Description
Object description
An edition of United News, featuring the Anglo-American bombing of Hamburg, the launch of the US Navy's new aircraft carrier USS Wasp, the 1943 Hambletonian Stakes harness race at Empire City Park in Yonkers, New York, Allied leaders in conference at Quebec, and the use of B-25 Mitchell bombers against Japanese shipping in the south Pacific.
Content description
Part 1: 'Hamburg, no.1 Nazi war center, blasted by bombs'; a line of B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers taxiing on an airfield. Aircraft interior; looking out of the port waist gun position as an aircraft takes off. Ground crew watch aircraft assembling overhead. Aerial views of aircraft. Bombs falling and exploding on a city target below. Static views (from aerial photographs?) showing bombed targets. Onboard a Fortress a waist .50-inch machine gun is fired. A bomber, with one wing on fire, in a steady downward glide with anti-aircraft bursts all round. Brief aircraft interior from a fighter (?) showing wing guns being fired. A shot of a supposed fight between fighters and bombers, but some of the fighters are biplanes (the bombers are slim, twin tail, twin engine, blunt nose). Fortress passing overhead. A Fortress landing; camera pans with it to show another Fortress, with propellers spinning, named 'Sky Wolf'. Battle damage to a Fortress; a man inside puts his hand through a huge hole in the fuselage where the metal is peeling outwards; according to the commentary 'testimony to the intensity of the futile Nazi defence'. A bullet-holed windscreen with a hole in the fuselage just below. A walking wounded airmen with a dressing on his face is helped out of his Fortress (marked GV) and onto a stretcher. Night footage; Short Stirlings taxi out and take off. Aircraft interior; a bomb aimer at his sight. Night footage of a city under bombardment with fires and flashes. [no sound]
Content description
Part 2: 'New aircraft carrier joins US fleet'; at Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts; looking up at the bow of the aircraft carrier USS Wasp. The launching party includes a number of children. As the ship starts sliding down the slipway a lady hits a bottle of champagne against the hull much too gingerly; a man (Edward Gere?) quickly takes the bottle and smashes it hard with a spectacular foaming spray.
Content description
Part 3: 'Favourite wins American harness racing classic'. At Empire City Park the Hambletonian Stakes are held; footage of a harness race by eleven horses in a $40,000 event. [sound cuts out during a sequence apparently printed in slow motion] The winner Ben White is named as the only four-time winner of this event [music cuts off the commentary here].
Content description
Part 4: 'Roosevelt-Churchill in Quebec'. View of the Château Frontenac, the venue of the conference. Roosevelt, Churchill and Allied officers on a verandah. An aircraft taxis to a halt and a Chinese civilian man (T V Soong?) steps out and is greeted. Churchill. Roosevelt. Interior meeting room; Admiral Mountbatten sits closest to the camera on the left. Field Marshal Alan Brooke, an RAF Air Marshal (Portal?) in discussion (with General Arnold, US Army Air Forces?). Other officers. The meeting breaks up. [no sound]
Content description
Part 5: 'Allied offensive smashes Japanese in south Pacific'. Map shows Australia, New Guinea, New Britain, New Ireland, the Solomon Islands, Guadalcanal, New Hebrides and Coral Sea; Munda and Rendova are shown with converging arrows from each. Dissolve to closer map showing Rendova, Munda and New Georgia. A squadron of heavy bombers passes overhead. Aerial footage looking down on a Japanese warship with bombs exploding all around it (although only one appears to be very close). Camera gun footage of a warship being strafed by an Allied aircraft. Low-flying B-25 Mitchell bombers (one has a dragon's mouth on its nose) on anti-shipping sorties. Cockpit footage of strafing attacks on small boats. Bombers in flight. Aerial footage; far below warships in line fire their guns. Aerial views of a Pacific coastline with warships in line astern. B-24 Liberators and Mitchells in flight. Bombs falling and exploding in forests below (these footage suffers from vibration). A Liberator drops bombs which appear to release smaller bomblets. More explosions. End titles 'United News'. [no sound]
Physical description
35mm