View of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France. A motorcade arrives at the monument. A large crowd gathers for a ceremony. Officials and dignitaries including French Prime Minister Joseph Laniel and French Defense Minister René Pleven stand by during the ceremony commemorating the sacrifices of French soldiers killed in the war in Indochina. View of wreaths at the site. Following the ceremony, Laniel and Pleven are escorted to separate waiting cars through a hostile crowd of angry French citizens and war veterans, upset by the recent removal of Marshal Juin from the Council of War, and opposed to the Pleven Plan for the European Defense Community or EDC. The officials finally reach their cars through the angry crowd and are driven away.
Film opens showing destruction being inflicted on city of Caen, France, from fighting between the British Second Army and German Panzergruppe West for control of the city and vicinity, during the World War 2 Battle of Normandy in June, 1944. Walls of a building collapse from shell fire. Refugees, flee the city carrying belongings in cart. Numerous destroyed buildings seen in the background. Retreating German soldiers are seen, most carrying M42 machine guns. Next, German troops, assembled for a counter offensive, are lined up informally and briefed by an officer. Their helmets are covered in netting. Closeups of some, one shouldering an M42 machine gun, and a junior officer briefing them. A Tiger I tank rolls along a dirt road towards the camera. This is followed by a DW19 Katzchen APC, another Tiger I tank, a motorcycle, and several heavily camouflaged half tracks, and a tracked APC. A Panzer tank and another Tiger I continue the column. Closeup of a bearded junior officer, who is then seen from short distance walking a bicycle past a column of smiling troops. Some soldiers shouldering M 42 machine guns as they walk past a field of grain. Others in column carry small arms. One carries a panzerfaust anti tank weapon. Glimpse of soldier placing foliage into netting of his steel helmet. German soldiers begin running as shelling and gunfire from American Army forces are heard. They seek cover at side of a berm as a shell explodes nearby. Soldiers lying prone as shells burst all around them. Some German soldiers smoke cigarettes as barrage abates. German officer communication by field telephone. German Self-propelled gun (8.8cm Pak43 Geshtzwagen III Sd.Kfz.164) moves into firing position at a tree line. Gun crew includes one tending large supply of shells. Closeup of shells stacked in the vehicle. Gun commander signals and crew fires the gun. Other guns also firing from the tree line. Officer looks through binoculars. A knocked out U.S. Army Sherman tank. German soldiers moving quickly and cautiously along the side of a road. One hunkers down over the body of a dead German soldier. Brief view, between a building and a tree,of a Sherman tank passing in the background. German troops, carrying antitank weapons (Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust), moving among damaged buildings. A Sherman tank passes in background. Soldier fires a Panzerschreck which explodes. Sherman tanks continue to pass on dirt road in background. German soldiers rush to a damaged Sherman tank. German soldier throws a hand grenade. A dead American soldier is seen in the turret. German soldiers release an unmanned, remote-controlled Goliath Tracked Mine, or Leichter Ladungsträger Goliath, also known as a "beetle tank" to Allied forces (or German robot tank). Watching from tree line, German soldiers see an explosion across the field. Closeup of destroyed Sherman tank. German officer signals for soldiers to follow him. A German soldier, carrying a Schmeisser Mp40 submachine gun, points to a dead American soldier lying beside the road. Views of the site as soldier examines it. Camera focuses on a small round hole in the earth. Scene shift entirely to American soldiers at side of a road. They examine a spot where a trenching tool and some soldier's gear is seen. Scene changes showing knocked out armor atop a hill. Closeup of a knocked out German Tiger I tank, with American soldier looking out through a lower porthole. Closeup of American soldier with foliage topped helmet and belt of machine gun ammunition around his neck. Closing scenes show ambulatory wounded German army prisoners, including some assisting others, as they proceed away from the battleground.
General Charles De Gaulle steps from a car and walks through crowd of reporters. (In the wake of political upheaval, De Gaulle was named Premier-designate by President René Coty on May 31 and confirmed Premier by the National Assembly on June 1.) He makes his way to a podium and speaks. According to narrator, he declares a "vacation" from politics in France, while he prepares a new Constitution. He leaves the podium and hall. View of numerous reporters and photographers in the hall. Enthusiastic French people outside the hall, wave as De Gaulle passes standing in an open car. The sidewalks are mobbed with spectators as his motorcade passes. Citizens hold banners, including some referring to the Algerian problems. Confetti is thrown from overlooking apartment buildings in Paris.
Wounded American soldiers on litters carried out from a building and placed into military ambulances, during the 2nd Battle of the Somme, in World War 1. German prisoners carrying wounded American soldiers into Ronssoy, France.
Allied invasion of Normandy, France during World War 2. Allied trucks and equipment move up from beachhead after D-Day. Half-tracks, armed with antiaircraft guns, move up from the beachhead. Back in England, gliders are readied for mission. A long line of Paratrooper medics wearing Red Cross Arm bands, board gliders. View from airplane flying over an airfield filled with C-47 tow planes, and gliders, all painted with invasion stripes. Closeup of Sergeant with British 6th Airborne Division showing Pegasus insignia on his sleeve. British paratroopers boarding a Hamilcar glider. U.S. paratroopers boarding gliders. View from above of Allied gliders being towed across the English Channel View from a ship in the invasion convoy, of tow planes and gliders overhead. View, from aircraft overhead, of invasion flotilla below. Distant view of Allied aircraft shot down by German antiaircraft fire, near the coast of Normandy and exploding in flames upon impact. View from the air of areas flooded by the Germans as a defense measure. Parachutes and gliders on the ground from earlier sorties. Gliders in this wave cut loose from tow planes and maneuver independently. Glimpses of Allied fighter planes moving fast and high above the scene. A glider splashing down in one of the flooded fields. Other fields, studded by the Germans, with poles 12-to 15 feet tall as defense against gliders. Gliders landing. Paratroopers leaving a Horsa glider, after landing.
America's counter attack in World War I. United States Army soldiers on a field during Battle of Cantigny in France, World War I. Explosions occur and smoke rises. View of low slung horizontal razor wire in front of artillery emplacements. U.S. 1st Division soldiers fire artillery from behind sand bag mounds. American soldiers load a mortar shell and fire it from the trench. Soldiers hang shells through the trench to load larger artillery pieces. With shells being fired overhead, the soldiers go over the top of the trench and begin to cross field. A French tank in the background.
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