Conquer by the Clock (1943) is a powerful World War II propaganda short produced by RKO-Pathe and directed by Slavko Vorkapich.
This 10-minute black-and-white film urged American wartime workers to value every second, linking industrial productivity directly to victory on the battlefield. Through gripping montage editing and dramatic narration, it showed how a few wasted minutes could cost soldiers’ lives.
Highlights:
Rare WWII U.S. government propaganda short
Montage style by legendary director Slavko Vorkapich
Focus on industrial & agricultural production during wartime
Public domain historical footage – free to watch and share
📜 Public Domain: This film is in the public domain and may be freely viewed, shared, or reused.
Keywords: WWII propaganda, World War II documentary, wartime production, industrial mobilization, Rosie the Riveter, public domain film, vintage newsreel, history archive, 1940s short film.
00:3848 United States of a free and sovereign America
00:45Are at war
00:46Every American has his job to do
00:49And the will to do it
00:50And the tools to do it with
00:52Pray God he also has the time
00:56Time the most vital natural resource
00:59Of a country at war
01:00Every tick of the clock
01:02Is time won or lost
01:04Every 60 minute sweep
01:06Every 12 hour tour
01:07Of those relentless hands
01:08Is turning out carload lots of time
01:10For us to use ourselves
01:12Or to give away to the enemy
01:15All the scientific devices of chronology
01:39Are machines manufacturing time
01:42The tool that in our hands means victory
01:44And our hands must be as relentless
01:47As the hands of our clocks
01:49They cannot afford to be less
01:51Sunrise over Republic Steel
02:00High noon at Willow Run
02:04Sunfall on the Electric Boat Company
02:07Midnight at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
02:11Dawn to dust
02:13And back to dawn again
02:14Three 8 hour shifts
02:16One day
02:17So much can be done in a day
02:19If Americans will keep their sleeves rolled up
02:22Inside of 24 hours
02:26One 20th of a freighter
02:28Or a tanker can be built
02:30Within those same 24 hours
02:32A squadron of tanks
02:33Can roll off the assembly line
02:35And a flight of bombers
02:36Can be made ready
02:37From radio to rudder boat
02:39In one day
02:40A thousand acres of corn
02:41Can become 30,000 bushels of food
02:44In one day
02:45One plant unit
02:46Can turn out enough rifles
02:48To equip a battalion of infantry
02:50The men who
02:51In one day
02:52Might win a war
02:53Or lose it
02:54How?
02:57Well
02:57Let's visit upstate
02:59At a factory
03:00Where they make
03:0030 caliber rifle cartridges
03:02For the army
03:03Let's visit Jean
03:05One of the girls
03:06Who inspects these cartridges
03:07Before their ship
03:08She's a good kid
03:09Loves her country
03:10And a guy named Joe
03:12He gave her that pin
03:13She's wearing
03:14Before he went to Australia
03:15She's a good kid
03:16Honest
03:17Intelligent
03:18But she gets tired
03:19In the afternoon
03:20Sometimes
03:20Likes to take extra time
03:22Off for a smoke
03:23That's all
03:24Only a few minutes
03:25A few minutes
03:26It only takes a second
03:27To jar the primer
03:28Out of a cartridge
03:28And it only takes a second
03:32To put an okay ticket
03:33On a lot
03:34That should have been rejected
03:35A cartridge without a primer
03:40Is one that will never fire
03:41It's about as useful
03:43In a rifle
03:44As a cigarette
03:45Or as the minutes
03:46That go up
03:47In its smoke
03:48One bad cartridge
03:49One chance in a million
03:51To get by undetected
03:52One second in 60
03:54One girl
03:55Out of a hundred
03:56Who is an honest
03:57Patriotic
03:58Intelligent
03:59Saboteur
04:00Yes, Jean is intelligent
04:16Intelligent enough to know
04:17That one of these bullets
04:18In good condition
04:19Can travel three miles
04:20But she doesn't know
04:22That a defective one
04:23Can go halfway
04:24Around the world
04:25Somewhere in the Pacific
04:27Somewhere between the devil
04:29And the Dutch East Indies
04:30Is on an American
04:31Scouting patrol
04:32There, there is no
04:34I want to go
04:34I want to walk
04:35N
04:44The
04:45And
04:45THE END
05:15THE END
05:45THE END
05:47Too bad about that cartridge missing fire. It should have been rejected. It would have been, too, if a girl named Jean hadn't taken time out to smoke.
05:59Now meet J.G., general manager of a large wholesale food house. Makes $12,000 a year. Worn a white collar all his life. That is, except for the cocky one he wore in 1918.
06:13Tried to get in this scrap after Pearl Harbor. But they said his son could handle the fighting orders and he could go on taking food orders. Like this. 50 cases of 14A1. That's code for lifeboat provisions.
06:27Notify Martin. That means ship on Monday. Too old. Too old to fight. But not too old to work yourself silly. Trying to get out orders and priorities on time. Time. Holy mackerel. It's 2.30.
06:57Engagement with a couple of guys. Important engagement with a couple of guys. A couple of guys on the home team. Well, they are leading the league. And it's his first Saturday off in 4 months.
07:09And there's nothing that can't wait nine innings. Nothing, that is, except time. Time and tides. And convoys. A change in sailing orders. And an urgent wire in codes. Lifeboat supplies to be shipped at once. Shipped by a man who is busy coaching at first base. Unfortunately, a convoy can't wait for the last inning. A convoy waits for the tide. And the tide waits for no man.
07:33Standing beside a lifeboat only partly provision. Six American fliers sail for Ireland. In convoy. On a freighter that falls behind its escort. It's an old story.
07:47Six men sailed for Ireland. Two of them got there. One of them out of his mind. The other one dead. Twenty-five days in a boat provisioned for ten days.
08:10The tide rolls in, J.G., and the clock ticks on. And neither one, in peace or war, will wait for nine innings.
08:22The state of North Australia is 23 time zones away from the state of Michigan.
08:33But the clock on the cockpit of the plane over Darwin and the watch on the wrist of the officer in New Guinea are synchronized with the clock at the door of the factory in Detroit and geared to the clock over the water cooler in Kalamazoo.
08:44The production rate of our factories and the firing rate of our guns is synchronized by one machine, the clock.
08:52This is the machine that manufactures victory, turning out 32 and a half million seconds each year.
08:59Each separate take, a precious tool to use in building our future.
09:03And you, these are your tools, your hands. And they must be as relentless as the hands of your clocks. If we are to conquer, they cannot afford to be less.
Be the first to comment