German Army units in action in Germany in January 1945. German troops on tanks fire artillery mounted on the tanks. Smoke due to explosions. Front of a gun barrel. A German flag. Youths and old men enlist in Volkssturm, a German military group under the Nazi party, comprised largely of youth and older men. New German soldiers assembled in outdoor square salute and taking an oath. A poster depicts national sacrifices through the Volksopfer program running from 7 - 28 January, 1945. Civilians donate clothing and equipment to the Reich to aid the German war effort and to supply the Volkssturm soldiers with material. A man pulls a trolley filled with donations. German citizens form a long queue to donate surplus clothing and equipment for the war effort. Newly minted Volkssturm soldiers receive uniforms, armbands with slogan "Deutscher Volkssturm Wehrmacht", and weapons. Men take out the uniforms from a stack. They wear their uniforms. Close ups of faces of new soldiers holding rifles. Newly drafted German soldiers receive Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons and are seen marching with rifles.
Highlights the military career of U.S. General Dwight D Eisenhower from 1945 to 1952. Depicts notable World War II scenes and events starting on D-Day as Allied Forces invade France. Allied planes drop bombs on the enemy positions. Allied troops in Higgins boats land on the beaches of Normandy France. U.S. tanks move forward. Allied soldiers advance towards Saint Lo. Battle in St Lo area. General Patton Forces move forward. French troops and the soldiers of the U.S. 5th Corps march through Paris. The civilians cheer. Allied soldiers move towards the German border fighting on their way. Battle of the Bulge - when the Germans turned counter offensive. The bridge at Remagen on the river Rhine. Allied troops cross the bridge. Allied troops on the offensive, west of the Rhine. The enemy surrenders. Rubble on the streets. General Eisenhower with the troops. Military officers sign documents of German surrender on May 7 1945 in Reims at SHAEF headquarters. Eisenhower makes a speech at the end of the war. Eisenhower, in Paris, waves at the people from an open carriage. People welcome him in his homeland with a ticker tape parade in New York City. Eisenhower waves at the people gathered at the side of the streets from an open car of a motorcade. Eisenhower swears in as the 1st post war Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. He visited troops in various parts of the world. He salutes and moves towards a car with his wife as he leaves active military life. Pictures of Eisenhower as he becomes the president of the Columbia University. He reviews the troops as he becomes the Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Eisenhower on European soil. He enters a car. He assumes supreme command of the land, the sea and the air force. Against the threat from the USSR he prepares the European Armies. Soldiers enter into a train. He reviews troops. General Eisenhower and General Matthew Ridgway salute. He enters into a plane with his wife. Painting of Eisenhower being sworn in as President of the United States. Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, two boys leaving the Library.
The Malta Conference in Malta, January - February 1945. The Malta fortification, building and towers. A plane taxis on the Luqa Airport on the island. General Woods, Smith, Marshall and Brehon B. Somervell deplane in Malta. Major General C.P. Woods shakes hands. Lt. General Walter B. Smith met by British Air Commander Whitney Strait. Ambassador W. Abel Hellemen with Major General F. M. Andersen. Arrival of Admiral Ernest J.King at the airport. Field Marshall Sir Harold Alexander, Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean Theater. Admiral Andrew and B. Cunningham greet each other. General George C. Marshall steps off a plane. General Brehon B. Somervell greets England's Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. On February 2, 1945 an American warship arrives with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He is saluted by the British Prime Minister Churchill. Sailors on deck. View of the Montgomery House. Combined meeting of U.S. and British Chiefs of Staff at the Montgomery House. The chiefs are seated around a table, military plans agreed upon. A wall map in the background. Delegates leave for another conference. Policemen control the crowds on either sides of a street. A Russian airport near Yalta in the Crimea. A transport plane lands at the airport. Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov greets Allied leaders outside a tent. Edward Stettinius U.S. Secretary of State gets off the plane. UK Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. The flags of three countries fly over the field: US, UK and Soviet Union. Secretary of State outside the tent. Harry Hopkins arrives. Prime Minister Churchill gets off a UK plane. Kremlin Guards form the guard of honor. Franklin D Roosevelt greeted by Russian reception committee. Daughters of Roosevelt and Churchill talk All the delegates around the transport plane. Delegates salute during the national anthem. British Prime Minister and U.S. President inspect the guard of honor after the national anthem. Kremlin Guards march past in review. (World War II period).
View of first atomic explosion (Trinity) on July 16, 1945, at New Mexico, United States. View of the battleship, USS Missouri, in Tokyo Bay, Japan, with entire ship's company on deck in dress whites, Japanese military high command and several formally dressed Japanese diplomats standing on the ship's deck. Brief closeup of General Douglas MacArthur. Japanese foreign minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, bending to sign the instrument of surrender ending World War 2, on September 2, 1945. Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, seated, signing the document. Lieutenant General Jonathan M. Wainwright and British Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival stand behind MacArthur. General Hsu Yung-chang signs for China. View of sailors observing the historic moment from every possible place aboard the ship. Large numbers of aircraft flying over the ship. Scene shifts in flashback to Manila, Philippines, where dead bodies of civilians litter the streets in silent witness of Japanese wartime atrocities. Some have hands tied behind their backs. Views of destitute Filipino mothers and children wandering through the rubble. A sign identifies the 98th Evacuation Hospital. Inside, a doctor and a nurse stand over the bed of Japanese Prime Minister, Hideki Tōjō, who attempted suicide by pistol, when apprehended, but was taken for treatment and is seen resting in his bed. View of Japanese Adrmiral Shigetarō Shimada, Minister of the Navy, behind bars in prison. Also seen in prison are Japanese general of the Japanese Imperial Army and Governor-General of the Philippines, Shigenori Kuroda;. General Masaharu Homma; and militarist Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto. Scene shifts to bodies of numerous victims of German death camps. American Army medics attend to some survivors rescued from the camps.
United States and Soviet Union soldiers celebrate their victory as world War 2 comes to an end in Germany. "Elbe Day": Soviet and American soldiers meet at the River Elbe on 25-26 April, 1945. View of Nazi swastika being blown up at Zeppelinfeld in Nuremberg Germany in 1945. Scenes of celebration in the streets of Paris with French civilians cheering American and French soldiers and celebrating the end of World War 2. French women kiss soldiers. Crowd gathered in Times Square in New York celebrating VE-Day (Victory in Europe Day). Foreign Ministers of fifty nations arrive at San Francisco to sign the United Nations Charter. United States President Harry S. Truman addresses the delegates at the closing ceremony of the conference on June 26, 1946. Ships bring American soldiers back home, including some wounded, after World War 2. Women and families on dock at harbor wave and smile at arriving troop ship with American soldiers returning home. Also seen are soldiers of other countries including Soviet Russian soldiers returning to their families at a train station, with smiling and tearful family reunions. Cemeteries with headstones honoring soldiers who died in the war. Military hardware being scrapped to make peacetime goods. Views of explosive charges being set and military aircraft being blown up for scrap. Piles of scrapped military vehicles. A woman in a factory organizes newly manufactured clothes irons. Workers in a factory perform final assembly on newly manufactured ovens and stoves for homes.
Men carry injured U.S. Army Air Force Jungle Rescue Pilot Captain James Green from hospital tent to completed MEDEVAC landing zone in Shingbwiyang, Burma during World War II. Green had been injured in a crash of his helicopter. Dr. Underwood talks on hand radio as men sight an incoming Sikorsky YR-4 helicopter. Engineer sets off smoke flare. Helicopter lands and men hold it. Men carry Captain Green on litter to the helicopter and he shakes hands with Pilot Lieutenant Raymond Murdock. Dr. Underwood gives Green an injection in his arm. Men put Captain Green in the helicopter and it takes off. Men cheer and shake hands with Dr. Underwood. This is an early example of one of the first helicopter MEDEVAC (Medical Evacuation) flights in a combat zone. Prior to this MEDEVAC flight, this particular helicopter, a Sikorsky YR-4, had been dismantled at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio on January 17, 1945, loaded on a C-54 transport, and flown to the North Burma theater of operations. It was reassembled and flown by Capt. Frank Peterson, USAAF, on January 26, 1945 to evacuate wounded weather observer Private Howard Ross from a 4,700 foot mountain ridge in the Naga hills of Burma.
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