From a Russian feature film "Meeting on the Elbe" depicting East Meets West meeting of the American and Russian soldiers at the River Elbe in Germany on April 25 and April 26, 1945. The film is dubbed in Korean. Reenactment: The interiors of Russian occupation headquarters in a German city perhaps intended to be Torgau. An American officer talks to the Russian officer in the headquarters. Two nuns stand beside them and listen to the conversation. The American officer moves over and picks up the telephone and speaks over the telephone. The nuns and the Russian officer watch the American officer. The Russian officer sits down at the table and writes on a paper. The American officer leaves and the nuns bow to the officer. A woman in a bicycle approaches the American officer. The woman speaks to the officer. Other men and women move about in the headquarters. The American officer talks to a group of men. The officer talks to a couple of men. A Russian guard stands behind. The American officer outside a door to an office room.
Wreckage of U.S. Air Forces P-47D-30, tail number 44-33495, of the 368th Fighter Group, 397th Fighter Squadron in a field, near Munnerstadt, Germany, a month after the end of World War 2, in Europe. Women work around the wreckage, turning hay. Street scene in a nearby small German village. Workers come home from fields. Buildings on either side of the street. Civilians move on an ox cart. Person carries hay in a wooden hand cart. Water running from faucet in the village square. (Reportedly, the pilot of the P-47 was William T. Wright, who was killed in the crash, on April 15, 1945.)
Film opens with a slate reading: "Strip Y 46 3/24/45." This refers to Allied Advance Landing Ground, "Y-46 Aachen, Germany." The ensuing film shows numerous gun camera footage clips from U.S. Army Air Force P-47 aircraft of the 365th Fighter Group operating from Y-46 during 16 March through 13 April, 1945, near the end of World War 2. The clips show strafing attacks by the P-47s on German cities. Several of the final attacks seem to be hitting the same city located on a river.
July 16, 1945, with President Truman and his party enroute to Berlin Germany, prior to the "Big Three" conference at Potsdam. President Harry S. Truman is seated in right rear of open car. Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes sits next to him in the center, and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Personal Chief of Staff to the President, is in the left rear seat. U.S. Army Brigadier. An Army Major General stands beside the car speaking to the occupants. Brigadier General Harry H. Vaughan (wearing sun glasses), long time friend and aide to the President, steps close to the car. Scene shifts to the President and his party, standing in a moving vehicle, as they review troops of the 2nd Armored Division, standing in front of their tanks, M10 Tank Destroyers, and other armored vehicles. The President and Secretary Byrnes remove their hats and hold them over their hearts,while military officers render hand salutes as they pass the colors. Views from vehicle passing the formation.View from ground of Presidential party at attention with flag of the 17th Battalion displayed. A Lieutenant from the 17th Armored Engineer Battalion reads a citation and Brigadier General John Howell Collier, Commander, 2nd Armored Division, unfurls unit citation ribbon, that President Truman then ties to the Guidon of Company E, 17th Armored Engineer Battalion. As President Truman reportedly described the event in his diary: "We reviewed the Second Armored Division and tied a citation on the guidon of Company E, 17th Armored Engineer Battalion. General Collier, who seemed to know his stuff, put us in a reconnaissance car built with side seats and no top, just like a hoodlum wagon minus the top on a fire truck, with seats and no hose, and we drove slowly down a mile and a half of good soldiers and some millions of dollars' worth of equipment -- which had amply paid its way to Berlin." (World War II period).
United States Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber drops bombs on railway tracks in Bremen, Germany during World War II. Bombs making an impact. Low-level strafing and bombing of targets in Europe by low flying U.S. Army Air Force aircraft during World War 2. Bridge is struck by bomb. Explosions on other targets. Separate unrelated shot of United States conducting an early Atomic bomb test (Trinity test is shown on July 16, 1945. The first detonation of a nuclear device). Nuclear explosion and mushroom cloud is seen.
Narrator states that on March 2, 1945, during World War 2, 700 Lancaster and Halifax bombers of the British Royal Air Force fly over Cologne, Germany, to bomb roads and bridges leading across the Rhine River. Closeup aerial view of a British Halifax bomber with H7 painted on its fuselage, identifying it as belonging to No.346 Squadron RAF. (This is a Free French bomber squadron incorporated into the Royal Air Force and operating out of RAF Station Elvington.) View from one of the aircraft looking down on the city below as bombs fall from the plane. Narrator refers to U.S. 1st Army attacking Cologne and this bombing to strike German forces fleeing the city. Heavy smoke seen rising from bomb explosions below. A huge black cloud is seen in the air as a German scarecrow bomb hits a Lancaster bomber and destroys it (Narrator calls it a scarecrow bomb. Later analysis concluded that "scarecrow" bombs may have been attacks by Luftwaffe aircraft equipped with upward facing cannons, or so called "Schräge Musik" attacks.) Smoke rising from the city. Narrator emphasizes that the Cologne Cathedral is not touched.
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