A World War II-era film shows Americans realize their war time obligations after the attack on Pearl Harbor and Fall of Corregidor in the Philippines. Crowds watch a marching band and newly enlisted soldiers in parade. A smiling woman waves at the marching soldiers. Women in car watch the parade. Tents in camp. Soldiers perform mass calisthenics and train with outdated tanks. Enlisted men learn how to fire machine guns and mortars. United State Army soldiers board a ship for their deployment. A ship departs for the Philippines. Soldiers arrive in the Philippines, a United States commonwealth in Asia. Japanese bombers drop bombs over Pearl Harbor. Civilians running on the streets during a Japanese aerial bombardment. United States Navy sailors firing machine guns and howitzers from ships. A ship explodes from Japanese bombing. A little girl runs to her father washing the car to tell the news about Pearl Harbor. The little girl runs across the street to tell her neighbor about Pearl Harbor. A woman writes a letter. A woman bakes a cake. People leave a church after service. An American soldier is shot by Japanese soldiers in the Philippines. A man reads a telegram. The man drives to a farm house, accompanied by a church minister. The man and minister tell the elderly couple living in the farm that their son was killed in action. Women selling war bonds on the street. A man silences his alarm clock and goes back to sleep. Cars racing on the street. Soldiers and civilians evacuating Manila. Japanese bombardment of Manila. A girl turns on the radio before Christmas dinner. Men and women congratulates a woman outside a law office. More civilians receive telegrams. Dead soldiers in the battlefield. A woman opens the Bible and writes the names of the dead. United States soldiers retreat in the Fall of Bataan. A woman shakes her head in disbelief after being told of a rumor her son was killed in action. A man hangs the United States flag on his porch. A bomb explodes near a makeshift tent hospital. Woman fixes bed. A woman eating on the dinner table alone. A soldier swats a mosquito from his neck in the Philippines. Forlorn men and women. Soldiers fighting in Corregidor. Soldiers surrender to the Japanese forces at Corregidor. A captured American soldier harasses a Japanese soldier while frisking him. He was apprehended by Japanese soldiers on guard. Despondent American civilians struggling after the Fall of Corregidor. A man despondently smokes from his bed. A depressed woman struggles to cut vegetables. A doctor treats civilians for shock and depression. A baseball game. A horse race. Boys playing on the beach. United States and Filipino soldiers march with United States and Philippine flags. People line up for blood donations. Civilians donate old rubber and hats. Men line up to punch their time in at work. Boys helping on the farms. Male teachers volunteer to fix civilians’ appliances and cars after school. A welder working at the shipyard. Civilians walking instead of using cars. An Allied plane landing. A woman sewing. A man opens a package of binoculars. People line up to buy war bonds. A majorette leading a marching band. Newly enlisted men with suitcases marching in parade.
Animated map shows New Guinea and Papau. Areas occupied by American and Australian Forces , seeking to dislodge Japanese Forces, at Buna and Gona, are shown. General Douglas MacArthur, arrives at Papua. He strolls through an American/Australian milltary camp in the jungle. He is dressed in a perfectly pressed uniform, smoking a cigar. (Narrator states he arrived to take personal charge of the offensive.) Closeup of MacArthur. American troops flown in from Australia, advance toward the Japanese positions at Buna. Another scene shows Australian troops making their way through jungles as they advance over the Owen-Stanley mountain range toward Gona. Australian troops fire mortars and one seen firing a Bren light machine gun. An American soldier firing an M1919 Browning machine gun. More views of Allied soldiers firing rifles and machine guns, including a water-cooled Browning M1917 gun. A bomb or shell explodes at a Japanese position. Scene shifts to Allied Military Headquarters in New Guinea, where staff plot information on large status maps about Japanese reinforcements arriving in the Bismark Sea, to bolster the enemy’s defenses. An Australian pilot runs to his Spitfire airplane, and American pilots rush to their B-25 Mitchell bomber, named “Dirty Dora.” An Australian Douglas A-26 invader airplane taking off. The B-25, Mitchell bomber (Dirty Dora) taking off. A USAAF B-17 Flying Fortress bomber taking off. More Allied aircraft taking off and in flight, including a formation of Australian A-26 invader airplanes. An Australian Airspeed Oxford training aircraft is seen diving . View from cockpit of an A-26 Invader airplane firing machine guns at Japanese ship. View of Allied warplane dropping bombto skip a Japanese ship. Bombs explode. Aircraft strafing Japanese ship. Various views of smoke rising from struck many Japanese ships. (World War II; WW II; World War 2; World War Two)
Opening scene shows Emperor Hirohito of Japan dressed in military uniform, astride a white horse, riding along a path, followed by military officers. (Narrator cites Japanese declaration of war against the U.S. and Britain on December 7, 1941.) Japanese soldiers in two groups engage in local war games against each other. Animated map shows Japan and the expansion of her influence and military presence throughout the Pacific. Aerial view through scattered clouds, of Japanese fleet of warships. Aerial view of American warplanes in formation through scattered clouds. Closeup from cockpit of a U.S. A-20 Havoc aircraft, showing its left engine and prop and a second A-20 flying to its left in close formation. Swerving wake of a Japanese warship engaged in evasive maneuvers on surface of the sea, below. Several scenes of U.S. aircraft strafing Japanese warships. Aerial view from a U.S. B-25, flying above Japanese ships, of another B-25, with its bomb bay doors open as it launches a torpedo. Japanese ship is struck, explodes, and sinks stern first. Glimpse of more Japanese ships in a convoy.
People celebrate the Shichi-Go-San (lit. "Seven-Five-Three") Festival for young children at a Shinto shrine in Japan. Parents take their children, mostly girls, to a Shinto shrine for a Shichi-Go-San ritual. Two Japanese little girls wearing kimono visit the Shinto shrine for the Shichi-Go-San Festival. A Japanese boy wearing a hakama holding his sister wearing a kimono. Japanese mother accompanies her young daughters to the shrine. Little girl takes off her Zōri sandals while her mother removes her geta sandals as they enter the shrine. Japanese Shinto priest bestows blessings to the children in attendance. Scene changes to a traditional Japanese Shinto wedding. A wedding takes place inside a Shinto shrine hall. Two Miko (Shinto shrine maidens) bowing. A Shinto priest reads from a scroll to call on Shinto spirits in front of a wedding altar. Food items in boxes are left at a ceremonial wedding altar. A Shinto priest pours sake into cups held by the two Miko. Shinto priest performs the san-san-ku-do ceremony with the couple during the wedding. Miko pours sake for the groom. Groom drinks sake during the wedding. Japanese bride receives sake from a Miko. Bride bows after drinking her sake. Japanese bride and groom sit together behind the Shinto priest.
Pan of a military compound. A Unit of cavalry, carrying the flag of Manchukuo, exits a military base. A wind sock flies in breeze at airbase. Two Japanese military biplane aircraft take off. Japanese flag flying on very high flag pole. A well-tended military building, with sand bagged sentry post at the entrance. Japanese officers on horseback observe a troop of cavalry parading loosely along a dirt street. They carry the Japanese flag. Closeup of the senior officer saluting the passing troop. A line of Japanese Type 94 tankettes moves along a dirt street. Horses being loaded on a wooden ferry for transport across a river, as a type 94 tankette enters the water and proceeds along the river. vies of the flat ferry carrying the horses. three tankettes moving along in the river. A train at station platform. Japanese soldiers and others on the platform. Sign at station reads Manchuria, in Cyrillic and Chinese. Manchukuo flag atop train station building. A beach scene, with hills across the water. A sentry on a lookout tower atop a building. Mounted Japanese cavalrymen with their officers on a hill overlooking the water.
View of Naha, the capital of Okinawa Island in Japan. Cars drive along the streets of Naha. Shop signs written in Japanese are seen on Kokusai-dori Street. Japanese pedestrians walk on Kokusai-dori. Shoppers enter the Mitsukoshi Department store. Shop signs read “Okinawa Bird Center”, “Kokusai Watch Store”, “Noritake Naha China Shop”, “Bank of the Ryukyus” and “Souvenir Stores Fuji Omiyage”. Beauty salon sign in Japanese reads “Perm Beauty Salon Moriyama”. A woman buying mandarin oranges from a fruit store. Hands open a pack of chopsticks before eating a Chinese meal (beef broccoli, fried rice and egg rolls). Women walk past Johnny’s Gift Store in Naha. A Japanese movie poster hangs outside a building. Elderly Japanese men and women walking on the street. Groups of male and female High School students cross the road. Japanese salarymen wearing sunglasses cross the road. Farmers working on the field. A mother holding her baby on the street. A man browses for sunglasses from a street vendor. A Japanese Office Lady (OL) typing on a typewriter. Fishermen with net. A mason chiseling a rock. A construction worker operating a digger. A lineman working on powerlines.