Scenes of Chicago, Illinois, United States, and various modes of transportation serving the city. A neon sign board outside a building says 'Second Marriage Blood Test'. Another one reads: 'Use Rapid Transit, 13 minutes to Loop.' Cars, trucks and buses on busy highway. Freight train passes over highway on elevated track. Elevated Trains ("L" trains) and passengers at railroad station in center of highway. Views from inside first car of train as it runs along track in center of highways. Several passengers seen in the car. The train arriving on an elevated station in heart of the city. View of downtown Chicago, including the Woods Movie Theater, at corner of Randolph and Dearborn Streets.
German boys or possibly Hitler Youth work at a railroad machine workshop in Germany during World War 2. A factory foreman or supervisor checks the work done by a teenage child labor group in the production plant. Boys close a locomotive door and examine their work. A train engine starts and the locomotive is ready to move from the station. An engineer and a teenage youth inside the train. A signal tower gives departure signal. Teenage girl assists with train dispatching, signaling, and switching. German civilians get aboard the train. A woman dispatcher with a baby in her arms. She hands over the baby to the mother through a train window. She waves her hand on departure.
A streamlined passenger express train passes by at the Boulder Dam (later Hoover Dam) construction site at Boulder City near Las Vegas, Nevada. The train on a railway track. Interior of the train. Men stand in the train and watch outside. The Colorado River amidst the mountains. View of the countryside. People stand near the railway track. The train passes across a bridge and views of the dam construction underway in Black Canyon.
Meeting with Petain, Laval, and Franco in France October 24, 1940 during World War II. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler meets with Prime Minister of France Phillippe Henri Petain, French politician Pierre Laval, and Spanish Head of State Francisco Franco in France. Petain gets out of car and shakes hands with Foreign minister of Germany Joachim Von Ribbentrop. Petain crosses train tracks and shakes Hitler's hand. They are being photographed. Hitler on train with a leading member of the Nazi party Hermann Goering and military officers; Hitler laughs. Train moves past a saluting officers at Hendaye station, close to French-Spanish border. Town signs. Hitler and officers at a platform as they await arrival of Franco. Spanish train pulls up and Franco gets off and he and Hitler warmly shake hands. Hitler salutes down line of Spanish officers and Franco salutes German honor guard. Hitler and Franco board a train.
Film opens with a glimpse of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in a forum. Next, Big Ben and the British Parliament building are seen in the background as soldiers (and some civlilans) gather around a British 3-inch antiaircraft gun. British civilians assembling sections of a Anderson Shelter (a prefabricated shelter made of corrugated metal.) View of a crowded railroad platform where hundreds of British children board a train to evacuate them from London to safety in the countryside, as part of Operation Piper. Parents and loved ones stand back on the platform to see them off. Closeup of children, each tagged with their personal information, climbing aboard the train. Next, after they have boarded the train, parents and others move close to the train windows to wave goodbye to the children. Parents, at a different railroad station, waving goodbye to children on a train carrying them to safety. complete change of scene shows the U.S. freighter ship, SS City of Flint, with hundreds of passengers onboard, who were rescued from the liner SS Athenia, sunk in the first hours of World War II, by the German submarine, U-30, on September 3, 1940. (The City of Flint landed its passengers in Halifax, Nova scotia, and New York City.) A formation of British soldiers is seen marching through a village in the United Kingdom. Glimpse of an underground control room of a German Fort in the Siegfried line. German troops entering the fort, Werkgruppe Scharnhorst Panzerwerk 1238, to take up defensive positions there. Heavy guns firing from underground.
Film opens with map of the eastern front area during World War 2. A railroad train is seen pulling into a station. Closeup of snow between the tracks. Happy German soldiers, on leave from the front, leave the train and crowd the station platform. Some of the soldiers visit a shop labeled: "Marketenderei,"where they obtain various personal supplies. Views of soldiers washing and shaving, before heading back to the front. Conductor closes railroad train door. Women and others wave from the station platform, one with a dog, as the train pulls out, headed back to the front. Next, the train arrives at another station where the soldiers leave it. A sign directs them to building 29 where they are to register. The troops enter barracks, and then proceed to board army canvas-covered trucks. Army Trucks are seen moving in both directions along a snowy road, across agricultural areas. Troops climb down from a truck, adjusting their weapons. Some are seen walking toward the camera. One carries a lamb in his arms. Views of soldiers traveling on a horse-drawn sled. Others are seen at a camp, where they receive hot soup in their personal mess gear. A Colonel (named Kominsky) eating with one of his troops. Two soldiers in white arctic garb, eating in front of a tank. Soldiers sharing photographs of their children. One, smoking a pipe, holds up a black African doll. Some of the soldiers take advantage of the quiet and begin to frolic in the snow. They begin by throwing large amounts of snow on some of their comrades. Soon the all take part in a snowball fight. Film ends as one brushes snow off himself.
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