1946 Film about military and civilian applications of radar and electronics. View of the LaGuardia Airport Administration Building (passenger terminal) in New York, with control tower and various antennas on its roof. A TWA Constellation and DC-3 airplane on the airport ramp, as another aircraft is on the final approach to land. Commercial cargo vessels in New York harbor (Statue of Liberty barely seen in the misty background). A passenger railroad train speeding along the tracks. Radar returns shown on a plan position radar scope, tracking weather returns. Tropical storm hitting a seaside area. Scientists and technicians at work in a laboratory filled with electronic equipment. View of buildings at U.S. Army Signal Corps' Camp Evans, New Jersey. Sign above one entrance reads: "Evans Signal Laboratory." Inside the laboratory, images created by radar signals bounced off the moon are seen on a radar scope, during "Project Diana," on January 10, 1946. View of the Army's GB-4 radio controlled television glide bomb, suspended on a chain inside a building. It rotates around showing various views. Scene shifts to a launching track outdoors at a coastal facility, where a glide bomb takes off raising smoke as it accelerates along the launch path. Next, a GB-4 glide bomb is released from underneath a B-17 bomber in flight. It is seen flying away from the aircraft. Inside the aircraft, a crew member views its progress by means of television images received from a transmitter in the front of the bomb. Glimpse of the television images. View from the ground of the GB-4 bomb gliding to the ground and exploding. Views of a German V-2 rocket at Launch Complex 33, White Sands Proving Ground , New Mexico, where it was being tested by the U.S. Army Ordnance Department in 1946. Inside a control room, an Army technician gives the signal to launch, and the V-2 rocket fires and rises straight into the sky, with its fiery tail visible as it gains altitude. More views of scientists, engineers, and technicians inside a Signal Corps electronics laboratory. Soldiers being trained in radar technology, seated at an electronic array. An army staff sergeant technician working on radar components. A variety of different radar antennas rotating outdoors.
Activity aboard United States battleship New Mexico before the invasion of Guam in Pacific Theater during World War II. United States battleship Colorado underway at sea with LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) nearby. A kingfisher scout observation plane catapults from the battleship New Mexico. Men on the bridge of the ship look through binoculars. Shells drop in the sea. Landing craft underway at sea. Coast bombarded with 5 inch guns. Aerial views from U.S. aircraft of shells exploding on the coast and smoke rising. (Note: time codes 00:00 to 00:18 and then 00:34 to 00:42 show port side of the battleship USS Colorado, BB-45.)
Nuclear bomb testing footage. Continuous colour film of atomic bomb shot Baker from Operation Crossroads on July 25, 1946, as well as film of the Ivy King shot from Operation Ivy on November 15, 1952. Both nuclear tests were conducted by the United States.
Film opens showing a picturesque stone church in Arizona. Camera pans up the church, to cross on the top. Man holds slate reading, “New Mexico, May 30th.” Then Pueblo buildings are shown (possibly in Pueblo of Isleta). Next, two women are seen walking away from the Palace of the Governors, in Albuquerque.
Activities prior to the Trinity nuclear test conducted at Alamogordo in New Mexico during World War II. This is the day before the first ever atomic bomb test in history (the first ever detonation of a nuclear device). The plutonium core nuclear device nicknamed the "Gadget" being raised up to the top of the steel tower after final assembly. Men arrange drum shaped cushioning pads on platform, under the device, as the hoisting begins, and cover the pads with canvas tarps. The Gadget atomic bomb being hoisted to the top of a 20 meter steel tower for detonation early the next morning.
The first detonation of a nuclear device in history. Trinity nuclear test being conducted at Alamogordo in New Mexico during World War II. Pitch black night is blindingly illuminated as the nuclear device sometimes nicknamed "The Gadget" is detonated in the White Sands Proving Ground, ushering in the "atomic age." Then the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb explosion can be seen. Billowing smoke and fire fills the view.
CRITICALPAST.COM: About Us | Contact Us | FAQs - How to Order | License Agreement | My Account | My Lightboxes | Shopping Cart | Advanced Search | Featured Collections | Website Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy ©2026 CriticalPast LLC.
License Agreement |
Terms & Conditions |
Privacy Policy
©2026 CriticalPast LLC.