Operation Torch in World War 2. Allied invasion convoy off Casablanca, Morocco. American troops on ship's deck, cleaning and checking their rifles. Closeup of a wire from the Invasion Task Force Commanders, listing signals that will tell of the French forces' decisions. Closeup of U.S. troops boarding Higgins Boat from a transport ship. Rear Admiral H. Kent Hewitt on the USS Augusta (CA-31). U.S. President Roosevelt, Free French Commander, Charles de Gaulle, and French General Giraud, all issue calls for French forces not to resist Allied invasion. View of triple turret 8-inch guns on the USS Augusta. Sailors in their bunks. Suddenly guns from the shore begin firing on the invasion convoy. Shells explode in water near convoy ships, as sailors man battle stations and begin returning fire on Casablanca. French defenders signaled friendly attitude by directing searchlights vertically. British spitfire aircraft launch toward Algiers, from Gibraltar. British troops in an amphibious landing at Algiers on November 8, 1942. View of French Admiral Jean Darlan. Allied troops enter Algiers. American airborne troops parachute from C-47 transport aircraft over Oran, Algeria. Next section covers Battle of Casablanca: Allied warships fire at Vichy French ships and aircraft and more troops head to shore in landing craft. Sailors firing anti-aircraft guns from landing craft, at enemy aircraft overhead. A U.S. carrier-based SBD Douglas Dauntless aircraft as it descends in the sky. French sailors load 380mm guns on battleship Jean Bart and fire her guns. Glimpse of French Shore defense guns firing with shells exploding in waters offshore. Gunners aboard U.S. warship loading a heavy gun. Angered over British attack on the French Fleet in 1940, Admiral Daran refused to negotiate with the British. Inserted footage of French battleship Dunkerque exploding during British attack on French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, July3, 1940. A tank driving ashore from a landing craft. Closeup of a French soldier (from the rear) firing his rifle at invading Allied troops. Allied medical corpsmen on the sandy shore, running with a litter. A jeep pulling a towed artillery field piece ashore from the surf. Medical corpsmen carrying a wounded on a stretcher. Allied troops fighting defenders in Casablanca. Animated map shows German invasion of Vichy France. View of Philippe Pétain, Head of Vichy France. View of Admiral Darlan saying goodbye to U.S. Lieutenant General Mark Clark after secret meeting of the two. Officers of German Armistice committees departing a North African city. Cheering crowds are happy to see them depart in a truck. French crowds cheering American troops. British Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson arriving at Algiers. French General Henri Giraud salutes. General Dwight D. Eisenhower salutes. Parading color guard with flags of France, Britain, and the U.S. Animated map shows German forces pouring into Tunisia. View of German troops on deck of a ship and at ship's anti-aircraft positions. General Eisenhower conferring with British and French allies. Camels used on rough terrain. American writes "Tunis Toonerville." in chalk. Allied troops sitting on floor of freight rail car with door open as old steam engine moves the train. Animated map shows German and Allied supply lines. A U.S. Douglas A-20 Havoc bomber landing on an airstrip. Numerous German warplanes parked in Tunisia. U.S. M2 tanks and other military vehicles moving along narrow mountainous roads. Locomotive transporting mules in stock cars. C-47 transport airplanes drop British and American airborne troops. Commandos disembark from ships at Bone, Algeria. Allied aircraft parked on a captured enemy airfield, under attack by German Dornier Do 17 and Heinkel He 111 bombers. A Parked American B-25. Allied soldiers firing small arms and anti-aircraft guns at German planes.
Slave laborers digging during the construction of the Atlantic Wall in World War II. German engineers oversee the construction. Men working around a large gun turret. Nazi German fortifications, bunkers, and artillery posts along coasts facing the Atlantic Ocean in Europe. The 380 mm gun at the Todt Battery near Cape Gris-Nez, Pas de Calais, France. 40.6 cm SK C/34 gun “Battery Lindemann” (German unit MKB 6 / MAA 244) as part of the Dover Strait coastal guns. German emplacements and troops marching along Normandy in France. A German soldier uses binoculars to watch the English Channel. Adolf Hitler and a Nazi German general. Adolf Hitler greets Benito Mussolini as the latter exits a plane in Vichy France. Allied leaders Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and General George C. Marshall at the Tehran Conference in 1943 during World War 2. Armies from various European countries march and prepare themselves for war against Germany. Supreme Commander General Eisenhower and other Allied generals during a meeting. Fleet of ships in sea ready to land in Normandy on D-Day. Navy and coastal command aircraft drop bombs on Nazi German submarines. Anti-aircraft guns fire at Nazi bombers. Docks damaged by German bombing receive aid from Allied countries. Cranes and hooks lower relief supplies, medicines and warfare material at dock. Warships loaded with artillery and warplanes lowered in ships by hoists. A locomotive train is being lowered from a ship. A military band plays music in a dock. Soldiers move towards the ships. British and Royal Canadian and Australian bombers at their base take off for bombing on Nazi bases at night. A soldier directs a bomber taxiing in runway. Aerial views of British bomber aircraft bombing targets in Germany at night, with immense explosions.
General Secretary of the Communist Party Joseph Stalin, President Franklin D Roosevelt of the U.S. and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the UK seated on porch of Soviet Embassy building in Tehran, Iran, 28 November 1943, during World War 2. Scene shifts to group of Yugoslav Partisans and closeup of their leader, Marshal Tito, at their mountain headquarters. Yugoslavian Marshal Tito smoking a pipe while standing on the porch of his headquarters with American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Officer, Army Major Linn M. Farish, U.S. Liaison to the Partisans, and British Brigadier General Fitzroy Maclean, Winston Churchill's special envoy to the Yugoslavia leader. Next scene shows French resistance fighters with their flag on a mountaineer's pick. It reads,""Vaincre ou Mourir"" and displays a cross of Lorraine. Closeups of French resistance fighters at attention and also relaxed, smiling, and singing. Scenes of various such groups joining in the June 6, 1944 Allied invasion at Normandy, France. Aerial glimpse of D-day task force crossing the English Channel. Animated map shows Germany being attacked by Russian forces from the East, by the other allies from Britain in the West and from Italy, in the South. Allied forces moving across a pontoon bridge and engaging German forces in France. A U.S. M3 Gun Motor Carriage firing its 75mm gun. American troops firing machine guns, carrying wounded on stretchers and using flame throwers. Troops, including ambulatory wounded moving under enemy fire. Paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division in France. One carries a wounded buddy. American troops firing a variety of artillery from under camouflage netting. French underground forces engaged in Paris. Closeup of one wearing a French Adrian helmet firing a rifle. Another throws a grenade out an apartment window. An American tank moving under the base of the Eiffel Tower as French Resistance fighters run across the area. French citizens celebrating the liberation of Paris. View from an American jeep as French people cheer. Closeups of French people. A bombed out bridge. A battlefield cemetery. Destruction and death in the wake of combat. Fallen French civilians lying on pavement. A U.S. tank slowly driving through a masonry wall. Soviet forces advancing through destroyed buildings. Chinese troops marching along the Great Wall. British troops on parade in tropics. Asian ally troops marching. Huge formation of marching U.S. soldiers. United Nations flags in the breeze.
Nazi rally in Nuremberg, Germany ca.1934. Massed Storm troopers and spectators salute Hitler. An artillery piece is fired. Hitler personally recognizing loyal Storm troopers. Animated map of Asia, showing Japanese occupation of Manchuria, and Italian occupation of Ethiopia. Newspaper headlines describe Britain and France hesitating to support League of Nations oil sanctions against Italy; and U.S. increasing its oil exports to Italy by 600% (ca. 1935). Hitler and Hermann Goering looking pleased in Hitler's private railroad car. Adolf Hitler at a planning table covered with maps. German citizens traveling abroad and Joachim von Ribbentrop visiting London, as ambassador to Great Britain, in 1936. View of Léon Degrelle and his Catholic-fascist, Rexist party in Belgium (ca. 1936). View of Colonel Francois de la Rocque speaking at a Cross of Fire (Croix-de-Feu) party night rally in France. Konrad Henlein, leader of the Sudeten German Party in Czechoslovakia. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Austrian National Socialist official, seen in an automobile during a parade. Sir Oswald Mosley addressing followers and defending Hitler. Street scenes of public disorder attributed to Nazi sympathizers in France and Belgium. Mass meeting of the German American Bund in Madison Square Garden, New York City,1939. U.S. flags and picture of George Washington decorate stage. Fritz Julius Kuhn addresses the gathering and members rough up a protester. Views of heavy industry in Germany, especially steel manufacturing for remilitarization. Persons working at a German concentration camp. Dramatized execution by machine gun. View of Heinrich Himmler. German President Paul von Hindenburg. German national conscription of 1935 during military mobilization efforts. German youth training pilots with gliders. German paratroopers, Junkers 52 aircraft, German soldiers goosestep, views of German tanks. Ju 87 Stuka plane. German invasion of Rhineland, 1936. Construction of Siegfried Line. Antitank barriers, bunkers, dragons teeth. Hitler visiting Westwall. German military parade.
Summary of World War II events and formation of the United Nations Organization. Soviet troops on Eastern Front of Europe fire artillery on German positions in 1944. Russian troops advance. German soldiers come out of buildings and surrender. Allied Forces land in France on D-Day. Allied troops and tanks fight Germans on streets in towns and villages of France. U.S. Army tanks fire at German positions. Various groups of German prisoners of war march along roads and are herded into prison camps operated by American and British forces. In 1945, the Allied leaders meet at Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula to discuss Allied military strategy in the final months of WWII. Leaders included British PM Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. The meeting of U.S. and Soviet Russian troops at the Elbe River. German Nazi Swastika symbol blown up in explosion atop Zeppelinfeld Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. Aerial view of Berlin in ruins, as seen from low-flying aircraft flying directly over the Unter den Linden boulevard and the Brandenburg Gate. Wrecked and bombed German buildings seen everywhere. German officials signing surrender instrument at Rheims. U.S. President Harry S Truman, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at Potsdam Conference. U.S. Marines battling on beaches of Pacific Islands. Iconic shot of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima. Aerial view of bombed and ruined city of Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese surrender to MacArthur aboard the battleship USS Missouri. General MacArthur speaks aboard Missouri. Victory celebrations all across the world, with some scenes from earlier V-E Day (Victory in Europe) day in May 1945, including crowds celebrating in Paris, France, and some scenes on V-J Day (Victory over Japan day) in August 1945. Crowds on streets celebrate. Happy crowds jam streets. Delegates of Nations, among them Andrei Gromyko and Vyascheslav Molotov meet in San Francisco and create a United Nations organization. Truman arrives at signing of UN charter. Various delegates sign charter. U.S. troops disembark troop carrier ships at U.S. ports and are discharged after completing military service in World War 2. Group of U.S. Army soldiers exits a church (the Chapel at Fort Dix, New Jersey), waving their discharge papers in hand.
U.S. Army Air Forces C-47aircraft , number 42-93098, of the 9th Troop Carrier Command Pathfinder Group, and its crew. This is the first aircraft and crew to drop American paratroopers (pathfinders) over France during the Allied invasion, in World War 2. The aircraft taxis on a British airfield. Crew of the aircraft are seen in front of it, including pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Joel Crouch, Copilot, Captain Vito Pedone, Navigator, Captain William Culp, Radio Operator, Harold Coonrod, along with two crew chiefs. Crew members shake hands and board the aircraft. Colonel Crouch waves from the cockpit of the C-47 (but has not started engines). Major J.L. Sweetman boards another aircraft. Colonel Crouche's C-47 taxis to where the Pathfinders will load up. View of Control Tower at RAF North Witham, with ambulance parked outside it. Three hours before takeoff.Colonel Crouch, is seen on a path near the airfield, with a Pathfinder Captain and Lieutenant, who will be aboard his aircraft and be the first to jump into France. They kid around. The Pathfinder officers note that Colonel Crouch wears paratroop wings. Later, two Pathfinders, of the 101st Airborne Division , with camouflaged faces and American flag insignia on their right shoulders, step from woods and pose momentarily. Pathfinder Paratroopers line up to board C-47 aircraft as Lt. Col. Crouch rides a scooter at the airfield. Aircrews and Pathfinders pose for photographs before taking off. The lead aircraft, number 42-93098, with Lieutenant Colonel Crouch at the controls, takes off from RAF Station North Witham at 9:54 PM, on June 5, 1944. to begin the invasion of France. (Note: This C-47 was shot down on September 18, 1944, during Operation Market Garden, and crash landed on Haamstede Airbase, Netherlands. Although shot at by German troops on the ground, pilot, Maj Joseph A. Beck, and Navigator Lt. Vincent J. Paterno, survived as prisoners of war. Copilot Capt Fred O. Lorimer and another crew member were fatally shot.)