Scenes of American life, with narrator describing values of American people. American people gather outside a church. Signs outside many different places of worship in the United States. Americans voting in an election; patronizing a food market and a drug store; bathtub gin being made during prohibition; countless of bottles of liquor; Congress repealing prohibition; stock market ticker tape machine falling to floor; Derrick moving bucket of concrete for construction; outlines of future highways; modern apartment buildings; people emerging from subway station; pedestrians filling city streets; Americans worshiping inside various churches; An American town; Cars on a crowded road; a crowded beach. Sequence closes with, newer, brief images of fallen soldiers in Pacific theater of World War II.
June 10, 1940, American man, in San Francisco barbershop, reads newspaper report that Italy enters World War 2 as part of Axis and against France and Britain. Barber cuts the mans hair. They both look over at a portable radio on a counter and listen as President Roosevelt denounces Italy's action. American family with a husband, wife, and boy sit in a living room and listen to the radio while William L. Shirer broadcasts from Compiègne as France signs an armistice with Hitler. Views of railroad carriage in clearing surrounded by German troops in formation. Hitler strides with Hermann Goering, Admiral Erich Raeder, and others. Statue of Marshal Foch. French General Huntzinger, and his delegation escorted by German officers. Hitler and his delegation rise as the French delegation enters the rail car. Germans drape Nazi flag over the Glade of the Armistice monument (French: Clairière de l'Armistice). View of the Eiffel Tower. German troops marching through the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysee in Paris. Hitler's railroad train entering Paris station. Hitler taking an early morning tour of Paris in an open car. Hitler and party admiring the Eiffel Tower during German invasion of France and occupation of France. View from Eiffel Tower of German troops marching along street. German rail guns in new positions on coast of France, pointed toward the English Channel and England. The German rail guns moving on tracks and firing. Animated map showing Allies overseas possessions. German residents in Brazil in largely German communities, with German schools, German school children, Nazi textbooks, and Nazi German newspapers in a town in Brazil. A Hermann Goering glider club operating in Brazil, as a glider is prepared for flight. View of Japanese residents in Brazil on behalf of Imperial Japan. SEDTA German airline planes with bomb racks operating in Ecuador, South America. Germans exercising at exclusive German clubs in Argentina, modeled after Hitler Youth. Narrator indicates these operations represented a "Fifth Column" ready to take over.
Presidential Palace in Havana. U.S. Secretary of State, Cordell Hull speaking at the Havana Conference. Flags of Nations attending. Franklin Roosevelt, on May 16, 1940, telling congress to mobilize for national defense. Airplane and engine factories and manufacturing plants. Navy ships being built. U.S. sailors and marines on parade. U.S. soldiers training with mock weapons. Flour bag "bombs" hitting a U.S. Army tank M2. Army trucks labeled "tanks." U.S. Army tanks M3. Empty "Adelphi" brand beer cans used for training. National Guard units Nationalized. President Roosevelt reading first draft numbers under the Selective Service Act. New recruits getting draft notices and physical exams. New soldiers in boot camp. German Ju 87 and Dornier 17 bombers taking off. Animated map showing German air attacks against Britain. View of radio broadcaster Edward R. Murrow in studio as he is describing the "Blitz" from London. German He 111 bomber aircraft in flight during blitz bombing of London, England, United Kingdom. British antiaircraft guns firing. London citizens in underground bomb shelter. British Fire brigades directing water hoses on burning buildings. British warships at sea. U.S. Destroyers transferred to Britain. British Prime Minister Churchill assigning military base rights to the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Berle. Brandenburg Gate and German, Italian, and Japanese flags flying in Berlin on September 27, 1940 Hitler greeting Italian Galleazzo Ciano, and Japanese representative Saburo Kurusu. Signing of Berlin Pact. London civilian citizens resting in underground air raid shelters, while the relentless bombing goes on. American Charles Lindbergh talks to an audience and says Britain is losing the war. Next scene shows Wendell Wilkie saying "England will not only survive, England will win!" British people cleaning up after a German blitz bombing run during the Battle of Britain. Fire fighter moving a mannequin from a store among rubble; a large commuter bus on its side and resting against a building in rubble; a British man with a hard hat clearing rubble finds a small British flag and mounts it in a wall. Polls showing increased American support for Britain based on polling between 1936 and 1941.
France declares war. Bus loads of troops leave the city en route to the front. People walking on a bridge. They buy vegetable and other articles from the market. They gather outside a building. Soldiers standing nearby. Soldiers marching. Buildings along the street side. Tanks advance towards the front. Planes in formation. Buildings set on fire. Firemen try to control the fire. Soldiers preparing for the attack. A soldier talks on the radio.
Young Canadians in World War II learn farm work. People gather on a farm in Toronto, Canada. Man holds a hen. Men standing around a pig farm. A boy milking a cow. People talking amongst themselves. Girls pose.
World War II Nazi German Blitzkrieg damage in Britain. Destruction in the city. Britain defends against the Nazi's air raid. Winston Churchill, England's leader and the British King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon inspect bomb damage from German Blitzkrieg attacks. Destroyed buildings, rubble on ground and wrecked equipment in the area. Poster with instructions on a building wall, "In an Air Raid, if you are caught in the street..." Young girls sweeping up rubble with push brooms. The dignitaries cheer people of London who have suffered the most in the air raid. Firemen spraying water from fire hoses to control the fire in buildings.
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