U.S. Coast Guard Motion Picture Digest May 1945 is a silent newsreel-style film of the events of World War II in April and May 1945 that involved the U.S. Coast Guard. The first clip is of the damage done by “fire and exploding ammunition stowed on [the] tank deck aboard LST 884.” The ship was hit by a Japanese kamikaze plane near Okinawa on 1 April 1945. Viewers see the damage caused by the hit, as well as a soldier washing a small dog in a washbasin. In the next clip, SPARs (Coast Guard women—the name stems from the branch’s motto, semper paratus or “always ready”) walk through Aiea Hospital in Honolulu and visit the wounded men there (01:33). On 8 April in Okinawa, Coast Guard men help unload boxes of supplies from a ship. The clip shows some men digging foxholes. The next segment shows American citizens (mainly of Japanese heritage) en route to the U.S. aboard the USS Admiral Eberle. Recently liberated from internment camps, the American citizens are entertained by the 11th ND Coast Guard Band; men and women dance on the deck of the ship to the band’s music (04:55). Men aboard the USCGC Tupelo place a massive buoy in Sumay Harbor, Guam on 16 April (06:06). After the buoy is placed, its massive anchor is maneuvered off the cutter. A Coast Guard-manned LST flotilla makes its way to Ulithi after the Okinawa invasion (08:06); men make onboard repairs of an LST as the flotilla sails. LST 887 takes on supplies from AKA 106 in Ulithi on 25 April 1945 (09:43). A Coast Guard-manned FS (freight and supply Army ship) is loaded with trucks and barrels while at San Pedro Bay, Leyte (10:27). The film then shows Americans in Times Square on 7 May celebrating VE Day (11:59). In the next clip, viewers see the surrender of the German submarine U-858 off Cape May. Members of the press and photographers are carried on USCGCs Nike and Pandora. A dirigible flies above the the sub. The German prisoners are searched as they are taken aboard a U.S. ship. U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Comdr. R. Edge, makes a documentary recording of the surrender of Germany’s U-805 submarine near Casco Bay on 17 May (15:43). Edge narrates the events into a microphone. U.S. troops guard the German prisoners. In New York City, Rear Admiral Reid awards decorations to Coast Guard officers and men of the destroyer escorts Pride, Mosley, Menges, and Lowe for breaking up a German submarine offensive during the final stages of the war. The film then shows air-sea rescue tests of the Army’s 85-foot rescue boats off Key West, Florida (18:57). The boats fly across the water. The USS Wakefield returns from the Mediterranean with 6,000 troops of the 15th Air Force; the ship arrives in Boston on 26 May 1945 (19:40), where it docks, ending the film.

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