1944 WAR DEPARTMENT REPORT GRAN SASSO RAID AXIS MILITARY STRENGTH WWII SUPPLY & LOGISTICS 86334

Want to support this channel and help us preserve old films? Visit Consider becoming a channel member Dating to early 1944 and prior to the D-Day invasion, this WWII newsreel prepared by the Office of Strategic Services assesses enemy strength, and looks at grand strategy, production and logistics, showing what has been accomplished so far -- and what sacrifices will need to be made to ensure victory. Opening titles:(:07-1:20). September 12, 1943, German paratroopers free Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in the Gran Sasso Raid. The German Fallschirmjäger led by Major Harald Mors and Waffen-SS commandos. An exultant but diminished Mussolini visits with Adolf Hitler (1:21-3:23). Footage shows Hitler with the Japanese representative Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka (4:40). OSS assessment of enemy strength. Newsreel footage shows Japanese Army troops, then Japanese aircraft carriers heading for Pearl Harbor in December 1941 (3:24-5:25). Bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. English headline reads: U.S. Pacific Fleet Annihilated! Graphic montage shows Japanese military offensive (5:26-7:04). Montage of Japanese industry, factories and armament production, military activities, etc. A map shows Japan’s bases in the South Pacific and the start of American resistance to the enemy onslaught including the victory at Midway (7:05-9:19). Shots of dead Japanese soldiers and American Marines. At (9:35) the hand of a dead German trooper, adorned with a Nazi ring, is shown. At 9:39, rows of German graves. German forces are shown surrendering in Russia. Montage of German troops advancing. Diagram explains German losses in graphic fashion (9:20-11:03) and explain what constitutes a single division. War workers in Germany, including forced laborers. National Socialist party / Nazi labor rally. Discussion of food allocation in Germany -- those who are party members or soldiers have access to food, those who resist the Nazis starve. German coal mine (12:36), steel, oil, rubber production. Munitions factory at work (11:04-13:06). U-boat is launched. New locomotives (14:11). New Panzer tanks. Focke-Wulf Fw 190 being built (13:07-15:08). Slave labor builds defensive structures along the Atlantic Wall. German artillery and pillboxes (15:09-17:04). Now, the report switches to the war against Japan, with focus on supplies and logistics. Boxes of supplies piled high including c-rations (18:33). Supreme Commander General Eisenhower is shown while the narrator discusses all the material needed to fight the war. Sunken ship (19:24). Plane crashes on landing (19:30). Wrecked jeeps, kubelwagens, trucks, sunken tanks (19:45) and other vehicles. Crane moves supplies off a ship (18:43-20:15). Free French troops, supplied by USA. P-39 aircraft for the Soviet Air Force. (20:16-21:59). Nazi U-boats in wolfpacks during the Battle of the Atlantic. Depth charges dropped against them (22:00-23:27). Animation shows American supplies needed in the Pacific (23:27-24:56). C-47 Hells Bells (24:40). Movement of oil, gasoline, ammunition. B-17 bombers drop bombs over Germany (24:57-26:48). German aircraft factories. Fire seen from the air. German ball bearing plant is bombed. Wrecked German airport (27:36).Destroyed American aircraft are recycled by the Germans (29:50). Injured U.S. air crew are taken off their planes (30:09). Animation shows the overall USA strategy in the Pacific (30:46). U.S. forces in Aleutians and New Guinea. A runway is built with Marston Mat (32:20). Stencil is used to paint kills on the side of a fighter (33:00). Airplanes flying the Hump into China. Animated map of Siberia shows how the Soviets could use airbases in the Far East to bomb Japan (34:33-35:31). Unstoppable horde of American forces on the move, making an amphibious landing unopposed (37:22). Troops dig fox holes, engineers sweep for land mines (39:05). Montage shows aftermath of an amphibious assault with damaged LCIs and an LST on fire (40:30). Dead and injured being carried (39:06-41:10). Robert Porter Patterson Sr., Undersecretary of War, speaks about the future of the war. Discussion of the assault on Sicily, which can be used as an example of what might be involved in an invasion of continental Europe. Reminder of Axis atrocities: American General Wainwright, who along with Americans in the Philippines endured the Bataan Death March. Pearl Harbor. Civilians executed.. Russians hanged by the Nazis. Naples post office blown up, dead women and children. Moscow Conference shows the Allies working together. Soldiers walk over a swastika emblem (45:30). End credits (46:02-46:08). 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