Colour of War: The American Story

18 minutes - The Japanese attack on Midway in June 1942, filmed as it happened.

82 minutes

Combat America was a 1943 film produced by the United States Army Air Forces and starring Clark Gable. The film is unique among military documentaries of the period, for it contains very little actual combat footage. Instead, the focus is almost entirely oriented to life back at their base in England. The films "plot" begins when the Henry H. Arnold, Chief of Staff of the US Army Air Force commissions Clark Gable to make a movie about a specific squadron, the 351st Bombardment Group. We see the men of the squadron as they are about to leave for Britain, flying over mountains and getting their last look at America, the narrator reminding the audience that this is what they are fighting for. Once they reach England by plane, they get settled at an RAF base and try to adjust to the local customs, particularly the monetary differences. There is no combat footage until three-quarters of the way into the movie, instead life at the base is chronicled, interrupted by short humorous vignettes starring Gable and the airmen, inclding an interview with one wounded airmen and his nurse. The battles are presented through the eyes of the air crew, watching the pilots take off in the planes they have worked on, then anxiously counting them when they return to make sure they all got back, and if not, whose was missing. The progress of the war is marked by a wall poster with names of bombed targets being added and swastica stickers beside them to indicate confirmed kills. Only at the end is footage taking during a raid of Nazi occupied Europe incorporated into the film with some interesting footage of a couple of ME. 109s being shot down.

Report From the Aleutians is a documentary propaganda film produced by the U.S. Army Signal Corps about the Aleutian Islands Campaign during World War II. It was directed and narrated by John Huston. In contrast to the other technicolor films made in the Pacific war, Report from the Aleutians has relatively little combat footage, and instead concentrates on the daily lives of the servicemen on Adak Island, as they live and work there while flying missions over nearby Kiska. The film opens with a map showing the strategic importance of the island, and the thrust of the 1942 Japanese offensive into Midway and Dutch Harbor. Photographs of the pilots who beat the Japanese back at Dutch Harbor are passed before the camera. "There is no monument to these men. If you want to see their monument, look around you." The American forces dug in at Adak Island, and there commenced daily bombing missions over the Japanese who had taken Kiska. The film focuses on their routine activities such as harbor patrols, messes, news boards and mail call. "Ask any pilot. He'd tell you he'd gladly fly an extra trip over Kiska to get just one letter." One pilot's crash landing is shown, and his funeral is filmed. The last twenty minutes or so of the film is taken from footage taken over a mission over Japanese positions. The monotony of the one hour trip there is emphasised, noting that some have taken up "mental solitaire" on the way over. But at Kiska there is no lack of excitement, as several loads of bombs are dropped over the Japanese, and fire is exchanged by the tailgunner. At the end of the film the servicemen at Adak are shown rejoicing that all of their comrades have returned.

he Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress is a 1944 documentary film which ostensibly provides an account of the final mission of the Memphis Belle, a B-17 Flying Fortress. In May 1943 it became the first U.S. Army Air Forces heavy bomber to complete 25 missions over Europe and return to the United States. The dramatic 16 mm color film of actual battles was made by cinematographer First Lieutenant Harold J. Tannenbaum. The film was directed by Major William Wyler, narrated by Eugene Kern, and had scenes at its Bassingbourn base photographed by Hollywood cinematographer Captain William H. Clothier. It was made under the auspices of the First Motion Picture Unit, a branch of the United States Army Air Forces. The film actually depicted the next to last mission of the crew on May 15, 1943, and was made as a morale-building inspiration for the Home Front by showing the everyday courage of the men who manned these planes.

Thunderbolt! was a 1947 film documenting the American aerial operations of Operation Strangle in early 1944, when American flyers based on Corsica successfully impeded Axis supply lines to the Gustav line and Anzio beachhead. The film begins with an introduction by James Stewart, who notes that the footage was shot in 1944, "ancient history", and reads a message from the commander that, even though the units in the picture happen to be American, it could easily have been an RAF mission, and indeed belongs to all people who desire freedom. The narrative begins by showing desolate areas of Italy, noting that this was the fulfilment of the promise of Fascism, an idea dedicated to the proposition that some men are meant to be the slaves of others. The film next brings the audience to Corsica, introducing us to members of the squadron in question and then tells us the objectives of the mission by way of an after-breakfast briefing that merges into an animated map of Italy showing the allies stuck at the Gustav line, and the mission to cut of the supply lines by destoying bridges and roads in northern Italy. Next the film follows the airmen through the tense moments before the flight, and the long journey to the mainland while flying in formation. The pilots are shown finding their target, a bridge, and successfully taking it out; then they go on independent "strafing" activities, finding trains, lighthouses, anything that could be used by the enemy and destroying it. When the pilots return, the film shows how the airmen try to relax in the makeshift community in Corsica; but it also takes a melancholy look into how some of them are getting along emotionally, thinking of what else they could be doing with "the best years of their lives". Thunderbolt! ends when the Allies break the Gotha line in May of 1944, liberating Rome. The narrators note that it is the "evening" of the mission in Corsica, but not the end of the war. At the end the words "THE END" appea