German troops battle French during World War II. German troops advance into areas abandoned by retreating French forces. They probe abandoned trenches and fortifications. German troops rush to prepare their airship for launch. Troops handle airship lines. Crew members prepare to board the airship. The airship in flight, above.
Early historic aviation footage focusing on French aviation pioneers like Gabriel Voisin and Alberto Santos-Dumont. An early French float plane taking off and landing. Multiwing box-like aircraft. Two early French monoplanes. Early aircraft that set performance records. 1919 picture of Raymonde de Laroche, Baroness de la Rouche, world's first woman flyer. Additional scenes of historical French aircraft and a scene with American pilot Glenn Curtiss.
President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic Charles de Gaulle makes inspection trip through the country at end of World War 2. Crowds line the sidewalks waving French flags. A Free-French tank named: "L'Audacieux." Numerous destroyed and damaged buildings and rubble lining the streets where his motorcade proceeds. At one stop, he is greeted by an honor guard of Colonial troops. His motorcade passes through a section of the Maginot line where rows of anti-tank dragon's teeth appear intact. At entry of one town a welcoming banner across the road reads: "Soyez Les Bienvenus." De Gaulle steps from a car near a sidewalk filled with French school girls, accompanied by Nuns, in habit. He shakes hands with some girls dressed in traditional local costumes. More views of destruction and rubble. Only the street is clear and rubble lines the edges. Armored cars and other armor pass through twin gates of a city and proceed down a main street, followed by marching French infantry, as people watch and cheer from sidewalks. A Cadillac automobile carries De Gaulle to a French Naval marina. Sailors present arms and he proceeds down a ramp to a floating dock, where he boards a motor launch that takes him along a river. More scenes of cheering French crowds.
World War One British Tank crew wearing protective leather helmets enter Mark I Male Tank through access door adjacent to sponson. Officer, carrying his black cat mascot on his shoulder, follows. Tank's sponson (also called barbette) is seen rotating with its 6 pounder gun changing elevation.
U.S. flyers, who escaped from Swiss internment, examine remains of destroyed German warplanes at a French airfield. A swastika seen on the tail of an airplane and a German cross on the wing of another. Men stand on the tail of a Nazi airplane. A group stands near the wrecked tail of a large German airplane. A U.S. P-47 aircraft is parked in the background. It has a red cowling, identifying it as belonging to the 56th Fighter Group (likely to the 63rd Fighter Squadron, which in Spring of 1944, showed no squadron color on the tail). .Army Air Force L-5 Sentinel aircraft in flight over a field.
French women serving in farming roles during World War I as majority of French men are engaged in World War 1. Women farmers together with younger French boys and girls holding farming tools and walking toward fields, through some war rubble. Women with babies pick potatoes in farms. They reap crops and make stacks of it. The farmers attach a mule with a cart loaded with hay stacks. Two women pull the stacks out from the cart. The farming women and youth stand in a circle and use flails for threshing wheat.
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