Wreckage of U.S. Air Forces P-47D-30, tail number 44-33495, of the 368th Fighter Group, 397th Fighter Squadron in a field, near Munnerstadt, Germany, a month after the end of World War 2, in Europe. Women work around the wreckage, turning hay. Street scene in a nearby small German village. Workers come home from fields. Buildings on either side of the street. Civilians move on an ox cart. Person carries hay in a wooden hand cart. Water running from faucet in the village square. (Reportedly, the pilot of the P-47 was William T. Wright, who was killed in the crash, on April 15, 1945.)
German civilian Matthias Gierens, a 37 year old railroad worker, is hanged in Rheinbach Germany for the August 15, 1944 murder of a downed American flyer, who was later identified as U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lieutenant Lester E. Reuss, from Forsythe, Montana. Reuss was the navigator on U.S. Army B-17 bomber #42-31183 which was downed by German aircraft after it attacked the Airdrome at Wiesbaden, Germany. Gierens and three other German civilian men, Peter Kohn, Peter Back, and Matthias Krein, were convicted on June 2, 1945 in Ahrweiler, Germany, for the murder of the American airman after his parachute landing near Priest, Germany. The trial was the first Allied trial in Germany of civilians charged with a war crime. Military police are seen escorting Gierens toward the gallows in a prison yard in Rheinbach. A German Catholic priest performs the rites. U.S military officer reads charges as Gierens is readied for execution (the officer is possibly Lt. Col J.V. Roddy, of San Francisco, who was in charge of the hanging). Trap door opens and Gierens is hung. The U.S. Army executioners were Master Sgt. John C. Woods, a former Texas State executioner, and Staff Sgt. Thomas Robinson, of Bronx, New York. Witnesses present included seven U.S. Lieutenant Colonels and one British officer, a number of Military Police, news correspondents, and photographers.
U.S. Army 77th Infantry Division soldier looks at sign board in the Pacific Theater during Ryukyu Campaign of World War II. Soldier walks on field towards the commemorating spot. He looks at sign board which reads 'at this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy,Ernie Pyle,18 April 1945'.
Film opens with a slate reading: "Strip Y 46 3/24/45." This refers to Allied Advance Landing Ground, "Y-46 Aachen, Germany." The ensuing film shows numerous gun camera footage clips from U.S. Army Air Force P-47 aircraft of the 365th Fighter Group operating from Y-46 during 16 March through 13 April, 1945, near the end of World War 2. The clips show strafing attacks by the P-47s on German cities. Several of the final attacks seem to be hitting the same city located on a river.
Arnstadt Concentration Camp in Germany captured by American forces in April, 1945 near the end of World War II. Prisoners were mainly Poles and Russians. View from the camp gate to tents which were used to house prisoners. Dogs were used to guard the prisoners. Shown is A dog kennel for a watch dog. Local German citizens had exhumed he bodies of concentration camp victims from their original mass grave, and reburied them in a trench further away from the town because of the stench. Now they were disinterring them again under supervision of United States Army soldiers. A corpse with crushed head. Corpses lying outside the graves from which they have just been exhumed. Bodies laid out on the ground are viewed by several U.S. soldiers
Opening scene shows Katyusha rockets fired by Soviet forces in streets of Berlin at night during World War 2, during Battle of Berlin. They create fires in Berlin buildings leading to fire storm with whole buildings engulfed in flames. Soviet troops are silhouetted against the fire backdrop as they rush through the city streets. Insert of German film showing Adolf Hitler standing on a podium at a torchlight ceremony with Sturmabteilung (Storm Troopers) prior to World War 2. They march carrying torches as Hitler gives Nazi salute from the podium. Views of the torches in formation and glimpse of the Storm troopers marching. Film reverts back to 1945 and German prisoners of war being marched under guard as Soviet troops fire Katusha rockets in the background,during daylight, in Berlin. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, on Kurfürstendamm is seen dimly. Soviet troops scamper among ruins of buildings and self propelled gun fires in a street. Desperate German civilians enter a damaged store and loot fabric and clothing as well as small boxes of goods. One man carries a huge pile of clothing and towels on his back.
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