This U.S. Navy film traces the history of U.S. missile development up until 1958. It includes footage from World War II of the BAT, a small guided missile for anti-ship use. It also features footage of: the JB-1 Loon (a submarine-launched version of the German V-1 Buzz Bomb), the Terrier, the Talos, Polaris, Bullpup, the V-2 missile, the Regulus I, the Regulus II, and the Sidewinder. It also includes footage of the Naval Research Laboratory NRL, the Naval Missile Test Center at Point Mugu in California, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, and the Martin corporation where missiles and components are designed, built and tested. Ships that are seen include the guided missile cruiser USS Long Beach CGN-9, aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower CVN-69, USS Nimitz CV-41, USS Randolph CV-15, USS Forrestal CV-59, the submarines USS Tunny SS-282, USS Cusk SS-348, and the USS Grayback SSG-574. The Demon fighter and other aircraft of the period are shown, and a B-17 being used as a target drone.
This early 1960s color US Navy film is titled “Missiles of the Navy” and opens with a series of launches and the promises that these weapons are bringing great changes to naval warfare. The film opens with the supercarrier USS Forestal (CA-59) shown at sea as crew members work on AAM-N-6 Sparrow III air-to-air missiles in the carrier’s ordnance rooms before sending them topside for placement on a McDonnell F3H Demon fighter. “In today’s fighter, the pilot’s world of space, time, and speed is reduced to instrument readings in his cockpit, telling him there’s a target, it’s bearing, and speed,” it is explained beginning at mark 01:48. After being launched, a Sparrow III conducts onboard computations before a target down meets its destruction at mark 02:17. As an attack bomber leaves the deck of the USS Randolph (CV-15), we learn its payload is the AGM-12 Bullpup air-to-ground missile, with that missile later reaching its ground target with deadly accuracy.
Naval missiles are not confined to warplanes, we are told at mark 03:15, as a Navy rocket engine is seen firing in a desert setting, a Polaris missiles screeches skyward from an underwater setting, and an RIM-8 Talos surface-to-air missile is unveiled as part of the weaponry aboard a cruiser. “In a relatively short period of time, the missile has become an astonishingly potent force in the fleet.”
At mark 05:00, the film takes the viewer back in time to 1947 with a brief look at Operation Sandy, the codename for the post-World War II launch of a captured V-2 rocket from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Midway on September 6, 1947. (It marked the first launch of a large rocket, and the only time for a V-2, from a ship at sea.) We also see a firing of a LTV-N-2 Loon missile, the American copy of a German V-1 missile.
After commenting on inherent problems from the early days of the ballistic missile program, such as dealing with their size, addressing safety issues onboard ships, and maintaining their reliability, the film takes us to the US Naval Research Laboratory, where scientists, engineers, and technicians are shown working to solve such problems. At mark 09:00, we are told of ongoing tests including those on the Polaris missiles at the Atlantic Missile Range at Cape Canaveral, Florida and of Talos testing at the White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico. A short-range AIM-9 Sidewinder missile, which targets the heat generated by an aircraft, is introduced at mark 10:35. (The weapon one of the most widely used missiles in the world.) Navigational work on missiles is shown taking place onboard the USS Compass Island (AG-153) at mark 13:20. The vessel was one of two ships converted and classified as navigational research test vessels under the Polaris Missile system budget.
At mark 16:20, the film shows drawing of a yet-to-be constructed atomic-powered submarine that will carry Polaris, the narrator explains. “The Navy’s missile program in the last decade has taken great strides. At the same time it must be pointed out that this program has required human and physical resources which are not inexpensive commodities,” he says, adding that the program was helping maintain Naval superiority on the seas.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
