An automobile on a road and sunset in the background. Cactus in the desert. Mobilgas sign. Men in large office building. Fence along a country road. Fence along a beach front. New York city skyline at sunset with traffic light. The Club Butte in Butte, Montana at sunset. Pounding waves on beach at sunset. Palm trees at sunset. Molten metal is poured at a foundry. Oil pumps and oil derricks at sunset. Smoke stacks at sunset. A person exits a mobile home at an RV park at sunset. Apartments with TV antennas seen along with an elevated railroad train at sunset. Highway and traffic scenes at sunset.
Several American school children, including one in a Boy Scouts of America uniform, recite the pledge of allegiance during World War 2. Scene broadens to encompass a school yard filled with elementary school students reciting the pledge in front of an American flag flying high on a pole. As scene fades images appear of battleships firing guns; an F4F airplane taking off from an aircraft carrier; landing craft approaching a beach; American soldiers fighting with small arms and a flame thrower, in jungles of New Guinea; a U.S. gun crew firing heavy artillery; and a U.S. P-38 aircraft on a rainy runway, spraying water as it takes off, in the Aleutian Islands. U.S. troops firing automatic weapons on a Pacific Island. A B-17 pilot wearing an oxygen mask in his cockpit, flying in a formation creating contrails at high altitude over Germany. Waist gunner firing at an attacking German fighter plane that explodes in air. U.S. troops in jeeps moving over jungle road. U.S. ski troops on snow in Iceland heading downhill toward their tents in the snow. American troops during amphibious landing in the Philippines. U.S. troops aboard army halftracks on desert in Iran. American paratroopers dropping from C-47 aircraft over France. U.S. soldiers marching through two large gates with cadre of Chinese soldiers in China. American troops fighting in Italy and firing a 155mm howitzer. U.S. infantry following a sherman tank over a war-torn landscape with shells bursting nearby. Crowded, busy street scenes of traffic and pedestrians in Manhattan, New York City, and Chicago, Illinois. Army tanks being manufactured by war production workers in a Detroit war production plant or factory. A Los Angeles shipyard filled with workers at shift change. Closeups of individual American soldiers in combat helmets. U.S. troops descending rope nets from transport ships to board landing craft, and approaching the beaches of Normandy, France, under fire, on D-day, June 6, 1944. Views of the Statue of Liberty, including closeups.
Film highlights many different ways that American soldiers and civilians contribute to the war effort in World War 2, including on the home front in America. A woman works at the United States Army Signal Corps office during World War II. She answers the phone. A paper containing sensitive information drops from her desk. Soldiers fighting in the Pacific Theater. A Mickey Mouse watch on the wrist of a dead soldier. A woman clerical worker puts a file in a drawer. A soldier runs and throws a grenade at Japanese positions. A screw is tightened on an equipment. A man works on a blueprint. Closeup of hands of a woman typing on a typewriter. Women writing number codes in columns on paper, and stamping documents. A man welds some equipment. A forklift lifts packets and stores. Carts with cables and machines. Cargo trucks in front of a warehouse depot. Logistics loaded on a ship. Smokestacks of a factory. Spools of cable and crates on deck of cargo ship. Cargo ship supplies logistics to different units. Soldiers board a troop transport ship on the way to the war front and they wave from the deck. A landing craft on a beach. Soldiers run on the beach. A closeup view of a German wristwatch with a Nazi swastika symbol on it. Various scenes of United States soldiers firing artillery. Signal Corps women typing, working in factories, signing documents, operates switchboards, and pulls out a file from a drawer.
After extensive slate of historical information, this film shows U.S. Coast Guard personnel launching a large dory (life boat) from the U.S. Coast Guard Gloucester Station in Gloucester, Massachusetts (Old House Cove, westerly side Gloucester Harbor). They slide the boat down rails, launching it directly into the water. Coast Guardsmen in foul weather gear are seen rowing a large lifeboat in rough waters near rocky shores. Eight men row, sitting in four pairs side-by-side on fixed thwarts (benches) and one stands in the stern (a coxwain) steering with a 16’ oar. A powered life boat is seen briefly, in extremely rough waters. Remainder of the film shows an animated map of the East and South coasts of the United States with dots identifying Coast Guard Stations on those coasts. At this point, the film concentrates on Rescue Stations in the Boston Division. A beached two-masted sailing ship is shown. A large steamship emitting black smoke from her funnel, is seen beached and listing on a shore. Aerial view of Light House on Block Island, off Rhode Island. Aerial view of a freighter run aground just off shore. Aerial view of a Coast Guard Station with a highway running past it. Aerial view of another Coast Guard Station located where narrator says is a dangerous point.
A film on workings and general features of DUKWs. Men aboard DUKWs underway at sea in the United States. They learn about navigation. Men discuss the course undertaken by the DUKWs. They don life preserver jackets. They head in for a landing. Traffic rules should be followed while driving a DUKW. The DUKWs move along a beach. They move in water. An officer addresses men at a beach. The men at work. They clean the DUKW. Lubrication is checked and rechecked.
American troops are seen in arctic gear moving on skis through blustery snowy weather in Iceland, during World War 2. They were sent in 1941 to relieve British troops occupying Iceland since 1940, during World War II. A guard post at the American camp, with Quonset Hut in background. Closeup of U.S. sentry in arctic gear holding rifle with bayonet affixed. View from above, of numerous tents partially covered with snow in the American camp. Change of scene shows U.S. troops disembarking from transport ships at the British Isles. They march with their combat gear onto a square where Army trucks wait to transport them inland. Another scene shows the American troops, viewed from behind, parading in London. Other scenes show them marching in various areas of London. Saint Paul’s cathedral is seen in the background of one scene. A large number of American M3 Stuart Light tanks move on a railroad train in Britain. Scene shifts to the Middle East, where railroad cars and various military supplies for Russia are be offloaded from American ships. A Russian officer is seen signing receipts for war materiel, from a U.S. Army Technical Sergeant. A row of American Army trucks are lined up behind them. The Russian and American exchange salutes, and shake hands. Next, a troop ship carrying American troops is seen arriving at a port in India, where they disembark with their gear. An American Army Sergeant in a pith helmet pays attention to a little Indian girl. Scene shifts to China, in 1942, where Brigadier General Claire Lee Chennault, Commander of the China Air Task Force, of the Tenth Air Force, that replaced the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers), is seen with Brigadier General Caleb V. Haynes, Commander of the India Air Task Force. A colonel joins their discussions. A Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber is parked behind them. View of Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter planes, with Flying Tiger markings, parked on a flight line. A B-24 bomber landing on a runway, between hills, deep in China. Closeup of Nationalist China Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, saluting. Huge numbers of Chinese troops assembling in a formation. Next, an expeditionary force of American troops is seen arriving on a troop ship in Australia. They line the ship’s deck and wave. General Douglas MacArthur arriving in Australia to assume the office of Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area (SWPA). .Glimpses of U.S. Navy activities in Australia: setting up defenses of islands; unpacking a Kingfisher float plane and making it ready for use on a desert island. The final segments of the film show American forces in August ,1942 sailing to Adak in the Aleutian Islands, to strengthen American defenses there. Troops seen descending by rope ladder from the American transport ship USS J Franklin Bell (PA-34), into her landing craft for deployment on Adak Island. Scenes of landing craft reaching the beach and offloading troops, vehicles, and supplies. View of beach filled with supplies. One landing craft is clearly marked with ""P34" showing that it belongs to the USS J Franklin Bell ( later reclassified as APA-16).
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