The B-29 "Dave's Dream" returns to airfield in Marshall Islands, after dropping atomic bomb on Bikini Atoll, in Test Able of Operation Crossroads, on July 1st, 1946, during U.S. nuclear testing. The B-29 lands and taxis to a parking place on the ramp. The area around the aircraft is cordoned off and the crew is confined therein as they deplane. Navy photographers take photos. An interviewer talks to crew members. The crew walks away from the aircraft along a cordoned pathway between numerous military personnel on hand to greet them on this historic occasion. The aircraft, number 44-27354, was actually participating in its second atomic mission. It also served as a photographic platform for the mission to Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, when it was named "Big Stink.". Pilot for the Bikini mission was Major Woodrow Swancutt of Wisconsin Rapids, WI. The aircraft was renamed "Dave's Dream" in honor of Captain David Semple, a bombardier killed during the crash of another B-29 on March 7, 1946, near Albuquerque, New Mexico. (World War II period).
Man securing Moose antlers for display on a former homsteader's log cabin, maintained for airmen's recreational use at Elmendorf Air Force Base (now Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska). He fastens the antlers below another set fastened near the cabin roof. Another take of the same event. Snow visible on roof of the cabin. (Note:The land for Fort Richardson and Elmendorf was purchased by the U.S. Federal Government, from private landowners and homesteaders during 1939 through 1945.)
United States Army Air Force crew at their base in the Tinian, Mariana Islands during World War II. A Army Air Force officer stands on a hoist near the cockpit of a B-29 bomber paints a picture on it. Picture of a baby wearing boxing gloves. Officer paints the baby's diaper with white paint. Soldier looks at nose art painting on the B-29 nose with written wording "Deaner Boy" on it. Another soldier walks up and looks at the nose art painting. (Note: Painter might be Lieutenant Dean C. Forburger, based on examination of image reflected back from aircraft body. Forburger was a B-29 pilot stationed at Tinian at the time, and images exist of him standing beneath this nose art. Forburger was not a member of the crew on Deaner Boy when it perished in a mid-air collision accident in February 1945. The Deaner Boy nose art was painted at least twice on this aircraft, as there are also other images of it in existence with a side-facing baby and cursive lettering for "Deaner Boy").
Formation of U.S Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bombers, flying over Iwo Jima during World War 2. View from one of the aircraft of Japanese air field below. Nightime view of American anti-aircraft fire directed at Japanese bombers attacking Saipan. Explosions and fire silhouetting American aircraft on Saipan's Isely field during Japanese air raid. Burning U.S. B-29 bombers. Scene changes to Japanese aircraft destroyed on the ground at the air base on Iwo Jima. Bodies of dead Japanese airmen on the air field. Later view of P-51Ds from the 21st Fighter Group at Central Field on Iwo Jima, in the summer of 1945,after the field had been substantially upgraded to allow B-29 operations. A B-29 is seen displaying an "F" tail code. A formation of B-24 Liberator bombers in flight on a bombing raid. Waist gunner inside a B-24 firing at attacking Japanese fighter aircraft. A Japanese fighter going down in flames at night. View from a B-24 of another, off its left wing, flying in formation with its number 3 engine shutdown and propeller feathered. View from B-24 bombing oil facilities at Balikpapan, Borneo. Bombs bursting on the ground. Glimpse of B-24s in formation. Aerial views of bomb bursts carpeting target areas below. Aerial view of B-24s flying above smoke rising rapidly from bombs bursting below. View of bomb craters left below (probably from later reconnaissance flight).
Background information for United States occupation forces in Japan after end of World War II. At start, the film shows sky filled with U.S. Navy airplanes flying in formations. They include Vought F4U Corsair aircraft, among others, and are seen overhead above the Battleship USS Missouri (BBB-63). Closeup of the USS Missouri with her crew in formation on deck wearing dress whites. Next, General Douglas MacArthur is seen and heard speaking from a podium on the Missouri's deck. He invites the representatives of the Emperor of Japan, and the Japanese Government, and the Japanese Imperial headquarters, to sign the instrument of surrender. The date is September 2, 1945, just after the end of World War 2. Closeups of the Japanese delegation, which includes envoys Foreign Minister Mamora Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu, and of MacArthur. Japanese Foreign Minister Mamora Shigemitsu sits at a table. Closeups of him signing the surrender document. Change of scene to Japan, where camera pans over many thousands of Japanese people assembled to learn of their fate. Closeups of Japanese soldiers and family members, as Narrator asks how should the U.S. occupying force treat them. View of soldiers in plain non-military uniforms. Views of Japanese responding en masse to a leader, during World War 2. Views of child victims of the war. Closeup of Japanese soldier firing a short barrel light machine gun. Views of Japanese pedestrians including families, most in western dress. Japanese workers in an office. Film shows artists view of one worker's brain, and then many brains, as Narrator refers to need for reorienting Japanese thinking. View of learned wise Japanese leader at a podium. View of a Japanese soldier posed with his sword above the head of a war prisoner. Japanese mother feeding her baby. Closeups of Japanese babies. Closeups of Japanese school age children, in a group, and some doing things in school, and some at a playground. Group of uniformed Japanese students studying the art of Japanese calligraphy. Students doing artwork, studying nature outdoors, and paying attention to a teacher using a black board to explain how to calculate volumes of different shaped vessels. Students in classes of Geography and of geology. Japanese chemists, architects, and lawyers at work. Telephone switchboard operators at work. Electrified train moving on a track.
Hard times in the Great Depression led to formation of The Bonus Army. American veterans of World War 1 march on streets of Washington DC, carrying a large poster demanding immediate cash redemption their "bonus" service certificates awarded by Congress in 1924 (but not lawfully payable until 1945). Army Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, ordered by President Hoover, to clear the Bonus Army encampments, is seen standing in a street surrounded by several U.S. Army troops. People watch from sidewalks as a contingent of U.S. Army cavalry rides down the street. U.S. Army M-1917 tanks roll down Pennsylvania Avenue in July 1932. Bonus marchers and others watch from Lafayette Park in background. Scene shifts to the 1932 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago Stadium, Chicago, where delegates cheer after nominating Franklin D. Roosevelt as their Presidential candidate. Roosevelt seen waving from the podium. Migrant farm workers seen at temporary, dilapidated dwellings in close quarters, and sitting at a campfire, some with sad and desperate faces. Migrant farm workers' cars on the road, piled high with family belongings during westward migration. Migrants riding atop an open railroad freight car. Two men share a copy of the "Epic News" newspaper (published by supporters of Upton Sinclair and the End Poverty Movement in Los Angeles and central California). Narrator describes programs of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Construction workers ignite demolition charges during construction of Boulder Dam (aka Hoover Dam and officially so-named in 1947). Glimpse of President Roosevelt at the site in an open car, for its dedication on September 30, 1935. Construction workers engaged in building the dam. Another shot of President Roosevelt in his open car. Towers being erected to carry electric power from the dam's hydroelectric generators. President Franklin D. Roosevelt smiling broadly at the formal dedication ceremony, September 30, 1935. Controlled discharges of water through the dam. Views of the Boulder Dam hydroelectric generating station. Oil well rigs or oil derricks at work during construction at night. People at work in fabric mills or textile mills, and in a print shop
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