U.S. troops enter Saint Lo, Normandy during World War II. U.S. soldiers march down road and enter city of Saint Lo. German soldier arrive holding white flags and raising their hands to surrender themselves. Jeep loaded with prisoners pass along road. German prisoners walk past dead German soldiers.
U.S. soldiers during the Battle of Saint-Mihiel grand offensive on the Western Front during World War I. A large hay stack in a field. A soldier sitting on the stack. Smoke from firing and bombardment in the foreground. Soldiers load and fire artillery. Some of the soldiers seated in the field.
Opening scene shows crowds of Parisians surrounding tanks of Free French General Philippe Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division and elements of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division enter Paris, on August 25, 1944, during World War 2. General Charles de Gaulle is seen with French officials in the crowd during liberation of Paris. A Free French soldier speaks to a tank driver and points to the source of some lingering German resistance gunfire. The crowds drop to the ground as gunfire erupts. A French tank fires its gun at a building harboring the German resistance elements. Some persons take shelter behind jeeps. People scramble for shelter in the courtyard of the Notre Dame cathedral. Smoke rising from targeted buildings. People lying down en masse on the ground as gunfire continues.
French 1st Army, C.C.1, under Colonel Gruss, moving west along highway D16 through the village of Schwoben. Infantry and armor entering Schwoben, past a sign reading "Tagsdorf" ( a village towards the west) in Alsace, during World War 2. A French soldier pauses by the body of a fallen German soldier. Local French people reentering the town of Sierentz,, some carrying belongings on horse-drawn wagon. The church of St. Martin in the background. Large number of French civilian men march loosely into the town, headed by one carrying the French flag.They wave and smile as they pass the camera. They march past an M10 tank destroyer and several French troops. View from jeep passing roadsign reading "Mulhausen,3.62." (This was located on highway D56 between Zimmersheim and Eschentzwiller.) View from parked jeep as jeeps and armored vehicles enter town. Local people fill the sidewalks to watch as French troops and tanks enter the town. French tricolor flags fly from windows of buildings.
This film shows numerous types and models of World War One aircraft in operation. It opens showing Allied airplanes preparing for a maximum air campaign in the battle of Saint Mihiel. View from inside a hanger as its flap opens and men push a Sopwith Camel airplane out onto airfield. Map of St Mihiel. American planes warm up on flight line in predawn, with flares burning at wingtips. Huge numbers of allied airplanes are marshaled on airfields throughout the theater of operations and begin taking off. Among them is a French Morane-Saulnier low wing monoplane. German fliers are seen loading small hand held bombs into the cockpit of their Albatross aircraft. Soldiers in combat on ground in "no man's land" during the battle of St. Mihiel. They take refuge in large shell and bomb craters and try to advance running between them.. Germans fliers dropping bombs, by hand, from airplane. Numerous Allied and German airplanes in aerial dogfights. American planes over clouds. American Observation balloon attacked in sky. Balloon in flames, and trailing black smoke as it falls to the ground. French flag flies at an airfield, where a nosed-over airplane sits, by a hangar, as airplanes fly overhead. Aircraft taxiing about in close quarters at airfield. Large formations of American airplanes flying overhead in a grand formation, following the Armistice, November 11, 1918 Then the film shifts dramatically from World War One to the post-WWII year of 1947. It illustrates the dramatic advances in warplanes since WWI by showing U.S. B-36 bombers and straight-wing F-84 Thunderjet fighters is formation.
The capture of Cherbourg and Octeville to Allied forces during World War 2. Octeville, an important Nazi stronghold southwest of Cherbourg, falls to the 39th Regiment, 9th infantry division of the United States Army. United States soldiers running in a street. An American soldier taking cover at side of a road watching for enemy attack. A soldier uses a SCR-536 US Military “handie talkie”, the first handheld Walkie-talkie. American soldiers carefully navigate the streets of Octeville. Many dead German soldiers lying on the streets. American soldier points to a pile of dead German soldiers. Captured German soldier prisoners of war (POW) and two French Fifth Column “Collaborator” women are marched out of Octeville by American soldiers. United States infantry firing artillery at Cherbourg under a camouflage net. Cherbourg under fire from Allied artillery fire and bombings.
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