This WWII newsreel dates to 1944 and includes various segments, including coverage (around 15 minute mark) of Operation Market Garden. The film begins in the Pacific with footage of vehicles being waterproofed with asbestos grease, and then shows the invasion underway. General Douglas MacArthur makes an appearance, inspecting the newly-conquered island. In another segment, B-29s are shown in operation in India against Japanese positions in Sumatra, Japan and China as part of the 20th Bomber Command. The newsreel continues with coverage of the capture of the French port of Boulogne, which fell on the 20th of September, and Le Havre. More than 7,000 German prisoners are shown as the Allied Armies drive on towards Germany. The American 1st Army is shown at Aachen and assaulting the Siegfried Line. German heavy emplacements and pillboxes are shown. The British 2nd Army’s drive at Nijmegen and Eindhoven is also shown. During September 1944, the city saw heavy fighting during Operation Market Garden. The objective in Nijmegen was mainly to prevent the Germans from destroying the bridges. Capturing the road bridge allowed the British Army XXX Corps to attempt to reach the 1st British Airborne Division in Arnhem. The bridge was heavily defended by over 300 German troops on both the north and south sides with close to 20 anti-tank guns and two anti-aircraft guns, supported with artillery.
The Germans’ late attempt to blow the road bridge was probably foiled by a local Dutch resistance hero, Jan van Hoof, who is said to have cut the wires to the bridge.
The Germans made repeated attacks on the bridge using bombs attached to driftwood, midget submarines and later resorted to shelling the bridge with 88mm barrages. Troops were positioned on the bridge giving an excellent arc of fire in case of attack. Troops that couldn’t fit onto the bridge were positioned in a bombed-out house slightly upstream of the bridge. During the shelling, the house was hit, killing six soldiers and wounding one more.
Nijmegen was liberated from German captivity by the British Grenadier Guards of the Guards Armoured Division, as well as elements of the American 82nd Airborne Division in September 1944. This city would later be used as a springboard for Operation Veritable, the invasion across the Rhine River by Allied Troops.
Morotai Island (Indonesian: Pulau Morotai) is an island in the Halmahera group of eastern Indonesia’s Maluku Islands (Moluccas). It is one of Indonesia’s northernmost islands.
Morotai is a rugged, forested island lying to the north of Halmahera. It has an area of some 1,800 square kilometres (690 sq mi), stretching 80 kilometres (50 mi) north-south and no more than 42 kilometres (26 mi) wide. The island’s largest town is Daruba, on the islands south coast. Almost all of Morotai’s numerous villages are coastal settlements; a paved road linking those on the east coast starts from Daruba and will eventually reach Berebere, the principal town on Morotai’s east coast, 68 kilometres (42 mi) from Daruba.[citation needed] Between Halmahera and the islets and reefs of the west coast of Morotai is the Morotai Strait, which is about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) wide.
The Empire of Japan invaded Morotai early in 1942 as part of its Dutch East Indies Campaign. US forces and their allies counter-attacked by launching the Battle of Morotai in 1944; bombing the island in August and invading it in September. Imperial Japanese forces on Morotai held out until 1945 but failed to expel the Allied invaders. In the latter part of 1944, 61,000 personnel landed on Morotai.[2] Two thirds of them were engineers, who rapidly established facilities including harbours and two airstrips[2] plus extensive fuel stores.
The formal surrender of the Second Japanese Army took place at Morotai on 9 September 1945.
The last Japanese holdout from the war, Private Teruo Nakamura (Amis: Attun Palalin), was discovered by the Indonesian Air Force on Morotai, and surrendered to a search patrol on December 18, 1974.
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