Opening slate at start of film reads: "1942--1943 The Turn of the Tide." A column of British armor enters Bengazi, Libya, led by several troops in tankettes. Next seen are a Lee Medium Tank, M3 followed by an infantry tank, a jeep, another infantry tank and another Lee M3 Medium tank. Closeup of local people greeting the troops with upraised hands giving the "V" for victory sign. Another Lee M3 tank passes close by the camera. Black smoke is rising in the background. Scene changes to a half sunken ship near another burning in the harbor. Another view of this from further away above port buildings. Closeup of three smiling British soldiers leaning over a cartoon on a tank, of Winston Churchill (As a bulldog smoking a cigar and wearing a cap with the word "Victory" written on it). A crumpled captured flag with swastika on it. British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery stands atop a vehicle (unseen) and looks through binoculars. Below, a column of British supply vehicles is making its way along a path in the desert. Two tanks coming toward the camera through sand. Animated map shows Nazi territory being threatened by the Allies from the Mediterranean, the USSR, and the English Channel. Views of Soviet infantry advancing against German forces in the snow of winter on the eastern front. Soviet troops firing updated 76-mm divisional gun model 1902 hidden in woods. Shells exploding in snow-covered field as Soviet BT series tanks advance. Various Soviet artillery firing from fixed gun batteries and from woods. A shell striking in distance. Fallen German soldiers lying on snowy field. Makeshift battlefield crosses marking graves of fallen German soldiers. German steel helmets lined up in the snow. A sign, posted on a birch tree, lists the names and birth dates of 16 German soldiers from the 3rd Panzer Division (3Pz-Pi-BH.39) buried at this site on November 28, 1941. Scene shifts to Joseph Stalin addressing Soviet troops in Red Square, Moscow, Russia. All the soldiers in formation seem to be singing (unheard). Film switches to animated map again. This time delineating the Eastern front being pressed by the USSR, and showing area of the 2nd Soviet winter offensive in 1943. Change of scene from Europe to the War in Asia, against Japan, shows General Douglas MacArthur after arriving by a B-17 bomber at a Pacific island American base. He ascends a steep hill in a jungle area, accompanied by other officers. Closeup of MacArthur. American infantry moving in single file in New Guinea, as a field piece fires a round in the direction they are headed. U.S. artillerymen load shells into a 105mm howitzer gun. A fire burns as mop-up operations begin on New Guinea. An Australian soldier is seen firing a Bren gun in jungles. Other Australian soldiers fire a mortar that explodes, raising earth and dust. More views of shells exploding near Allied soldier advancing. A soldier with fixed bayonet makes a fake charge toward the camera. Views of Japanese prisoners of war guarded in an outdoor compound. Japanese dead soldiers on Guadalcanal. An animated map shows new battle lines in the Pacific, closing in on Japan, with pressure from China, the USSR, and the Pacific islands being captured by the U.S. Arrows are added showing new pressure from American naval fleets and from British and American bombers out of Australia and captured islands.
Scenes showing various historical events that took place in April 1935, during the Great Depression. In Stresa, Italy, on the banks of Lake Maggiore, leaders of Britain, France and Italy confer on German rearmament, in violation and defiance of the Versailles Treaty. (There they sign the "Stresa Front"). Images show the French and British delegations arriving by boat and walking near the port at Stresa, including British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, French Prime Minister Pierre Etienne Flandin, and French Foreign Minister (President of the Council of Ministers) Pierre Laval. U.S. College students across the country join in anti-war, pacifist demonstrations a few years before World War 2. They are seen marching with banners and anti-war signs and cartoons. One banner reads, "It is the task of the 20th century to make this world a brotherhood." Also "War is Hell....Who want to go to hell?" and "War is Stupid". President Franklin Roosevelt returns from a two week cruise. He arrives in Jacksonville Florida. Local officials and crowds in Jacksonville greet him and cheer. Boy Scouts in a line greet the President. Views of Franklin Roosevelt in an open car and on ships and docks. Al Smith and Herbert Hoover share the speaker's stage in New York lending their support in fundraising for the Salvation Army during the Depression. Scenes from the Easter Parade in New York City. Crowds gather, filling double-decker open air buses. Al Smith seen with his wife. Postmaster General James Farley and Irish tenor singer John McCormack are seen on Fifth Avenue in New York. Amelia Earhart completes a 1700-mile flight from Burbank, California to Mexico City. Scenes of her in Mexico City in a car laden down with celebrating Mexican officials. Aviatrix Bernadine King sets a new record for upside down endurance flying. She is seen getting into her plane, and her plane is seen upside down in the air.
Electromagnetic Hazards Group conducts ball lightning tests under Project Tesla, inside a hangar at Wendover Air Force Base in Utah. An interviewer gets information from the scientists. A team member talks about modern aircraft, new material and avionics system susceptible to lightning. He states that the composite materials used in new aircraft are stronger and don't conduct electricity like conventional metals. The team's research work involves protective measures and verification of the same. He discusses the effect of lightning on aircraft electronics, and the use of Wendover as the research facility due to its reproduction of long arcs. The aim is to study the effects of atmospheric electricity on new materials and electronics systems in modern aircraft. Robert Golka talks about a new company to study and create ball lightning, and apply it to nuclear fusion research.
Start of a documentary production titled,"The Inheritance." Introductory slate tells how in December, 1914, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (Union) was founded in a meeting at Webster Hall, New York City. It also describes how far and wide that union had grown in the ensuing 50 years. An ocean liner is seen in the mist in New York Harbor. Fog horn sounds. The statue of Liberty is seen dimly through the fog. A commercial ship and a tug boat pass in front of Ellis Island. Views of building interior, Sign in boiler room reads: "U.S. Immigrant Station. Ellis Island. N.Y.H." Furnace door and thermometer and pressure gauges are seen. Large hall is seen. Camera pans through the empty corridors and rooms of the facility. The frame of an iron baby's crib sits in an empty room. View through window of Ellis Island proper, just outside, and of New York City buildings across the water. Montage of still photo images: Immigrants on the deck of a ship in 1901. Views of small children. A group of immigrants wearing the fez. Immigrants waving their hats as they see the Statue of Liberty. Broader view of the ship packed with immigrants. Interior of Ellis Island building with queue of new arrivals being processed. Immigration officers seated on high stools, checking documents of arrivals. Medical officer examines a boy with a stethoscope (screening for TB). View shifts to passengers arriving. They walk across the pier, carrying their belongings.
Immigrants on board a ship arriving in New York Harbor, circa 1905, see New York City buildings across the water. A couple walking along the avenue in New York City. The man buys a newspaper from a newsboy or newsie (newspaper boy). A trolley car passes in the center of the avenue. A sign on the trolley reads: "Broadway." Several automobiles drive along a street, each close behind the other. One is decorated with American flags. A school building at side of the street displays numerous American flags. Pedestrians walking along 5th Avenue in New York City. Some men are wearing top hats, and others bowlers. Women are wearing bonnets. Several high society gentlemen in formal attire seat seated at a banquet table. They smoke cigars and have after-dinner drinks. Flowers adorn the table and the men wear boutonnieres. They all sport mustaches and wear some sort of garlands of greens (or paper) on their heads. The scene expands to reveal more aristocracy men at the table,similarly attired, including the garlands. Scene of wealth at turn of the century with couples dancing in an elegant ballroom. Change of scene shows waiters serving guests at an outdoor dining venue. Most of the men wear straw boaters (hats) and the women wear summer dresses and bonnets. A gentleman in a top hat with two women at a fashionable outdoor affair. The women wear large-brimmed hats. Ann Harrison Vanderbilt (Mrs. Willian K Vanderbilt) seated in a rolling straw chair, pushed from behind, chats with a gentleman in Florida. Lady in striped jacket and white skirt, with tennis racquet under her arm talks to chauffeur, standing next to a Locomobile limousine, parked at the curb. The Vanderbilt home, "the Biltmore," in Asheville, North Carolina, viewed from the back of the mansion.
Trucks and workers operate after midnight for availing next day facilities to people, in New York and other cities of the United States. Alarm rings in morning and a man starts with his daily activities. Workers maintain water supply at night. Electrician maintains power distribution lines during night. Orange juice for morning breakfast of people in New York loaded on trucks in Florida. Likewise eggs from a distant farm transported in truck. View of Armour's Star ham and bacon truck with "Armour" sign on front being loaded at plant. Coffee, sugar and many such things transported in trucks. Morning street view in New York City with tall buildings and light car traffic on road. Small town in America with shops on a Main Street and 1930s and 1940s cars parked on streets. Produce market in a town with woman discussing vegetables and fruits with grocer A farmer loads potatoes on a truck beside a farm field. Truck driving away from cattle stockyard with Beef cattle in truck. Sign on barn reads "Peterson Bros. Herefords of Quality." Meat hanging from hooks in butcher shop. General Electric home refrigerators being loaded onto a a truck for delivery. Traffic and pedestrians in front of the S. Karpen & Brothers furniture manufacturing company building in Queens at 37-18 Northern Boulevard, Long Island City, New York. "Karpen Furniture" signs seen on building. Dining Room table furniture being loaded onto a truck. A Hahn's Express delivery truck on a road. Boxes of consumer goods being loaded into trucks at a warehouse. Fresh cut timber logs loaded onto trucks for transport. "Prestridge and Seligman Timber Products" sign on truck doors. Line of timber trucks delivers logs at saw mill (possibly routing from logging at the Mescalero Reservation of the Sacramento Mountains to Southwest Lumber Company, or SWLCo, lumber mill, operating near Alamogordo) for processing into lumber products. Ford D-8 trucks move on the roads.
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