The Marine Corps and Close Air Support is a 1950s U.S. Marine Corps film about the development and use of close air support in WWII and Korea. The film takes us through the story of the “high-hitting effectiveness of what pilots call a ‘Sunday punch’ in the days following D-Day.”

As the film explains, during WWII the Marine Corps perfected the 3-armed support in collaboration with the U.S. Navy, using artillery, naval gun fire, and air support. There is footage of several different aircraft: the Grumman F9F Panther jet fighter/bomber (2:10) dropping napalm and the Vought F4U Corsair fighter/bomber (3:52). Here the footage is fairly generic — some of it is clearly from a training exercise while some of it is from WWII (including Okinawa) or Korea. It includes shots of various islands and objectives, and shows pilots laying down bombs, napalm, gunfire and rockets (5:50) as directed by forward troops. At 5:00, there is a clip of the deck of an aircraft carrier with jets taking off. The film concludes with footage of Baker Company on D-Day plus 5 (7:52) and how a forward air controller on the ground coordinates air support. You will also see a ground tactical air direction center and shots of pilots in their cockpits.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com