In the U.S. military’s Combat Bulletin No. 40 from 1945, viewers see footage from the Allied forces attack on Manila Harbor, the first landing on Luzon, action along the Western Front and Alsace, the damage from a bombing campaign targeting the oil refinery at Merkwiller, a British carrier fleet attacking Sumatra, and Allied airstrikes on Celebes. The newsreel starts with carrier planes of the 3rd Fleet firing on the Japanese naval base in Manila Harbor. A plane fires at an above-ground oil tank (01:09). Allied aircraft strafe grounded Japanese planes. Then the newsreel takes viewers to the Allied landing on Luzon, first showing the fleet at sea (02:01) and fighting at night about six miles away from the cameraman. U.S. troops fire naval guns at Japanese targets (02:30). On 9 January, the 6th Army storms the beaches along the Lingayen coast with amphibious tanks and LCVPs. The American soldiers move inland toward the capital of Lingayen (03:33). Filipino laborers help U.S. forces expand a captured Japanese airstrip (04:07). The 37th Division moves inland on the Dagupan River (04:38). The 6th Army drives into liberated areas where civilians cheer the Americans. General Douglas MacArthur walks with his chief of staff Lt. Gen. Richard K Sutherland. The film shows a 1941 Japanese memorial in Damortis that was built in 1941 (06:03). U.S. troops fire mortars at Japanese forces as they push farther inland. Filipino guerillas are given grenades and shown how to use them. A soldier climbs a tree and hangs the American flag there. In the next segment, viewers see reinforcements of the 35th Division sit and listen to an officer speak about the men will soon face (07:11). Aerial footage shows tanks and troops moving across snow-covered fields (07:54). Two patrols near Houffalize meet in winter; the resort town is in ruins with destroyed tanks also littering its streets. Next, the 7th Army rides in tanks and personnel carriers (09:15) near Strasbourg. Several soldiers place charges on a bridge and blow it up. Other soldiers put TNT in an abandoned Nazi block house and detonate the explosives. Members of the 79th Infantry Division march on a rural road; they encounter action near Drusenheim as Nazi soldiers fire on the U.S. troops. The soldiers push across a bridge near Haguenau (11:25), and a tank follows, barely making it over the narrow bridge. The next segment shows aerial photographs and footage of the bomb damage of an oil refinery plant in Merkwiller. This is followed by a British carrier task force at sea (15:02); Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters and Grumman TBF Avenger bombers take off from the carriers, fly in formation, and bomb targets on Sumatra off in the distance. The planes return to the carriers and land, with several making crash landings (16:30). The final segment shows footage of B-25 bombers of the 38th Bomb Squadron bombing a Japanese airstrip near Sidate on Celebes on 29 December, using parachutes to slow the fall and detonation of the bombs, so as to give time for the B-25s to escape harm from the low-level bombing mission.
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