Harry S Truman appointed President of the United States. The U.S. Capitol building in view. Trees in the foreground. President talks on the phone. Harry Truman attends the 1944 Democratic convention with his daughter, Margaret Truman. People gather holding boards and placards of Truman in hand. A board reads: 'Truman for Vice President'. Franklin Roosevelt seated in a car during his fourth inauguration parade, on January 20, 1945, with motorcade proceeding on Constitution Avenue in Washington DC, and then driving up to the White House. Past events show President Franklin Roosevelt talking to Vice president Truman. Flag at half staff on the U.S. Capitol following death of President Roosevelt. Truman addressing a joint session of the Congress. General Marshall, Admiral King, Secretary of War Stimson all arriving at the White House to meet with President Truman. Also seen are James Byrnes and Truman receiving Lord Halifax, Anthony Eden, Secretary of State Stettinius in the White House. Truman speaks to joint session of congress on April 16, 1945 and expresses desire to continue the efforts and direction set by Franklin Roosevelt, saying, "With great humility I call upon all Americans to help me keep our nation united in defense of those ideals which have been so eloquently proclaimed by Franklin Roosevelt...." He also states, "So that there can be no possible misunderstanding, both Germany and Japan can be certain, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that America will continue to fight for Freedom until no vestige of resistance remains. Our demand has been, and it remains, unconditional surrender. We will face the problems of peace with the same courage that we have faced and mastered the problems of war. In the memory of those who have made the supreme sacrifice; in the memory of our fallen president, we shall not fail."
Views of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, June, 1940. The hall is filled with delegates holding signs and placards, many for Senator Robert Taft. Several denounce the New Deal. The Republican presidential nominee, Wendell Wilkie, is seen. (The narrator mentions his untimely death in 1944, at age 52.) Scene shifts to cheering crowds in Times Square, New York and to Hyde Park, New York, where the Roosevelt family and associates stand as well-wishers cheer FDR's unprecedented election to a third term as President of the United States. Seen are Colonel House; President Franklin D. Roosevelt; son, John Roosevelt and his wife, Anne Clark Roosevelt; Ethel Du Pont Roosevelt and her husband, Franklin Roosevelt, Jr.; Sara Roosevelt, the President's mother; and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt.
USAAF P-47 Thunderbolt fighter planes operating at Florennes/Juzaine Airfield (A-78), Belgium, during World War 2. Identifiable units include the 411th Fighter Squadron (U9); the 373rd Fighter Group; the 387th Fighter Squadron (B4) and 388th Fighter Squadron (C4) of the 365th Fighter Group. A number of P-47s, (mostly bubble canopy D models) seen taxiing. (The second one's tail number looks like 42-26571, but that aircraft was downed in October 1944. So it is probably 26579.) Crew chiefs ride the wings of most P-47s to guide the pilots during low speed taxi when they would otherwise have to zig-zag to see ahead. Destroyed building silhouetted against the sky.Two flights of four P-38s circle overhead and peel off for landing.View through breached wall of a jeep towing a bomb cart past a parked P-47. Airmen walking across the field. Clear view of 388th Fighter Squadron P-47 taxiing. Another P-47 taxiing past a small damaged building
Internees at a concentration camp in Buchenwald, Germany. Jean Blume, leader of socialist national movement against occupation in Belgium, shares his experiences of the days spent as a prisoner at Breendonk concentration camp in Belgium. He expresses joy at being liberated by American Army from Buchenwald concentration camp. (Note: Jean Blume was a Resistance Leader during the Nazi occupation in World War 2. The Gestapo arrested him on January 19, 1943 and he was imprisoned in Breendonk. In May 1944, he and many others, were sent to Buchenwald. They were released on April 11, 1945.)
Liberation of Paris August 22, 1944. Tricolor flying from Arc de Triomphe. Crowds celebrate. Young people dance in street. Tanks firing guns. Bombs dropping on Germany. American tanks firing in Cologne, Germany. Spires of Cologne Cathedral loom above destruction and rubble in streets of Cologne. German civilian refugees on the streets. Germans in front of air raid shelters. Animated map showing Soviet advance from East.Formation of Ilyushin Il-2 aircraft. Soviet tanks in farm field. Silhouetted German soldiers surrendering. Wounded and dead German soldiers. Destroyed German military equipment. A long line of surrendered German soldiers. Allied forces driving into Germany beyond the Rhine River. Suffering German civilians and refugees including men, women, and children in desperate circumstances after the devastation of war. German refugees walking on roads, including babies in carriages or prams.
Major Robert Morgan (well-known as the pilot of the B-17, "Memphis Belle," first to complete 25 missions over Germany, in the European Theater and now a B-29 Aircraft Commander with the 73rd Bomb Wing) briefs his crew. They sit on the tarmac near their aircraft, the B-29, "Dauntless Dotty," which was lead aircraft on the first B-29 bombing mission over Japan, on November 24, 1944. The Crew enters the aircraft after the briefing. (World War II period).
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