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.
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.
U.S. military trucks, part of a convoy of 113 vehicles, led by Brigadier General Lewis Andrew Pick, are seen traversing the Ledo Road (aka the Stilwell Road) approaching their final destination of Kunming, China, on February 4, 1945, during World War 2. (They departed Ledo, India, on January 12, 1945, traveling a distance of 1,079 miles.) (Narrator gives distance as 1,044 miles.) View from an overflying airplane shows the long column of trucks on the road below. View from the ground, of the convoy reaching the city gates, where it halts as General Pick and his staff proceed through the gates to a speaker's platform set up in a covered pavilion displaying American and Chinese flags, and pictures of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. General Pick and staff are introduced by Chinese General J.L. Wong who, speaking in English, celebrates this first convoy over the Ledo Road, and points to a banner containing four Chinese characters that spell out "The Road to Victory." General Pick takes the podium, shakes hands with General Wong, and accepts the banner from him. Camera shows the area completely filled with Chinese troops, witnessing the ceremony, including many sitting atop a nearby roof. General Pick speaks briefly, accepting the banner on behalf of the convoy members. He then leaves accompanied by the Governor of Yunnan Province, China. Officers cut a ceremonial ribbon across the road at the West Gate of the city, and the convoy is led into the city by two Chinese soldiers on motorcycles. Chinese spectators line the way and celebrate with firecrackers and cheers, as General Pick passes, standing in a jeep, displaying the Amercan flag and with the Chinese "Road to Victory" banner in its back seat. views of the convoy trucks proceeding through the city. Closeup of one, with a painting of the road, and snow capped mountains, and "First Convoy over the Ledo Road" and "Pick's Pike Life Line from India to China" painted on its canvas cover. A sign over one of the shops along the road reads in Chinese and English, "Welcome First Stilwell Highway Convoy." Views of troops waving from the trucks and Chinese citizen spectators crowding the sides of the road to watch.
American troops in their drive toward Manila, in 1945, during World War 2, pass several knocked out and burning Japanese Type 89 Chi-Ro tanks. A dead Japanese soldier, shot dead while trying to commit suicide, lies on the ground with an undetonated hand grenade in his mouth. U.S. M4A2 sherman III tanks and infantry of the XIV Corps moving on the Lingayen Plains Philippines, leading to the capital, Manila. U.S. armor towing artillery ford a stream, as they pass beneath framework of an apparently unusable bridge. A battery of U.S. M101 105mm Howitzer artillery pieces is set up and bombards the Clark Field area. One striking shell produces an explosion, fire and column of black smoke. U.S. troops ride forward atop tanks. Glimpse of one soldier with flamethrower tanks on his back. American tanks firing their guns. Destroyed Japanese aircraft on the ground. A soldier using a mine detector to sweep the area. He signals to another soldier who comes to probe the area with a long knife. Next a soldier is seen standing in a hole dug around a bomb Placed nose up under the ground by the Japanese. Soldiers pull it from the hole, using a rope. U.S. soldiers walk in area full of similar holes and bombs pulled from them. General Douglas MacArthur is seen, on January 26, 1945, walking among remains of Japanese aircraft at Clark Field. He visits the Filipino cemetery at Camp O'Donnell, which was a prisoner of war camp, considered the terminating point of the Bataan Death March, where some 20 thousand Filipinos and almost 2 thousand Americans died during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. MacArthur is seen standing by a large Christian Cross monument, and walks among untended graves marked with small wooden crosses. The Mount Pinatubo volcano is seen on the horizon in the background. MacArthur and those accompanying him walk around a large monument containing a placard written in tagolog. U.S. soldiers start a mortar barrage against Japanese forces dug in on "Hill 70." Infantrymen move through trees and brush to flush out the entrenched enemy. Glimpse of type of improvised device made of explosives and gasoline, that U.S. soldiers are using to drive Japanese troops out of their fortifications. As a soldier watches with binoculars, the camera records several of these devices exploding with great force. Glimpse of a dead Japanese soldier on the ground. U.S. troops ride atop an M18 Gun motor carriage of the 637th Tank Destroyer Battalion, as it crosses a river. American tanks and infantry moving cautiously across a bridge as shells explode ahead of them. Tanks firing at Japanese troops entrenched in hillside above a road. Large numbers of American infantry marching along a road accompanied by tanks. Areas around them burning from fires set by retreating Japanese forces.
Map points to Allied positions during Battle of the Bulge in World War II. British soldiers walk in a trench on the prong of the attack south of La Roche en Ardenne (La Roche-en-Ardenne or sometimes just Laroche). Trench in the snow covered area. British soldiers wear warm clothes and try to stay warm in the trench. British soldier knocks hole in ice and draws water into a bucket. British soldiers wash and shave with the freezing water. They heat water and use it to make cups of tea. They move on tanks to location where British and American forces meet and greet. The soldiers talk amongst themselves. On 14 January 1945 armored recce cars of the 2nd Derbyshire Yeomanry, 51st Highland Division, meet GI's of the 347th Infantry, 87th U.S. Infantry Division, near Ortheuville. The first link up between troops of VIII Corps and British 30 Corps. Another encounter between British soldiers, dressed in white camouflage smocks, with Americans of the 87th U.S. Infantry Division at Champlon. Later that same day. Field Marshal Montgomery wearing a new beret, commands the northern forces. British soldiers advance on a roadway and supplies move on vehicles. Houses in the background. U.S. 3rd Army soldiers shovel snow during a blizzard, clearing the way for trucks with supplies and mail to pass. Large tractors with snow plow attachments clear snow. On January 14, 1945, American forces gently sweep snow from the bodies of American soldiers at Malmedy who had surrendered to the Germans a month prior but were then massacred. (These were mostly U.S. forces of the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion) German prisoners of war look on apprehensively as the Americans uncover the victims of the Malmedy Massacre. American soldiers look at from a snow covered hillside into the village of Houffalize in Belgium. A twisted sign for Houffalize is seen, and wreckage and destruction in the town. Close views of wrecked and burned homes in Houffalize. Destroyed tanks with one tipped in a river
U.S. Strategic bombing survey film about the situation in Japan after atomic bombing in World War 2. Film titled 'Effects of Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki'. Map of Japan. Location of Hiroshima. City of Hiroshima. Camera pans over view of the city of Hiroshima before the atomic bomb destroyed the city. Buildings and huts in city of Hiroshima pre-destruction. Portrayal of events on August 6, 1945: Sentry standing on a platform. Sentry stands near 'bell' air raid alarm. Sentry in dugout cave. Narrator relates that bomb was dropped. Still image of Hiroshima mushroom cloud explosion seen. Views of destroyed Hiroshima (from September 1945). Bomb damage to large concrete building. Ruins of the city. Damaged street cars in street. Hiroshima station. Hiroshima Prefecture office building damaged by blast. Damaged buildings. Statistics of casualty and damage.
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