Background information for United States occupation forces in Japan after end of World War II. At start, the film shows sky filled with U.S. Navy airplanes flying in formations. They include Vought F4U Corsair aircraft, among others, and are seen overhead above the Battleship USS Missouri (BBB-63). Closeup of the USS Missouri with her crew in formation on deck wearing dress whites. Next, General Douglas MacArthur is seen and heard speaking from a podium on the Missouri's deck. He invites the representatives of the Emperor of Japan, and the Japanese Government, and the Japanese Imperial headquarters, to sign the instrument of surrender. The date is September 2, 1945, just after the end of World War 2. Closeups of the Japanese delegation, which includes envoys Foreign Minister Mamora Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu, and of MacArthur. Japanese Foreign Minister Mamora Shigemitsu sits at a table. Closeups of him signing the surrender document. Change of scene to Japan, where camera pans over many thousands of Japanese people assembled to learn of their fate. Closeups of Japanese soldiers and family members, as Narrator asks how should the U.S. occupying force treat them. View of soldiers in plain non-military uniforms. Views of Japanese responding en masse to a leader, during World War 2. Views of child victims of the war. Closeup of Japanese soldier firing a short barrel light machine gun. Views of Japanese pedestrians including families, most in western dress. Japanese workers in an office. Film shows artists view of one worker's brain, and then many brains, as Narrator refers to need for reorienting Japanese thinking. View of learned wise Japanese leader at a podium. View of a Japanese soldier posed with his sword above the head of a war prisoner. Japanese mother feeding her baby. Closeups of Japanese babies. Closeups of Japanese school age children, in a group, and some doing things in school, and some at a playground. Group of uniformed Japanese students studying the art of Japanese calligraphy. Students doing artwork, studying nature outdoors, and paying attention to a teacher using a black board to explain how to calculate volumes of different shaped vessels. Students in classes of Geography and of geology. Japanese chemists, architects, and lawyers at work. Telephone switchboard operators at work. Electrified train moving on a track.
Hard times in the Great Depression led to formation of The Bonus Army. American veterans of World War 1 march on streets of Washington DC, carrying a large poster demanding immediate cash redemption their "bonus" service certificates awarded by Congress in 1924 (but not lawfully payable until 1945). Army Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, ordered by President Hoover, to clear the Bonus Army encampments, is seen standing in a street surrounded by several U.S. Army troops. People watch from sidewalks as a contingent of U.S. Army cavalry rides down the street. U.S. Army M-1917 tanks roll down Pennsylvania Avenue in July 1932. Bonus marchers and others watch from Lafayette Park in background. Scene shifts to the 1932 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago Stadium, Chicago, where delegates cheer after nominating Franklin D. Roosevelt as their Presidential candidate. Roosevelt seen waving from the podium. Migrant farm workers seen at temporary, dilapidated dwellings in close quarters, and sitting at a campfire, some with sad and desperate faces. Migrant farm workers' cars on the road, piled high with family belongings during westward migration. Migrants riding atop an open railroad freight car. Two men share a copy of the "Epic News" newspaper (published by supporters of Upton Sinclair and the End Poverty Movement in Los Angeles and central California). Narrator describes programs of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Construction workers ignite demolition charges during construction of Boulder Dam (aka Hoover Dam and officially so-named in 1947). Glimpse of President Roosevelt at the site in an open car, for its dedication on September 30, 1935. Construction workers engaged in building the dam. Another shot of President Roosevelt in his open car. Towers being erected to carry electric power from the dam's hydroelectric generators. President Franklin D. Roosevelt smiling broadly at the formal dedication ceremony, September 30, 1935. Controlled discharges of water through the dam. Views of the Boulder Dam hydroelectric generating station. Oil well rigs or oil derricks at work during construction at night. People at work in fabric mills or textile mills, and in a print shop
Opening scene shows dimly lit hallway of Federal District Court building in San Francisco. Camera focuses on a courtroom door inscribed as " U.S. District Court, 258, Louis E. Goodman." Officials are seen escorting International Longshoreman's Union (ILWU) President, Harry Bridgers, along a hallway, accompanied by many photographers. Bridger's lawyer, Carol Weiss King and her co-counsel, wearing dark rimmed glasses, are seen standing in the hallway. Closeup of them. He holds up a copy of legal papers. View from further down the hall as Bridgers stops briefly to converse with them. Another closeup of Bridger's lawyers. (Note: Harry Bridgers was prosecuted for his labor organizing and supposed subversive status by the Justice Department in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, with the goal of deportation. This was never achieved. Bridges became a naturalized citizen in 1945. A final effort by the Justice Dept. to deport Bridges ended in 1955 when Judge Louis E. Goodman dismissed the department's civil action to denaturalize him)
Overseas activities of United States Coast Guard in World War II. U.S. Landing Craft Infantry, LCI(L) 617, part of LCI Flotilla 22 in World War 2. She is seen underway in rough waters of the Pacific ocean during 1945. Coast Guardsman ordered to Battle stations. A Coast Guardsman observes approaching enemy aircraft through binoculars. Coast guard gunner fires Antiaircraft guns using foot trigger. Enemy aircraft crashes in ocean. A Coast Guardsman signals using semaphore flags. Beachhead supply operations. Coast Guard Picket Boat, CG-42022, seen patrolling around U.S. transport ships in a Persian port, while they carry lend lease supplies to the Soviet Union. Coast Guard combat patrol in jungle using canines (dogs). The Cactus (A) Class 180 foot buoy tender, USCGC Tupelo placing a buoy at sea. Releasing a weather balloon. A Coast Guard wooden 83 foot cutter ("83 footer"). Loading a Coast Guard B-24 aircraft on Guam. The plane takes off. Invasion task force of U.S. warships underway. Coast Guard crews at various duty stations aboard their ships during the war. The former luxury ocean liner, SS Manhattan underway, her decks crowded with troops, following her conversion into the U.S.Coast Guard-manned USS Wakefield (AP-21). U.S. Navy attack transport USS Arthur Middleton (APA-25) at sea in the Pacific. Coast Guard operating transport ships unloading cargo for Allied invasion forces and running inter-island shipping service in the Pacific, during World War II.Landing Ship Tank (LST-788) arriving at the beach next to Landing Ship Medium, LSM-242, on Iwo Jima. A Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT) being driven off LST-760. USS LCI(L)-87, Flagship of LCI Flotilla 10. Her Captain, M. E. Imlay, USCG, is seen on her bridge, before departing from England for the Normandy invasion. U.S. Landing Craft Infantry, LCI(L)-668 at beach and troops wading ashore.
Physical damage caused due to atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. Bridge across a river as vehicle moves over the bridge. Island between Motoyasu and Tenma rivers. Rubble spread all over the area with wooden huts. Buildings partially damaged by the atom bomb explosion. (World War II period).
Farmers harvesting grain and corn with machinery on American farms with a narrow tractor harvester. Steel mills and heavy industry and cargo railroads in the United States. Industrial views with smokestacks releasing much smoke and smog (also pollution scenes). Scenes of New York City with busy streets filled with cars, buses, and truck traffic, together with pedestrians. Many varied 1940s and 1950s cars on the roads. Elevated and also aerial views of U.S. highway networks busy with 1940s and 1950s cars. Views of Jones Beach, on Long Island, New York. Scenes of destruction in Japan from the atomic bomb, with sweeping views of destroyed city in Hiroshima or Nagasaki circa 1945 or 1946. U.S. Army infantrymen engaged in house-to-house fighting in Europe during World War II, firing rifles and moving between points of cover in a city filled with rubble.
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