People release their homing birds in Jackson Heights, Long Island, New York. People gather at a place. They release their pigeons. The pigeons fly in the sky. People watch the pigeons. The pigeons fly over buildings and towers.
Opening scene is an animated map showing Coast Guard Stations on Long Island, New York and on New Jersey coasts. Aerial view of Coast Guard Station Number 75. Narrator says manual life boats are launched into the surf from this Station. Camera pans closeup over the station, showing its buildings. Aerial view of inlet on South shore of Long Island from which powered life boats can launch into calm waters. Aerial view of the Fire Island (Long Island) Coast Guard Station with launching runway for power boats. Ground level closeup of the Fire Island Station. A power lifeboat being launched down its runway. Water level view of the power lifeboat speeding along the inlet towards the open sea. View from a height of the path the power lifeboat will follow to the sea. Change of scene shows map of life guard stations along Eastern shore of Maryland, the coast of Virginia and area around the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, with focus on cities of Norfolk and Newport News. It also extends South to outer islands of North Carolina. Battered hulk of a ship in surf in this area.
U.S. Army Air Force Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses bomb Heligoland island in Germany during World War II. B-17s in flight. Several aerial views of the island and another island next to it. Smoke rises from burning oil storage tanks on Heligoland island. A runway on the island in the background. Heavy flak. German coastline: Heligoland and Friesian islands. Bomb craters and smoke from burning oil storage tanks. Bombs are dropped from Allied aircraft. The aircraft are in formation over clouds.
German Nazi Kriegsmarine navy land on an island in the South Pacific Ocean, likely Fiji, during World War II. Sailors lower supplies to boats. Sailors in boats travel to an island. Kriegsmarine sailors arrive on a South Pacific island. Huts and coconut trees on an island village. Local islanders standing on a raft. Germans bring supplies into the village, while being observed by curious locals and children. Children stand up and follow Kriegsmarine officers. A Pacific islander smiling, nearby a woman holds her baby. German officers and a local smiling while they walk through a coconut grove. Two local policemen salute. German Kriegsmarine sailor attempts to communicate with locals through sign language. German sailor plays with native children on the beach. A smiling native policeman waves. A German Kriegsmarine battleship sails in the South Pacific Ocean, led by a sea gull. Battleship's wind meter spins furiously in the wind as battleship sails through rough and stormy ocean waves. Kriegsmarine officer uses binoculars.
Mix of period footage circa 1910, retrospective interviews in 1975, and some still images. European immigration in bad travel conditions to America. View from rail on deck of a ship in heavy seas. An elderly European immigrant recalls his experiences of the journey on ship to America. Ship in Atlantic Ocean. Picture of European immigrants on ship deck. Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Early 1900s period footage of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island and disembarking from ship, then walking with luggage for processing at Ellis Island. Some immigrants peer across New York Harbor at the skyline of New York city. Scene change to 1975 and views of interiors of a no longer used building in Ellis Island. Names of persons carved on walls. A man shares his experience as an immigrant passing through Ellis Island, and then as an immigration inspector reviewing new immigrants as they arrived.
European immigration to America from late 19th Century to early 20th Century. Film begins showing closeup photographs of European immigrants at Ellis Island circa 1910. The segment involves difficulties dealing with various immigrants' languages. A man, who worked at Ellis Island early in the 20th century, recounts confusion about a Bulgarian interpreter's of an immigrant's answers to questions. Next, in 1975, an immigrant who went through Ellis Island in 1910, tells interviewer that in addition to normal questions, he was also asked if he was an anarchist. Closeups of Ellis Island Immigrant inspection officers. The former Ellis Island worker who spoke earlier about language confusion, is seen describing the way foreign Surnames were often misspelled and anglicized by recording officers. More closeup photographs of seemingly happy immigrants that ostensibly had been admitted to America. Views from and of an early type steam locomotive belching dense black smoke as it traverses open prairie land in America.
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