Summary of World War II events and formation of the United Nations Organization. Soviet troops on Eastern Front of Europe fire artillery on German positions in 1944. Russian troops advance. German soldiers come out of buildings and surrender. Allied Forces land in France on D-Day. Allied troops and tanks fight Germans on streets in towns and villages of France. U.S. Army tanks fire at German positions. Various groups of German prisoners of war march along roads and are herded into prison camps operated by American and British forces. In 1945, the Allied leaders meet at Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula to discuss Allied military strategy in the final months of WWII. Leaders included British PM Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. The meeting of U.S. and Soviet Russian troops at the Elbe River. German Nazi Swastika symbol blown up in explosion atop Zeppelinfeld Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. Aerial view of Berlin in ruins, as seen from low-flying aircraft flying directly over the Unter den Linden boulevard and the Brandenburg Gate. Wrecked and bombed German buildings seen everywhere. German officials signing surrender instrument at Rheims. U.S. President Harry S Truman, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at Potsdam Conference. U.S. Marines battling on beaches of Pacific Islands. Iconic shot of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima. Aerial view of bombed and ruined city of Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese surrender to MacArthur aboard the battleship USS Missouri. General MacArthur speaks aboard Missouri. Victory celebrations all across the world, with some scenes from earlier V-E Day (Victory in Europe) day in May 1945, including crowds celebrating in Paris, France, and some scenes on V-J Day (Victory over Japan day) in August 1945. Crowds on streets celebrate. Happy crowds jam streets. Delegates of Nations, among them Andrei Gromyko and Vyascheslav Molotov meet in San Francisco and create a United Nations organization. Truman arrives at signing of UN charter. Various delegates sign charter. U.S. troops disembark troop carrier ships at U.S. ports and are discharged after completing military service in World War 2. Group of U.S. Army soldiers exits a church (the Chapel at Fort Dix, New Jersey), waving their discharge papers in hand.
The USS Gamble, destroyer/mine layer, DD-123, DM-15 being prepared for scuttling off of Guam, in final days of World War 2. Her severely damaged hulk is seen tied up to a pier. An inspection party examines her. View from camera on the Gamble as she is towed out of Apra Harbor, Guam. View of tugboat ahead, pulling her. View from another boat, of the Gamble with a tug at her port side. Six men are seen riding on her superstructure. Camouflage paint and numerals "15" are still visible on her hull. The tug at her side pulls away. Continued views from nearby boat as the Gamble is towed seaward for scuttling. (Note:The USS Gamble was struck by two Japanese bombs off Iwo Jima on 18 February, 1945. After finally being assessed as damaged beyond repair, she was decommissioned, on June 1, 1945, and scuttled on July 16, 1945.)
Invasion of Germany by Allied forces during World War and unconditional surrender by Germany during World War 2. At TC: 00:19 thru 00: 21, Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, Commander of Axis forces in Italy, is seen outside a building in the mountains. Rear view of the war-damaged Reichtag building and View of the Brandenburg Gate as Soviet troops occupy during Battle of Berlin. General Dwight D. Eisenhower conferring with an unidentified General. Lieutenant Generals George S. Patton and Omar Bradley are with him. Soviet soldiers waving to Americans on opposite sides of the Elbe River. American soldiers paddling an inflated boat across the river. U.S. 69th Infantry division and Russian 58th Guard Division troops under Major General Rusakov embracing meet at the Elbe River in Torgau Germany on April 26, 1945. Several succeeding views of American and Soviet soldiers celebrating together. A group of American and Soviet soldiers posing for pictures atop a concrete foundation with a banner across it reading: "Our Greeting to the Heroes Army of United States of America." A battery of tanks firing their guns. Two British soldiers with one pointing in a direction. A Soviet IS-2 tank moving past a burning building. Destroyed street sign pointing at Hamburg. Local citizens waving white flags. Allied armor crossing a bridge over the Rhine River. British Marshal Bernard Montgomery and German General Eberhard Kinzel sign a document of surrender at Lüneburg Heath on 4 May 1945. Civilians moving about on streets of Berlin after Germany surrenders in World War 2. A British soldier posts an announcement from Allied occupying forces declaring the dissolution of the Nazi Party. Closeup of German citizens looking at the announcement. Local people standing amidst rubble near damaged buildings. A British Cromwell tank moving past the camera. Glimpse of a German family. Sherman tanks moving along a roadway. American Lieutenant Generals Leonard T. Gerow and William Simpson in Berlin. Trucks and tanks driving past fires. A long line of German prisoners of war marching beside a field under guard. German General Alfred Jodl and others leaving a car and entering General Eisenhower's Headquarters in Reims, France, May 7, 1945, where General Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Operations Staff in the German High Command, signs a document of unconditional surrender. Admiral Von Friedeburg of the German Navy, and Major Wilhelm Oxenius of the German General Staff sit beside him.
Mass burial at the site of the Gardelegen massacre, in Gardelegen, Germany, late in World War II. View of the barn on the Isenschnibbe estate in Gardelegen where 1016 prisoners had been barricaded by Nazi forces and civilian accomplices on April 13, 1945, and then died after the barn was set on fire. German civilians walking among dead bodies outside the barn. Germany civilians walk carrying stretchers. They place burned bodies of Nazi atrocity victims on the stretchers. They carry the bodies to burial grounds. (Many of the dead were concentration camp prisoners and slave laborers in transit from the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp and the Hannover-Stöcken Concentration Camp. The massacre was discovered by the U.S. Army 102nd Infantry Division when they entered the area on April 14, 1945, finding corpses in the barn and in nearby hastily dug mass graves. The U.S. Army ordered German civilians in the area to transport the bodies and dig graves for proper burial, from April 21-25, 1945.)
German civilians forced by U.S. Army soldiers in World War 2 to dig mass graves for Nazi atrocity victims of the Gardelegen Massacre, in Gardelegen, Germany. Bodies of slave laborer political prisoners on the ground, including Russians, Poles, and French, many of whom had come from the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp and the Hannover-Stöcken Concentration Camp . A large barn in the background on the Isenschnibbe estate, showing evidence of fire damage, where many victims were found by the U.S. Army 102nd Infantry Division on April 14, 1945, after having been locked in the barn which was then set on fire on April 13, 1945. German civilians uncover nearby existing hastily dug mass graves containing piled victims. Dead bodies placed in new graves and covered with dirt. Civilians under U.S. Army direction dig long, mass grave trenches to bury the dead.
U.S. flag being lowered as bugler sounds and narrator alludes to the death of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, near the end of World War II. American troops and tanks rolling through German cities identified by narrator as Madeburg, Nuremberg and Leipzig, at end of World War 2 in Europe. U.S. troops cleaning out last vestiges of resistance in street fighting. Numerous German citizens lining sidewalks in city and waving white flags. On April 25, 1945, U.S. Army Second Lieutenant William Robertson with soldiers Frank Huff, James McDonnell and Paul Staub, meet Soviet Lieutenant Alexander Silvashko and several Soviet soldiers on the remnants of the Elbe bridge of Torgau. A U.S. Army Brigadier General mingling with Soviet officers. On April 26,1945, Major General Emil F. Reinhardt Commander of the U.S. 69th Infantry Division, walks with Soviet Major General Ruskovof the Soviet 58th Guards Rifle Division near Torgau. They are accompanied by other U.S. and Soviet officers. U.S. and Soviet officers exchange mutual salutes. U.S. and Soviet soldiers mingle, as a Soviet soldier plays accordian and some drink toasts, smoke cigarettes, and pose together. View of the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg where a U.S. soldier is seen near the huge Swastika atop the Zeppelin Grandstand. Flashback views of Nazi rally there. Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler and Viktor Lutze at the rally. Three American soldiers walking along the same walkway in the rally grounds. Explosion seen as the Nazi swastika symbol atop the Zeppelinfeld grandstand in Nuremberg is blown up by American troops.
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