end of the war. Glimpse of large number of German prisoners of war. Documents of military surrender being signed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, in Berlin, May 8, 1945. Closeup of Keitel. Scenes of American forces operating in Pacific theater. Aerial view of atomic bomb explosion. Japanese surrender ceremony on September 2, 1945, aboard the battleship USS Missouri. U.S. soldiers and other service personnel return home and greeting loved ones at end of war. Aerial view of Pentagon building and surrounding area in Arlington Virginia near Washington DC. U.S. troops boarding a ship in San Francisco, bound for war again, this time in Korea (1950).
Destroyed German equipment, including some captured American armor, lines the edge of a road near Esperia, Italy during World War II. The German armored vehicles, tanks, antitank guns and trucks were destroyed by U.S. fighter bombers of the 12th Army Air Forces, on May 16, 1944, while supporting the French Expeditionary Force assault on the German Gustav line in that area. French troops stand on the side of a road. Troops examine some of the destroyed armor.
Celebrations during 55th Birthday of German Chancellor Adolf Hitler on 20th April, 1944 during World War II. A German Eagle statue on a base with inscription to the effect that our walls may be broken but not our hearts. A youth raising a Nazi flag on top of a building. People and troops march through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. People set up Nazi flags amidst rubble, and a woman sets up a sign reading that our walls may be broken but not our hearts. Demolished building in the background. People buy newspapers at a newsstand.
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