Film showing city of Hiroshima, Japan, before and after the August 6, 1945 dropping of the atomic bomb over the city in World War 2. Sequence opens on what the narrator says is August 5, 1945, the day before the event (but the footage is likely from before that date). Camera pans over the city of Hiroshima before the atomic bomb destroyed the city. Japanese air raid lookouts are seen on watch for allied bombers. View of atomic bomb detonation as seen from aircraft high overhead (this is actually a view of the Nagasaki blast, not the Hiroshima blast despite narrator's comments). Next, the complete destruction of the city of Hiroshima is seen from camera at low altitude showing the four and one half square miles of the city flattened and burned. A Japanese hospital still functioning, with red cross flag on it. Hospital workers retrieving wounded victims of the bombing. Ambulatory victims clustered in doorways and halls. Shadow image of a large industrial valve wheel burned onto wall behind it. Similar image of a ladder burned onto a wall. The decorative pattern on a woman's dress burned onto skin of her back. Japanese physicians treating victims of thermal and radiation burns. Views of various victims, including some children, and their respective injuries. Scene shifts forward one year, to August 6, 1946. Children are lined up outside a school building, and then seen inside their classroom. Disfiguration and wounds on children resulting from injuries are still evident on the children at their desks. Sequence shifts again, this time to an early United Nations meeting with delegates grappling with the issue of controlling nuclear power and atomic weapons. Closeup view of American delegates, including James F. Byrnes (Secretary of State)and James B. Conant, President of Harvard University in the assembly. Closeups of representatives from South Asian nations. Closeup of USSR delegation, headed by Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov. Signs identifying delegates from Colombia, Egypt, Iraq, Bolivia, China. Final sequence shows several U.S. atomic scientists in their respective laboratories, including Enrico Fermi and Vannevar Bush. United States representative to the UN, Warren Austin, speaking about the so-called Baruch Plan, for international control of atomic weapons. (Principal author, Bernard Baruch, is standing behind speaker's left shoulder.) USSR delegation, headed by permanent representative, Andrei Gromyko, who is seen presenting the Soviet plan. View of explosion and mushroom cloud during U.S. Operation Crossroads atomic bomb test in the Pacific.
Episode of "The Big Picture", a U.S. Army series of news release programs. U.S. Army cameraman recording Nike missile launch. Atomic cannon fires shell creating atomic explosion and classic mushroom cloud.. Army troops spill out of Sikorsky YH-19 helicopters. U.S. Army infantry soldiers ascend hill firing their rifles. Atomic experiments at Camp Desert Rock in Nevada, United States. U.S. Army Master Sergeant Stuart Queen seated at a desk in his office. He speaks about a series of atomic experiments ("Desert Rock 6") held in barren lands of Nevada at Camp Desert Rock. Celebrating victory in Europe, during World War 2, American troops parade down the Champs Elysees in Paris, France, with the Arc de Triomphe behind them. Happy Parisians watch the parade. War scenes in Japan: footage of explosion and mushroom cloud rising after atomic bomb blast over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Barren land on the ground in Hiroshima after the August 6, 1945 atomic blast there . B-29 bombers in flight. Atomic bomb test detonation. Atomic artillery gun M65, also called the Atomic Cannon or Atomic Annie, fires and creates nuclear explosion on distant target.Viking missile launch. U.S. soldiers on parade. Headquarters sign at U.S. Army atomic experiment station at Camp Desert Rock, Nevada, displaying 6-pointed star with "A" in center.. Several atomic test explosions. Soldiers on hillside witness a non-nuclear explosion. Buses carry troops along a road past a sign warning of radiation hazard. Army captain, instructor, briefing troops before the start of atomic maneuvers.. Maps of planned maneuvers. Engineer surveyors lay out ground zero target. View of the ground zero area which is the target area for testing. Signal men lay communication lines to receive and transmit teletype messages. Men operate machinery and dig trenches in which troops will take cover. Other men cover them with sand. [Note: According to the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, from February 18 to May 15, 1955, the United States conducted Operation Teapot, a nuclear test series at Yucca Flat and Frenchman Flat on the Nevada Test Site in the continental United States. During the test period 14 nuclear shots and 1 non-nuclear shot were detonated. Several thousand scientific, military (army, air force, navy, marines), and civilian contract personnel participated in the organization, planning, and execution of the test series. Military exercises undertaken during and following the shots took place under the name Desert Rock 6.]
British soldiers inspect trucks and other vehicles at checkpoint in Palestine. View from gun position and barbed wire as British Army soldier steps out of a military truck for inspection at border checkpoint. Palestinian man driving a 1945 Plymouth Special Deluxe (one of few built in 1945) is stopped behind barbed wire by British Army soldiers. He opens hood of his car in front of British soldiers. British soldiers inspect engine compartment and interior of car. British soldier lets the Palestinian sedan driver go after passing inspection.
German rocket-boosted jet engine mounted on a dolly. Number 928 is painted on the engine. This is the BMW-003 A-1 jet engine with additional liquid-rocket motor type BMW 109-178, for boosting during take-off. ( First flight was on March 26,1945, during World War 2.)
During Nuremberg trial Hans Frank describes the Nazi policies of exterminating Poles and others. Atrocities inflicted on prisoners in Ourador Sur Glane, France in Bande, Belgium in Catacombe, Italy and in Czechoslovakia. Nazi German soldiers engaged in destruction following massacre of many residents in town of Lidice, Czechoslovakia in 1942 (retaliating for the assassination of SS officer Reinhard Heydrich.) Dead bodies in Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, in 1945. Bones visible in crematory ovens. Victims inside crowded barracks including women prisoners who have been liberated. Large piles of items taken from victims before their deaths, including luggage, hair locks, toothbrushes, shaving cream brushes, shoes, clothing. Bones of victims piled at a concentration camp. Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss (sometimes spelled Höß or Hoess or Hess) describes concentration camps at Auschwitz in Poland during testimony. Victims in hospitals are shown, as words of Hess describe medical experiments include lowering the body temperature, injecting the body with poisons and infectious diseases and subjecting victims to high altitude pressure chambers. View of mutilated corpses. Sign that reads, "Arbeit Macht Frei" over the Auschwitz concentration camp gated entrance. Corpses of victims in the concentration camps.
A film titled 'Uncommon Valor' about the raising of the U.S. flag by U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima, Japan during World War II. United States naval fleet underway off the coast of Iwo Jima. U.S. Army Air Forces aircraft in flight. U.S. 4th and 5th Division Marines disembark from a ship and get onto landing crafts as they head towards the Iwo Jima shoreline. Marines land ashore and advance inland. They raise the American flag on Mount Suribachi. A newspaper boy sells newspapers on a street in the United States. A picture of the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi. View of sculptor Felix De Weldon as he carves a sculpture of the flag raising event. Scenes from the unveiling and dedication ceremony of the original limestone statue on November 10, 1951, at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, for the 176th anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps. (The version of the statue seen in this footage had been placed in front of the Navy Department Building at the intersection of Constitution Avenue and 19th Street Northwest, Washington, D.C on 10 November 1945. It features 9 foot figures at 1.5 times life size scale. This sculpture was moved to Quantico Marine Base on 17 November 1947. It had been originally constructed by De Weldon of Indiana limestone, cement, and sand due to a lack of bronze during the war. At the time of its move to Quantico in 1947, the statue had deteriorated due to weather. Also, coats of paint to give the look of bronze had hidden much of the detail and had to be removed. Felix de Weldon supervised the repairs at Quantico before the statue was officially dedicated at the main entrance of Quantico on 10 November 1951, as seen in this ceremony). Officers lined up at the ceremony and many guests in the audience. A parking lot seen in the distance behind the assembled crowd. Cover sheets being removed as the war memorial is unveiled at Quantico.
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