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.
Goodwill trip to America by Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. Animated map portrays long flight from Los Angeles, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii. Hawaiian hula dancers performing on grass at the Honolulu zoo. View from beach of colorful sail boats, swimmers, sun bathing, and surfers enjoying the beach and beautiful weather in Hawaii. A traditional long canoe is seen being paddling past the beachfront. As hula dancers finish, elephant handler (mahout), Kirpa Swami, brings forward a baby elephant, named Mari, that Mrs. Gandhi is presenting as a gift to the children of Honolulu. Spokesperson Eileen Anderson, acknowledges the gift, before a large crowd of spectators. Prime Minister Gandhi, at the microphone, explains that the elephant is a symbol of strength, of hard work, and in India, of good fortune, or good luck. Kirpa Swami brings Mari across the grass, accompanied by elephant handlers, Gwen Yoshimura and Larry Zolton. As Mari swings her trunk, Mrs. Gandhi says, "she is saluting you all." Scene shifts to the airport, where the Prime Minister's Air India passenger airplane is parked on the runway tarmac, displaying an American flag in the pilot's window. Prime Minister Gandhi speaks at the steps to the aircraft, extending the good wishes of the people of India to the people of the United States. She turns and waves from the top of the steps.
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.
Coast Guardsmen in uniform wheel a beach cart containing a lyle gun and other equipment for firing a shot line to a vessel in distress. They are conducting a breeches buoy drill. They remove a lyle gun and flaking box from the cart and uncover the shot line which they place in the gun. Using a long lanyard, one guardsman fires the gun. Closeup of the shot line smoothly paying out from the flaking box. It is fired to a simulated mast (tower) on the beach. Closeup of large spools of whip line with instructions to the distressed crew about their use. After the whip line and block are set on the distressed ship's mast, the Coast Guardsmen now prepare the whip line to move large hawser line to the mast. Large spools of hawser line are seen in background. Closeup of Guardsmen pulling hawser from the spools. Guardsmen tie the hawser to the whip line for hauling aboard the distressed vessel. Closeup of the whip line pulling the hawser across the sand to the tower. Guardsmen working rapidly to accomplish this. A breeches buoy being attached to the hawser which is then propped up for elevation. View of the Breeches Buoy traveling up to the tower. A guardsmen riding the breeches buoy down from the tower. He is helped by others when he reaches the ground. Closeup of a clamp placed on the hawser to retrieve it from the vessel. The hawser being retrieved.
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