U.S. Coast Guard Motion Picture Digest June 1945 No. 2 is a silent newsreel-style film of the events of World War II in May and June 1945 that involved the U.S. Coast Guard. Fully loaded Coast Guard-manned FSs (freight and supply Army ships) leave Leyte and head for northern Mindanao. The ships slowly leave Leyte’s harbor (00:33) on 8 May 1945. A monkey sits on a ladder of one of the ships. A member of the crew charts the ship’s course. The FSs arrive at the Bay of Macajalar, Mindanao. Smoke billows beyond the beach from bombs dropped on nearby mountains (02:16). USCGC Ingham serves as the communications flagship for operations off northern Mindanao (02:55); the ship sits in the harbor, and a PBY Catalina seaplane moves on the water beside the ship. A crane moves 83-foot Coast Guard patrol boats off of the Liberty near Guiuan, Philippines (03:35). Coast Guard-manned LST 21, which participated in Operation Overlord, arrives in New York City after 22 months of duty in European waters (05:00); the ship is shown sitting at a dock and members of the crew pose for pictures and read a newspaper featuring front-page coverage of the Okinawa landings. Rear Admirals L.T. Chalker and J. Pine review the cadet battalion during the Sixtieth Commencement Exercises at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy on 6 June 1945 (06:52). Cadets walk across the stage during graduation. The film then shows shots of marquee boards and movie posters for To the Shores of Iwo Jima, the joint motion-picture project of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, which opens in all major theatres on 7 June 1945. Next, viewers are taken to a War Bond Rally at Rockefeller Plaza, where Rear Admiral Stanley V. Parker presents a medal to H.D. Shank, G.M.2c. of Dayton, OH for his valor in the Normandy Invasion (08:59). At the U.S. Coast Guard training station in Manhattan Beach, 300 men, all volunteers, are trained by Captain of the Port instructors for duty aboard the 40-foot fire boats. The fire boats maneuver on the water and spray water from their mounted water cannons (10:01). The USCGC Icarus is converted for air-sea rescue duty at the Coast Guard’s St. George Depot on Staten Island, NY (11:25). A crane moves metal parts onto the ship for the modifications. Also at the St. George Depot, men paint the USCGC Thetis with identification markings for air-sea rescue work (12:55) and install a 24-inch search light (13:55). Ann Sheridan and Eddie Cantor are greeted by Capt. John S. Baylis as they arrive for the broadcasting of their regular program (presumably “The Eddie Cantor Show”) at the Manhattan Beach training station (15:00). Various rescue devices are tested aboard CG 83457 off Key West, Florida on 13 June 1945. The cutter approaches a man in a small floatation device, and the crew practices the rescue operation (15:36). Men use chain link fencing to catch and raise up a small boat. The film concludes with the testing of a hydraulic crane on a 62-foot Navy rescue boat (18:08).
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