Created exclusively for “the men and women of American industry” circa 1943, this official United States War Department Film, produced by the US Army Signal Corps, begins by taking the audience to the South Pacific, “where American planes, powered by high octane, serviced by billions of small parts from the factories of America, are delivering packages of death to the Japs, bombing the daylight out of the Rising Sun.”
With that dramatic introduction, bombers are shown at mark 01:00 firing their engines as they make their way toward Hansa Bay on the north coast of Papua, New Guinea, as they attack a Japanese naval base and transit station. That is followed by footage shot during a raid on Wewak, New Guinea, at mark 1:43 (in which 120 Japanese were touted as being destroyed, compared to only three American aircraft) and Rabul, New Britain (in New Guinea) at mark 2:42.
From there we are are introduced to the Guns Site Aiming Point (GSAP) camera at mark 04:15 — cameras that are synchronized with a plane’s guns. What follows are a few minutes of gun-sight view of Japanese targets as American aircraft engage in dogfights during a variety of missions.
By mark 6:06, we are returned to the ground and footage of Munda in the Solomon Islands. (In July and August 1943, Allied forces took the island from the Japanese). Over scenes of soldiers in action and working on the airfield, we hear a roll call of men assigned to the area. “The roll of honor goes on and on,” the viewer is told at mark 07:50. “At home or out yonder, when the roll is called the men of America answer and go to work. Build up and break down. That’s the story of war.”
Footage of men relaxing, reading letters from or writing letters to home, and attending religious services follows as they take a respite from the war, and the scene closes with the somber sound of Taps.
Come mark 10:49, we meet the Fifth Army and it’s commander, Lieutenant General Mark Clark, who is shown at mark 11:25, and action during the Invasion of Salerno on September 9, 1943. Jeeps, trucks, half-tracks, ducks, and soldiers on foot are seen making their way down dusty roads. They are greeted by throngs of cheering Italians, standing among the ruins of bombed-out buildings.
“The philosophy of this Italian campaign was … to expend American material instead of American men to beat back the Nazis. Use and use again, wherever possible, the products of the sweat of American workers instead of the blood of American doughboys,” it is said at mark at mark 13:47.
From there, the Fifth Army is shown on the move at mark 15:30 into Avellino in southern Italy, as we see a nearly deserted city, sans a lone child and a woman single-handedly carrying a family member’s casket. At mark 16:00, servicemen bury their own comrades in a solemn ceremony, before moving on to Benevento, northeast of Naples. “A nightmare city. Bombs, shells, gutted, pillaged. A death city. A city murdered by war,” it is said.
Clark appears once again at mark 18:33, who reminds troops (and the viewer) that whether it be on the road to Rome or the road to Berlin, “we face a desperate enemy who fights like a cornered rat.” The combat footage continues as Allied troops continue their march through Italy, Clark concludes, “An Army commander has many worries, but I have never been concerned with one thing: the steady flow of arms, munitions, and supplies from the industry and farms of Britain and America, and the constant encouragement from our homes which harken us to push forward to our final victory, which will be ours.”
And with that statement, this film comes to an end.
