Film opens showing armorers riding atop bombs being towed by an M6 Bomb Service Truck, at Denain-Prouvy Airdrome, France (A-83) in March, 1945. The truck drives slowly along the field, past parked Martin B-26 Marauder medium bombers of the 323rd Bombardment Group. One of the airmen plays a harmonica as he rides along. After a while the truck turns to a parked B-26, tail number 41-34942, where the armorers climb down and begin loading bombs on the aircraft.
Slate identifies location as A-83 (Denain-Prouvy Airdrome, France) and date as 29 April (1945). Ground crew armorers are connecting wires to bombs and loading them into the bomb bay of a a U.S. Army Air Forces Martin B-26 Marauder aircraft of the 323rd Bombardment Group. View from under the aircraft as a crewman gives signal to close bomb bay doors and they slowly close and lock. Ground crewman removes a metal chock from the aircraft wheel. Flight crew members climb aboard the aircraft. A crew member writes in chalk on a bomb sitting on the ground. The message is: "Happy Boithday Hoimann from Duffy's Tavern," (conveying the New York accent associated with characters in "Duffys Tavern" radio show). World War 2; WWII; WW2.
A number of Martin B-26 Marauder aircraft of 323rd Bombardment Group (9th Air Force) are lined up for takeoff. As they taxi past camera, tail number of one: 43-34344, is visible. All aircraft display the distinctive White Tail identifying the 323rd BG. (The Group is known to some as Wood's Rocket Raiders, so-named for their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Wilson r. Wood.) The location is Denain Airfield (A-83), near the City of Valenciennes, France. The time is April, 7,1945, a month before VE Day. Several airmen are pitching horseshoes, while others watch. They use a shoe to measure how close one came to the pin. Two airment use a two-man saw to saw a timber while a third sits on it to hold it still.
Images and testimony related to the Nuremberg Trials held at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany in October 1946. Flashbacks of a variety of Nazi crimes against humanity during the years of World War II. Reference to testimony of Kenaris and Hans Frank in describing Nazi policies and methods for exterminating Poles and others. Pictures recording the implementation and results of Nazi policies; atrocities and murder of victims in Ouradour Sur Glane in France, in Bande in Belgium, in the Catacombe of San Callisto in Italy and in Czechoslovakia. Nazi German soldiers seen leveling and destroying the town of Lidice in Czechoslovakia in 1942 in retaliation for the assassination of SS Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich. Corpses of the victims of the Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, in 1945. Bones of humans in crematory ovens. Cramped starved camp victims in barracks. Stacks of luggage and suitcases of victims at a concentration camp, along with locks of hair, stacks of toothbrushes. Shaving cream brushes, shoes, clothing, and finally, piles of bones of camp victims. Testimony of Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss (sometimes spelled Höß or Hoess or Hess) describes concentration camps at Auschwitz in Poland. As scenes of victims in hospitals are shown, testimony of Rudolf Hoess is read, describing medical experiments include lowering the body temperature, injecting the body with poisons and infectious diseases and subjecting the body to high altitude pressure chambers. Shows pile of mutilated corpses.The "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign over the camp entrance of Auschwitz. Scenes of dead victims of Nazi brutality in the concentration camps.
United States Army soldiers guarding a group of German SS prisoners of war who are being held near a village. Cameraman slate indicates location of "Wittring" (presumably Wittring France, just outside the German border, in the Moselle region), but U.S. government record accompanying the film indicates "Wittring, (?) Germany" (sic). A wheel cart is seen on the street. The German prisoners of war have SS markings on their right lapel and also the SS skull insignia on the cap, identifying them most likely as part of the SS-Totenkopfverbände or SS-TV; also called Death's Head units. (Theories on these captured soldiers include: 1) SS-TV units were primarily in charge of administering the Nazi Concentration Camps in World War II. Hinzert Concentration Camp was possibly the closest camp to Wittring. Perhaps these soldiers came from it or another camp; 2) They may have been part of the 3rd SS Panzer Division. Reportedly, whole platoons and elements of the 3rd SS Panzer division were not following orders and were giving up prior to the Budapest and Vienna battles to avoid Soviet captivity, as early as Jan 1945). Prisoners rub their hands to warm them in the cold. Camera shows a close-up view of one of the prisoners, as an American soldier attaches a Prisoner of War identification tag over around the neck of the prisoner.
Gun camera footage from USAAF P-47 of the 378th Fighter Squadron, 362nd Fighter Group, operating from Verdun Airfield, France, during World War 2. The aircraft flown by pilot named Bullock, on March 31, 1945, strafes lines of communication, striking vehicles on roads and trains moving on rail lines. In second sequence, the same pilot, now identified on slate, with the 377th Fighter Squadron, on April 4th, attacks a lone German Me-109 seen flying in thin cloud below him.
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