U.S. Army Air Forces C-47 aircraft painted in D-Day stripes, seen taking off at nightfall on June 5, 1944, carrying Airborne troopers from a base in England, during World War 2. Large formations of U.S. B-17 bombers en route to targets in Europe. Clusters of indendiary bombs falling from a U.S. bomber. View from a bomber of explosions on the ground from bombing at a coastline. Allied paratroopers fill the sky with their parachutes as they jump from formations of C-47 transport aircraft. Thirty minutes before the amphibious assaults at Normandy, Allied warships bombard the shore with heavy naval guns. Troops leave their transport ships and board small landing craft (Higgins boats). Soldiers try to stabilize the rope nets for others climbing down, as their small craft pitch in choppy seas. The boats speed away from their transport ships, and head toward the shore. Smoke rising from the shore where naval shelling has caused explosions and fire. Troops from landing craft of the USS, Samuel Chase (APA-26), wade ashore under enemy machine gun fire, at "Fox Green" section of Omaha Beach. They are far away from the beach itself, because of steel and concrete obstacles placed by the Germans, and relatively low tide.
Cartoon representation of German rail yards and war factories, opens the film. Cities of : Anklam; Bremen; and Frankfurt are highlighted as critical factory and railroad junctions. Animated map shows Allied air strikes against French marshaling yards in Spring of 1944 in preparation for the invasion at Normandy. In February, 1945 Allied officers use large wall map to discuss and plan the destruction of all railroad operations in the Ruhr and surrounding areas. View of U.S. bombers in formation (with fighter cover overhead) on bombing missions in Operation Clarion, against all small and medium rail junctions in Germany. View from Allied bomber of Bombs falling and exploding at a rail junction. More aerial views of bombs exploding in numerous places during this operation. An American B-17 Flying Fortress bomber dropping bombs on a railroad marshaling yard. Aerial view of bombs exploding on targets in Essen. Views of wide destruction wrought at German railroad facilities. A US Army Air Forces P-51 fighter plane descending to strafe a target. Gun camera views of aircraft strafing lines of communication in Germany, including road and barge traffic. Closeup of runs firing from P-51 aircraft. Railroad trains being strafed and dramatic explosions at target rail sites.
Opening scene shows crowds of Parisians surrounding tanks of Free French General Philippe Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division and elements of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division enter Paris, on August 25, 1944, during World War 2. General Charles de Gaulle is seen with French officials in the crowd during liberation of Paris. A Free French soldier speaks to a tank driver and points to the source of some lingering German resistance gunfire. The crowds drop to the ground as gunfire erupts. A French tank fires its gun at a building harboring the German resistance elements. Some persons take shelter behind jeeps. People scramble for shelter in the courtyard of the Notre Dame cathedral. Smoke rising from targeted buildings. People lying down en masse on the ground as gunfire continues.
View of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Mauthausen, Austria. Cremation ovens used to execute the prisoners. A German guard held at gun point by the American troops. Liberated American speaks, surrounded by a group of prisoners. He is U.S. Navy Lieutenant Jack H. Taylor of Hollywood, California. Filmed by Lt. Col. George C. Stevens, he says that in October 1944 he was the first allied officer to drop into Austria. He says he was captured December 1, 1944 by the Gestapo, and severely beaten. He details his imprisonment time in Austria and then at Mauthausen. He shows insignia and dog tags of two American soldiers who were executed in a gas chamber of the camp by the Germans. He details the multiple methods used by the Germans to kill prisoners, including shooting, gas chamber, beating, exposure in the snow for 48 hours with cold water thrown on them, starvation, dogs, and pushing off a hundred foot cliff. He thanks the American 11th Armored Division for rescuing them. (World War II period).
Scenes filmed by Navy and Marine combat photographers, of the Battle for Iwo Jima, in February and March, 1944, during World War 2. View from a boat offshore, of Mount Suribachi, on the Island of Iwo Jima. Warships of the U.S. 5th Fleet attack with naval gunfire, as landing craft manuever near shore. U.S. Marines aboard Landing Vehicles Tracked (LVTs) head for the beach, with the heavy cruiser, USS Baltimore (CA-68) in the background. U.S. Carrier-based Grumman TBF Avenger aircraft drops bombs on Mount Suribachi. Landing craft arriving at a fairly level area of beach. U.S. marines moving cautiously on the beachhead. The USS Baltimore and a Fletcher class destroyer offshore in background. Marines hunkered down with smoke rising near them, and then moving forward again, through the black sands. Closeup of a marine with flame thrower. Several U.S. Chance Vought F4U Corsair aircraft fly overhead, dropping bombs on the mountain. Marines continue to move forward, under constant fire from Japanese small arms. A heavy landing craft Infantry, LCI(H) moves toward shore in background. A DUKW ("Duck") coming ashore. Marines using a crane to offload a 105mm howitzer from a landing craft. As they raise the gun, the landing craft moves away and marines Hook the howitzer to a DUKW to help move it. Next, marines are seen setting up two 105s on the beachhead and firing them. Marines with more artillery pieces stacked on the beachhead. A gunboat, LCI (G), firing from close to the shore behind them. Marines digging in sand that the narrator calls the floor of an active volcano. Smoking sulphur gases are seen rising behind them. The USS Baltimore firing her guns from close to shore. Machine gun tracer rounds crossing the beachhead, as Naval gunfire resumes from offshore. Marines crawling and then occasionally sprinting forward across the sand dunes. (One carries a stretcher.) Four marines carrying one wounded back to the beachhead, on a stretcher. Two marines carry another between them. Marines scrambling over brush and rough ground. View from hillside of marines climbing up from below, as shell bursts only a few yards away. Scene shifts to later in the battle for Iwo Jima. A catapillar tractor is parked near bodies of Japanese soldiers strewn across the landscape. (Narrator notes that more than 14 thousand such dead had been counted by March 6, 1944.) Finally, the iconic moving images of U.S. marines raising the American flag over Mount Suribachi.
'Problems of Peace in Europe' produced in 1948, depicts reconstruction problems in aftermath of World War II and includes footage from during the war and soon after the war. Scene of desperate and hungry civilian people (possibly in Germany but could be elsewhere in Europe) scrambling over each other and trying to find food on the ground among garbage or wreckage, circa 1945 or 1946. European peoples massing to reestablish political order and seek relief in post-war Europe. Montage of images of people from all walks of life. Reminders of war showing aircrews in bombers and bombs falling. Batteries of rockets being fired. A formation of U.S. B-17s and a B-26 aircraft with D-day stripes, in flight. Allied bombing of cities with devastating effect (likely 1944-1945). Aerial view of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. Aerial view of a major U.S. industrial complex, with many smoke stacks and industrial pollution. Mass of workers leaving at end of shift at a U.S. manufacturing plant or factory. Views of two different streamlined locomotives pulling passenger trains at high speed, approaching camera position. Freight trains speeding on railroads. Farmers harvesting and baling hay by machine and cultivating fields with tractor. Multiple wide views of the K-25 building of the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, in Oak Ridge Tennessee, the world's largest building in 1944 when it was built, and an instrumental part of the Manhattan Project effort to develop the atomic bomb in World War 2. Huge sprawling industrial sites in America. Map of Europe. Street scene in Germany with destroyed buildings and rubble cleaned from street, but still piled up in places. Desperate, hungry, and poverty stricken German citizens rummaging through garbage piles for anything to eat or anything of value. Two very young German boys standing together on a street, with one boy smoking a cigarette. Children scrambling over trash and rubbish heaps.
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