- 11 hours ago
This military documentary presents life aboard an American aircraft carrier -- later revealed to be the USS Yorktown -- operating in the Pacific theater during World War II. Filmed in color and incorporating the inventive use of gun-mounted cameras, the production depicts both the daily routines of those on the massive ship and the intensity of aerial and naval conflict in a number of battles with Japanese forces entrenched on various small Pacific islands.
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Short filmTranscript
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00:03:01Like all aviators, he'd much rather be flying.
00:03:07Come on in and sit down.
00:03:13The plane is out of the groove and he waves it off.
00:03:16Come around another time, pilot, and we'll take your board.
00:03:30When planes land, they taxi quickly forward out of the way.
00:03:34Later, they'll have to be shifted to the stern and rearranged in proper position for takeoff.
00:03:39This is called respotting the deck.
00:03:45Here is our skipper, Jocko, a veteran Navy flier, Annapolis, 1917.
00:03:51He is not impressed by our earnest efforts, nor the flight deck control officers.
00:03:57The skipper calls all hands together and gives us a piece of his mind.
00:04:02We'll never be ready for combat unless you flight deck crews learn right now to work as a team.
00:04:08Don't you men realize that before long we'll be in dangerous waters?
00:04:13That's too slow! Bear a hand!
00:04:21Watch out! Keep that wing clear!
00:04:28Get it over to starboard!
00:04:30Way over to starboard!
00:04:32Come on, get the lead out of your pants!
00:04:37Now this is the way your deck should look when you're ready for action.
00:04:43Our ship, our fighting lady, is enormous, wonderful, and strange to us.
00:04:49From stem to stern, the entire ship is a honeycomb of watertight and flame-proof compartments.
00:04:55Far below the waterline are engine rooms, fire rooms, fuel tanks.
00:05:00Magazines packed with enough assorted high-explosives to blow us all to kingdom come.
00:05:06The hangar deck is like a gigantic tunnel, nearly two city blocks long and wide enough to house four freight
00:05:12trains abreast.
00:05:23It'll take us a week, a month maybe, to learn our way around.
00:05:27These new surroundings are as mysterious to us as they are cold and impersonal.
00:05:32Our fighting lady is like a huge floating cave, noisy and uncomfortable.
00:05:43Elevators as big as a tennis court carry us topside to the flight deck.
00:05:48The great superstructure rising amid ships is called the island.
00:05:53This is truly the ship's nerve center, its fighting brain.
00:05:5885% of us who make up the fighting lady's family are volunteers in this war and never been to
00:06:04sea before.
00:06:05We learned our jobs theoretically in intensive training ashore.
00:06:10Very short while ago we were high school boys and college kids or bank clerks or farm hands or factory
00:06:17workers.
00:06:18Now we are Blue Jackets and Marines, all members of a naval combat team nearly 3,000 strong.
00:06:26In our multitude of new tasks and duties as a team, we're very green, but curiosity and comradeship and the
00:06:34instinct of self-preservation are great teachers.
00:06:54Some of us have to master the delicate and complicated instruments which control the fire of our five-inch batteries.
00:07:00The guns that must defend the fighting lady when enemy dive bombers and torpedo planes attack.
00:07:19We train and train to learn our stuff and earn our E for efficiency.
00:07:28The fighting lady's destination is still a closely guarded secret.
00:07:32No one can hide the fact that we are entering tropical waters.
00:07:37Our ship seems more friendly and comfortable now.
00:07:40We greenhorns feel that a suntan will at least make us look like fighting sailors.
00:07:45Even our mascot Scrappy has been at sea longer than most of us.
00:07:56Some of the mystery that has been hanging over us is lifted when we enter the Panama Canal.
00:08:01There is a lot of unprofessional nervousness about whether or not we're too big to get through the locks.
00:08:06By using lines instead of fenders, we do get through.
00:08:09As the naval constructors knew all along we would.
00:08:12Come on, hop aboard, we're going places.
00:08:14For two cents I would.
00:08:15Anybody wants to swap?
00:08:22Now we stand out into the Pacific and life aboard settles down into monotony.
00:08:27Here are our aircraft pilots, officers all.
00:08:30Ship's company call them the glamour boys.
00:08:33They are the men who fly and fight our planes.
00:08:36All the efforts of all the rest of us are concentrated on putting these people into the air and getting
00:08:42them back again.
00:08:43Most of us are hiding a certain amount of nervousness and anxiety.
00:08:47Many of us are Johnny-come-latelys, reserve officers who only recently learned to fly at Corpus Christi in Jacksonville.
00:08:55Others among us are specialists who trained at Quonset Point, Rhode Island.
00:09:00Reserves are called by the regulars, in a friendly way, 90-day wonders.
00:09:05In return, the Annapolis regulars are called the trade school boys.
00:09:09But whether Quonset or Annapolis, all are bound together in the fraternity, a close fellowship of Navy men.
00:09:25Among the ship's non-commissioned personnel, almost 3,000 Blue Jackets and 100 Marines,
00:09:30the hottest shots are the air crewmen, aerial gunners and radio men.
00:09:36These boys and the plane captains are the partners of the glamour boys in the air.
00:09:41By non-flying Blue Jackets, they are called Zoom Pigeons or Airedales.
00:09:46And because they receive 50% extra pay for flying, they are sometimes referred to as the bankroll boys.
00:09:59Everybody aboard ship backs up the flying group.
00:10:03This requires the efforts of all manner of people.
00:10:06Many of the jobs are far from glamorous.
00:10:10All the little tasks and services you find along Main Street must be performed by some members of our carrier's
00:10:16crew.
00:10:18For though the fighting lady is a powerful ship of war, she is also a sizable American community.
00:10:23The population must be supplied with all the necessities and some of the comforts of home.
00:10:32Sorensen, the pharmacist's mate, is just like a village druggist.
00:10:36Next door is our hospital, called Sick Bay.
00:10:39It has only a few patients now, but soon it is to be filled with our wounded.
00:10:45Men like these who perform the humble jobs that make life aboard a fighting carrier more bearable,
00:10:50the barbers and the cobblers, are seldom mentioned in communiques,
00:10:55but they all have a place in our fighting team.
00:11:01Weeks pass.
00:11:03Now we are far out into the Pacific, which is a very considerable body of water.
00:11:10Monotony shuts down on us between our duties.
00:11:13Guessing where we're bound is still our chief pastime.
00:11:17Will we put into Pearl?
00:11:18Are we going to Iron Bottom Bay?
00:11:21Or maybe even to the Aleutians?
00:11:24All such gossip and rumor are called scuttlebutt, or drinking fountain conversation.
00:11:44Throughout the ship, men get together in little groups to take refuge from the heavy burden of waiting for something
00:11:50to happen.
00:11:56And then one day out of nowhere comes a fast fleet tanker, and we are refueled at sea.
00:12:02This tells us something.
00:12:04This tells us that we are not going to Pearl or any other land base for a long, long time.
00:12:18Besides our skipper, we have an admiral aboard, a Sea Dog who has been a naval flyer for nearly 20
00:12:23years.
00:12:24Until now, only these officers have known where we are to go.
00:12:31But now Jocko, our captain, confers with the air group commander and reveals the plan.
00:12:36A fighting lady has been ordered to make a strike.
00:12:39She will pass through waters where no carrier task force has ventured since the bloody Battle of Midway.
00:12:45Remember, this is 1943, long before we took the Marshall Islands.
00:12:52Weather studies are made, and though this is a daily routine, somehow the whole ship senses that something is about
00:12:58to happen.
00:13:00Even before the news is broadcast to all of us, there's a new tension and atmosphere expectancy.
00:13:07And then we are told, we have traveled more than 7,000 miles from Panama, so that tomorrow, August 30th,
00:13:141943, we can strike the Jap base at Marcus Island, deep within the enemy's ring of defenses.
00:13:25The evening before our first strike, the air group commander briefs all his pilots with maps and the model of
00:13:30our target.
00:13:32We are sticking out our necks to within 1,000 miles of Tokyo to divert the Jap's attention from other
00:13:37American activities far south and east of Marcus.
00:13:41Those of us who have never before been in battle, that's most of us, ask a lot of questions of
00:13:47those who have seen action.
00:13:49Don't break off until you're practically on the same course and right astern of the enemy, then push over fast.
00:13:55Outwardly, we try to seem composed and cheerful, but a lot's going on inside our minds.
00:14:01We question our most inner selves, what will it be like?
00:14:06How will we take it? Will we do all right?
00:14:11This is the night when a lot of boys write one more letter home.
00:14:20Among those playing Acey-Ducey in the ward room is a chubby 23-year-old from Eureka Springs, Arkansas, Lieutenant
00:14:27E.T. Stover, nicknamed Smokey.
00:14:31That's he sitting on the far right.
00:14:34Having flown 50 missions at Guadalcanal, Smokey has been ordered to take a rest.
00:14:38He'd much rather be flying.
00:14:43Before dark on the eve of battle, our planes are loaded with bombs and gas.
00:14:48So that each plane will be in his precise position for a speedy takeoff, we spot and respot our deck.
00:14:58Now all is perfect. We will strike at dawn.
00:15:06And now G.Q., General Quarters.
00:15:22Every man on the ship goes to his battle station, his special place on the fighting team.
00:15:28George, the barber, will pass ammunition.
00:15:30Leo, the baker, will be a sky lookout.
00:15:33Frank, the tailor, is assigned to a first aid station.
00:15:38Pilots are in their ready rooms.
00:15:40Each squadron, fighter, bomber, torpedo bomber, assemble separately.
00:15:47Suppliers get into their flight gear and receive last minute data and instructions.
00:16:03On the flight deck, our first battle dawn awaits us.
00:16:08Our whole ship is on hair trigger.
00:16:10The fighting lady is hardly 100 miles from the first target of her career.
00:16:16These last few minutes before the order for our first action are the toughest time of all.
00:16:29A wise man once said, war is mostly waiting.
00:16:34We learn now what that can mean.
00:16:38At last the word comes.
00:16:39Pilots, man your planes.
00:16:41Ready room three, roger.
00:16:43Pilots, man your planes.
00:16:44.
00:16:48.
00:17:01.
00:17:26The fighters take off first to form cover a lock for the other squadrons, then the
00:17:31bombers, heavy laden with destruction.
00:17:46The sun has risen now and our escorts are alert for enemy submarines.
00:17:51But the fighting lady seems boldly toward our target, to lessen the distance for our
00:17:56planes when they return.
00:18:08The radio plotting room is the electric eye and ear by which the fighting lady detects
00:18:13and keeps tab on all planes and ships for miles around us.
00:18:18Smokey, the fighting ace from Arkansas, has been put in charge of this room for our big
00:18:23day.
00:18:24Punched among his assistants, Smokey is like a super quarterback on a super football
00:18:29team.
00:18:30He is in constant touch with our entire air group.
00:18:39As our first fighters race in toward Marcus Island, they stay low, hoping to escape detection
00:18:45by the enemy's radar.
00:18:50Then they climb suddenly and dive, a surprise strafing attack on the enemy's airstrips.
00:18:56These red balls floating up at us so lazily are anti-aircraft fire.
00:19:01There is three times as much of it coming up at us as we can see, because only one shell
00:19:06in three is a tracer.
00:19:08What look like fiery polywogs are tracers from our own wing guns.
00:19:12The AK-X is much heavier than expected, but through it we go to knock out enemy bombers
00:19:17on the ground.
00:19:20All through these battle pictures realize that we are looking straight down our own gun
00:19:24barrels.
00:19:25These pictures are taken automatically by the same mechanism that operates the guns.
00:19:30Pictures even shake with the guns recoil.
00:19:32Our eye is now the very eye of our fighting airplanes.
00:19:46The enemy's picket boats and supply ships offshore are thoroughly strafed.
00:19:50No longer will these traps bring rice and sake and munitions to Marcus.
00:20:08Our bombers flying higher see the island beginning to burn.
00:20:13A moment ago it looked like a little jade trinket in a cobalt sea.
00:20:23As the fighters and bombers swing victoriously away from Marcus Island, towering columns of
00:20:29smoke show the thorough job our boys have done.
00:20:35Back aboard ship, Smokey is tracking the fliers with care to be sure that none is missing, and
00:20:41no enemy planes are trying to follow them out to our fighting lady.
00:20:56As our planes come aboard, there begins an operation almost as exciting as the attack itself.
00:21:02A ballet after battle, with the plane directors as dancing masters.
00:21:07The whirling propellers fill this scene with danger, but now our crews are trained and adept.
00:21:27The landing signal officer performs an eloquent adagio on the fighting lady's stern.
00:21:35Warning to the rest of the cast to stay off stage until a limping member can be led out of
00:21:39the way.
00:22:07The pilots go below to report to their combat
00:22:09combat intelligence officers.
00:22:11They have hot news, good news.
00:22:14They tell what they saw and did.
00:22:16How many rounds of ammunition they fired.
00:22:18How many bombs they dropped.
00:22:20What they hit.
00:22:22What they noticed at the target that was new and different, or that may need hitting again.
00:22:27As the reports are added up and our combat photographers develop their pictures, the story becomes better and better.
00:22:35Every single Jap bomber on Marcus has been destroyed.
00:22:3980% of the shore installations blasted or set afire.
00:22:42Hangars, radio stations, gas dumps, ammunition dumps.
00:22:47Marcus is now a lovely mess.
00:22:51In the radio plot, Smokey is worried.
00:22:54There are planes still up there and he's wondering about them.
00:22:57They are ours though, delayed by battle damage.
00:23:03Landing a shot up plane on the carrier is a crucial test of how well trained, how alert and steady
00:23:09a naval flyer is.
00:23:28The fighting lady now has met her enemy.
00:23:31In the ward room, the pilots who this morning felt new and nervous now talk like veterans.
00:23:37We have been baptized by fire and have survived nicely.
00:23:41We of the fighting lady are growing up.
00:23:48The Admiral of our task force knows the overall strategy of the whole Pacific campaign.
00:23:53To smash straight through Japan's outer network of islands.
00:23:56To recapture the Philippines and land on the mainland of Asia.
00:24:00Thus we will deny Japan supplies from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.
00:24:04And leave her far-flung island garrisons marooned.
00:24:07Then we will reach out and really help our ally China.
00:24:12Months after Marcus, this campaign is well started.
00:24:15Our carrier task forces have been in many battles.
00:24:19And now, early in 1944, the fighting lady's target is Kwajalein, the Marshall Islands.
00:24:27These are Jap Zeroes, fighter screen being pierced by our planes and planes from eight other carriers.
00:24:35Preparatory to scraping Kwajalein and bombing it apart.
00:24:39Our fighter pilots have improved with practice, with the confidence that comes from experience.
00:24:46They estimate their range by watching their tracers.
00:24:50They hold their fire until their wing-gun bullets converge at 300 yards.
00:24:57They shoot and burst instead of in steady streams, which heat up the guns and spend ammunition.
00:25:14There's nocup.
00:25:14Now if you're able to run into these sĆ¼dmoon buckets, you ŠŃŠ»Šø×פer had changed the Nikki swallowing.
00:25:15Last week, the plots were complete without sleep with your Š²Ń
Š¾Š“.
00:25:17Looks like us here.
00:25:32Nong, ready foriciĆ³n?
00:25:47We soon have Kwajalein burning, very satisfactory.
00:25:56After our bombing attacks and heavy shelling by our surface ships, assault craft filled
00:26:01with marines and army hit the beaches, and very soon after that, Kwajalein is ours.
00:26:23Right after Kwajalein, word comes to our admiral that a truck, Japan's huge and secret naval
00:26:28fortress, 1,400 miles to the west, there apparently are some heavy units of the Japanese battle
00:26:34fleet.
00:26:35Perhaps we can surprise them.
00:26:39Again, the Fighting Lady's squadron and squadrons from other carriers take off for combat.
00:26:45A lot of mouths are dry at the thought that our target is mighty truck.
00:26:53The rear seat gunners look back at the Fighting Lady, wondering when and if they will ever
00:26:59return to her.
00:27:08All that we know about truck, we know from a few photographs taken by some nervy marines
00:27:13on reconnaissance just 18 days ago.
00:27:16We hear that it is a complex of heavily fortified islands surrounded by air strips, with naval
00:27:23anchorages at certain spots among the islands.
00:27:28For the next two days, more than 1,000 of our carrier-based planes are going to sweep in
00:27:33on truck in relays.
00:27:35The planes appear to float gently off our bow, actually their airspeed is a good 70 knots.
00:27:43Diving in on truck, we again turn on our guns and their synchronized cameras.
00:27:48Truck's defenders are aloft and we smack them hard.
00:28:18The hearts that were in men's mouths before the
00:28:20strike began, now settle back into place and are singing once more.
00:28:26There's something really grand, something historic about diving in here on this place which Japan
00:28:32has been building and guarding jealously from all the Japanese eyes for 20 years.
00:28:38We dive right in low and take a good look at fighter strips, bomber bases, seaplane ramps.
00:28:53In an almost vertical dive, the pilot may black out or go blind for a moment when he pulls up
00:28:59and out at the bottom, but the camera won't black out.
00:29:03It cannot see the landing of our own bomb, for we'll be up and away before that reaches
00:29:07the target, but it records the hits of other planes ahead of us.
00:29:17The Colonel.
00:29:17The Colonel.
00:29:18My face of horror.
00:29:18The Colonel is inside of us.
00:29:18Miami fromuri.
00:29:18o.k
00:29:41the N.
00:29:51We'd hoped to find the Jap fleet here, but most of it's gone.
00:29:56Some lingering ships, including some of their fast fleet tankers, we find hiding in sheltered
00:30:01coves.
00:30:03The vessels which we are now strafing are other fleet auxiliaries, rice boats, transports,
00:30:09and ammunition ships.
00:30:16With bursts of .50 caliber incendiaries and armor-piercing slugs, we set them on fire, rip them open,
00:30:22often wide enough to sink.
00:30:28You can see it next to night.
00:30:29What happens to men?
00:30:30We have to run towards the land.
00:30:31It just depends on the light on the sky.
00:30:36What happens to men while they're here?
00:30:37No, you're sorry.
00:30:42Just a little.
00:30:45You lie and you're not alone at sea.
00:30:48You can't find them.
00:30:49You're not alone at sea.
00:31:04Straving ships filled with TNT is not very healthy for pilots who dive too low, but it's
00:31:11hard to tell who's carrying what until the big bang comes.
00:31:29Returning to the deck at 130 miles an hour with a flap shot away, all a pilot can hope
00:31:34to save is his own skin.
00:31:37Here comes our new air group commander, he's had a bit of trouble.
00:31:42His windshield is blotted with blood and he has to feel his way aboard.
00:31:46Straving at low altitude, he took a 40 millimeter anti-aircraft burst right in the face, more
00:31:52than 200 wounds, and his plane a sieve, but he'll live to fly again.
00:32:00Some planes will not return, but others come back and land somehow.
00:32:05Anyhow.
00:32:07Considering the toughness of truck, our losses are astonishingly light.
00:32:11No time is lost getting casualties below.
00:32:23It's a long way from truck to our secret rendezvous in the Marshall Islands.
00:32:28Someday it can be told just where this is.
00:32:32Actually, it is a magnificent new fleet anchorage, an advanced naval base, which we have taken
00:32:36from the Japs and made secure.
00:32:41Now, for the first time, we, who have been operating as separate, relatively small task forces, see
00:32:47assemble the enormous mass of naval power, over one million tons of American fighting steel,
00:32:54new carriers, new battleships, new cruisers and fleet auxiliaries in an amount which Japan
00:33:00could never conceive, let alone produce.
00:33:08That we are able to maintain supply lines over the vast distances of the Pacific is one of the miracles
00:33:14of this war.
00:33:16In the comforting presence of so much power, we relax and refresh our battle-strained nerves.
00:33:22Push my head on me.
00:33:37Our ship's post office now does really big business.
00:33:42Letters for us at last from home.
00:33:44Letters from us to friends and families.
00:33:48Our sensors know our collective mood, our central hopes and thoughts.
00:33:56The stuff is really getting out here now.
00:34:00I can't tell you much about it, but oh boy.
00:34:05And the more we get, well, the sooner I'll be seeing you.
00:34:12All hands are called together.
00:34:15Our old skipper, Jocko, has been promoted admiral.
00:34:18Our new one's name is Dixie.
00:34:21Men, as soon as I finish talking, we are getting underway.
00:34:25Our fighting lady is now part of what is designated Task Force 58.
00:34:30As you know, our final destination is a place called Tokyo.
00:34:35We'll have to fight hard to get there, but when we drop our hook at Yokohama,
00:34:39I'm going to throw a party.
00:34:41All hands are cordially invited.
00:35:08Our task forces are built compactly now around carriers like ourselves with speedy new battle
00:35:13wagons at our side.
00:35:16A carrier skipper never leaves the bridge at sea because carriers and their planes
00:35:21are the first to strike the enemy or to be struck by him.
00:35:26Our aircraft pilots are constantly on call.
00:35:29For despite the mass of power spread out around us, these are still dangerous waters.
00:35:35Our pilots know this all too well, but it doesn't worry them now for their season.
00:35:40They know how.
00:35:42There are a lot of new faces among us, but most of these men too have been in action.
00:35:46At places like Hollandia, Millie, Jaluit, Palau, Rabaul, Wake, Meloelap.
00:35:56Our rear seat gunners and radio men are old hands now.
00:36:00Some of their faces are different too because there have been replacements.
00:36:04A lot of them have been made commissioned officers.
00:36:11There's a saying in the Navy that you never learn to love a carrier until she gets hurt.
00:36:16Well, perhaps we don't really love our fighting lady, but we've become mighty fond of her.
00:36:22It's almost comfortable, almost at home.
00:36:31Occasionally our shipboard movies bring us that one thing we crave the most,
00:36:35one touch of something utterly American, one deep breath of home.
00:36:53Like Jocko, our new skipper Dixie is an old hell-diving Navy pilot.
00:36:57In their battle camps, he and Admiral Mitchell look like big league baseball managers.
00:37:06Northwest we steam and never before in history has an ocean borne such a weight of naval power.
00:37:12Not a gentleman, not a Japan's proud boast Tsushima was there anywhere near the force
00:37:18with which we now assert that this is our ocean, this is our air.
00:37:23We're seeking the Japanese battle fleet to prove it.
00:37:36With our cruisers and our biggest new battle wagons present, we are strong enough to hope,
00:37:42really to hope, that we may provoke the Japanese fleet into accepting a fight.
00:37:56We're joined by plotting Coast Guard and Navy transports.
00:38:00The Marines again.
00:38:02So, another amphibious assault is cooking.
00:38:11Uh-oh, our patrols have spotted an enemy search plane and are after her.
00:38:15She's a big bird.
00:38:19A 20-ton, four-motored Kawanishi seaplane, the kind we call Emily's.
00:38:35Miss Emily's a tough old girl.
00:38:37Right now, she's screaming for help and telling Tokyo by radio where we are.
00:38:43Hellcats are closing in on her.
00:38:58So long, Emily.
00:39:11Now that the enemy knows where we are, and we know he knows,
00:39:14our brass hats get together on final arrangements for what may turn into another midway.
00:39:22Our objective, first of many in our drive through to the Philippines and China,
00:39:27will be the Marianas.
00:39:31In battles just ahead of us, we are to make good use of a multitude of weapons,
00:39:35special devices, and techniques which have been evolved through the 30 years
00:39:39since the U.S. Navy first took to the air.
00:39:48Not only did our naval fliers create the aircraft carrier itself,
00:39:52but it was they who devised the torpedo plane and invented and perfected dive bombing.
00:40:10Disposed about our flight deck so that planes can be quickly armed are all manner of death-dealing objects.
00:40:16Five hundred, one thousand and two thousand pound bombs.
00:40:20We have torpedoes and incendiaries,
00:40:23and the kind of anti-personnel bombs we call daisy cutters.
00:40:37Some of our bombs are armor-piercing, some for fragmentation.
00:40:41Others have delayed action fuses to prolong the effect of our bombardment for hours after we have delivered it.
00:40:49Here are the new rockets, which pack the same wallop as a three-inch shell.
00:40:54They weigh little, and because there isn't much recoil, they can be fired from planes.
00:40:59On the eve of battle, we are told to scrub up to lessen the danger of infection in case we're
00:41:04wounded.
00:41:14As well as our bodies, most of us prepare our souls.
00:41:26Always on the eve of battle, divine services are held in relays,
00:41:30so that every one of our fighting ladies' 3,000 sons has a chance to attend.
00:41:51As the eve before battle lengthens, there is the usual waiting.
00:41:55Again, we're reminded that war is mostly waiting.
00:42:13Because all cooks and bakers must soon be at their battle stations,
00:42:16they work all night long preparing a hearty meal of steak and eggs for our 3 a.m. battle breakfast.
00:42:33We are being attacked.
00:42:40We are being attacked by Japanese torpedo planes skimming in after us winged to water.
00:42:54All they want is one hit on our flight deck.
00:42:57We have nearly 90 planes fueled and loaded with bombs, ready for the takeoff.
00:43:16Each patch of flame is a burning jack.
00:43:34In this surprise attack, 19 Japs are polished off by our ship's batteries.
00:43:39Not a single carrier is hit.
00:43:42We have been fortunate.
00:43:45So now commences another major moment in the fighting ladies' career, flight quarter sounds.
00:43:52In this modern warfare, the young plane captains are to their pilots what squires were to armored knights of old.
00:44:02In this operation, typical of many more to come, a lot of other fighting ladies will be involved.
00:44:09Nearly 2,000 carrier-based planes, all of them attacking in air groups like our own.
00:44:31From now on, we tighten our belts and steady our hands as our navy makes progressively bigger attacks nearer and
00:44:38nearer the heart of Japan.
00:44:50At his post and radio plot, tracking down enemy planes and cursing the luck that keeps him out of the
00:44:55air,
00:44:56Smokey chafes at being grounded on a day like this, especially when targets are juicy ones.
00:45:03All the Japs air bases and military installations in the Marianas, and a special prize package, Guam.
00:45:11The island which we did not fortify, but the Japs did.
00:45:17Now comes word that the Japs have sent strong air reinforcements to Tinian, which flanks Guam.
00:45:26Again, our synchronized cameras record, as no human eye and memory could record, just what our guns and bombs do
00:45:34to the enemy.
00:45:39These pictures enable our air combat intelligence officers to assess the damage as we swoop down upon Tinian.
00:46:04Let's see.
00:46:14The Japs are on the Japs.
00:46:26Oh, my God.
00:47:05While our planes return for more fuel and ammunition, the service vessels take over.
00:47:10A prodigious naval barrage to prepare the beaches our assault forces are going to hit.
00:47:17Not only our newest, but some of our oldest and proudest battleships are here.
00:47:22The Colorado, the Tennessee, and the USS Pennsylvania, flagship of World War I.
00:47:37Winging home to the fighting ladies, several of our planes, crippled, make a game attempt
00:47:42to land.
00:47:46Now is when the landing signal officer must judge not only the speed, but estimate the battle
00:47:51damage of planes like these.
00:48:04And flight deck emergency crews, firefighters, rescue details, and medical corpsmen exhibit
00:48:10almost incredible courage.
00:48:32The pilot of a torpedo plane has been unable to release his load of incendiaries.
00:48:36Burning thermite is spilling out at incandescent heat.
00:48:40In the plane's tanks remain about 75 gallons of high-octane gas.
00:48:46The men who brave this danger to save pilot and crew deserve every citation they get.
00:49:05In the ready rooms, intelligence officers question battle-weary pilots.
00:49:10What did you see?
00:49:13Any Jap carriers in sight?
00:49:15Are you sure they were carrier-based planes?
00:49:21Then from radio plot comes uncomfortable news.
00:49:24Torpedo planes and dive bombers from enemy aircraft carriers are approaching.
00:49:28All hands, man your battle stations.
00:49:33To our engine room go orders for flank speed, which is a few knots faster than full speed,
00:49:38in case we need to take evasive action.
00:49:43All boilers are lighted to let the fighting lady outdo herself if necessary.
00:49:47The engine room people turn on the heat, and the propeller shafts churn like fate in their
00:49:52alleys.
00:50:01The fighting lady leaps through the sea on her guard.
00:50:11Skipper Dixie gears himself for action, and so does wise old Scrappy.
00:50:19And now, here they come.
00:50:23And now, here they come.
00:51:12And now, here's a train to be married, and sub- wynnes built in all-around
00:51:15The torpedo bomber miraculously keeps coming through our wall of black.
00:51:19He's approaching us fast with a life that must be charmed.
00:51:23Our gunners throw everything they've got, but still she comes.
00:51:28If he ever releases that torpedo,
00:51:38she missed us.
00:51:39Either the pilot was already dead or his release gear jammed.
00:51:44Smokey, the pride of Arkansas, hears about that one.
00:51:47He almost takes off.
00:51:51Now our reconnaissance has spotted the Japanese task forces.
00:51:55This is the moment we've been fighting and praying for.
00:51:59Every plane that can fly and every qualified pilot is ordered into the air.
00:52:04At last Smokey gets his chance to fly again.
00:52:07Pilots, man your planes.
00:52:09Pilots, man your planes.
00:52:10I'm going to go.
00:52:10I'm going to go.
00:52:31I'm going to go.
00:52:39We're on our flight deck.
00:52:42Our planes strain forward to rise into it.
00:52:45Our entire air group thunders out behind the group commander.
00:52:54Now our fighters run into a swarm of Jap fighters, mostly zeroes,
00:52:58sent up to intercept our attack on the Japanese fleet.
00:53:01A mad aerial scramble begins which the boys to this day still call the Marianas Turkey Shoot.
00:53:10369 Jap planes are shot down in this single day to our loss of 22.
00:53:19Japanese planemakers have sacrificed strength and firepower for agility.
00:53:24Their planes disintegrate quickly when you hit them.
00:53:26They have no armor plate as ours have, nor are their gas tanks self-sealing.
00:53:38These little monkeys are fancy flyers.
00:53:41They think aerobatics can win dog fights whereas we believe in smooth flying and careful shooting.
00:54:06And they are theļæ½ė spots.
00:54:08I got too far away from theļæ½ pacemakers and the police.
00:54:08The man they do the same thing is to attack quickly while theuseums were hit.
00:54:08They are just a good point.
00:54:08The man they're in charge of their ship.
00:54:09You know what they say.
00:54:10The man they're in charge of theirŠ¾Ńannies.
00:54:17Let's go.
00:55:00And now, at last, through a late afternoon haze from high altitude, our air combat group
00:55:08cites the Imperial Japanese battle fleet.
00:55:11These are the first pictures ever taken of a great enemy naval formation like this.
00:55:23There it is, that Imperial fleet, crawling around below us in violent evasive action.
00:55:30Us, looking down on them in the seas they think they own.
00:55:37Some of these Japanese ships are scampering away at better than 40 knots.
00:55:42When you bore straight down on them, they twist, squirm.
00:56:08We engage a big destroyer at the bow, hoping to shoot out his bridge.
00:56:11And he shoots back, fighting.
00:56:20Let's go down after that cruiser.
00:56:22He answers us emphatically from a forward turret.
00:56:50Now, a 25,000 ton jet carrier of the Hayataka class is going to get it.
00:56:53Watch five o'clock in the camera, the lower right hand corner of the screen.
00:56:58This big flat top gets it where the turkey got the axe.
00:57:22When you touch off some of these babies, just watch this one.
00:57:29And now we come home from the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
00:57:34Seventeen Jap warships have been sunk or severely damaged.
00:57:38Several of our returning planes have been badly shot up.
00:57:45A dive bomber comes in out of gas.
00:57:48He pulls off to starboard but knows it's over because his wheels are down.
00:57:56A dive bomber comes in out of gas.
00:58:08This pilot has 73 holes in his plane.
00:58:12And his leg almost shot away.
00:58:21To clear the deck for other planes, number 30, badly damaged, is jettisoned.
00:58:25Given the deep six.
00:58:32Watch carefully.
00:58:34This man's controls are all but shot away.
00:58:49He steps out of it.
00:58:51Smart.
00:58:55And now it is time to paint up the scores.
00:58:59On this fine morning, just a year after being commissioned,
00:59:04the fighting lady is beginning to look like a stamp album.
00:59:09She has done her share, amassing Task Force 58's grand total
00:59:14of 757 Jap aircraft destroyed in a two-week turkey shoot.
00:59:28But there's another score to add up.
00:59:31Our own casualties.
00:59:34Quite a few faces are no longer with us on the fighting lady.
00:59:38Among them, Lieutenant Commander Upson, skipper of our torpedo squadron.
00:59:45Lieutenant Pappy Condit.
00:59:48Lieutenant John Meehan.
00:59:52And that fighting as gentleman, Lieutenant Smokey Stover.
00:59:57Yes, Smokey's missing too.
01:00:05Salute them under their country's flag.
01:00:10For they were brave.
01:00:12They were gallant.
01:00:14Others will come forward to take their places.
01:00:17For the battles we have fought on the seas and in the sky
01:00:21are only the beginning.
01:00:24Still hungry for battle will steam our carrier.
01:00:28Serene.
01:00:29Powerful.
01:00:31Unafraid.
01:00:33She and her planes will come home again someday, God grant.
01:00:37But not until the bitter, glorious end.
01:00:41For she is, and we salute her, the Fighting Lady.
01:00:46Only the ultimate, theć³kid.
01:00:50But not until the night is too late.
01:00:54The
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