UNITED NEWS [Series Title]

Edition of US-produced wartime newsreel featuring American paratroops and Australian infantry in action in New Guinea; the use of airships by the United States Navy to patrol coastal areas; pictures of the Iranian royal family; tests of new weapons; the rescue of a deer from a viaduct in the American desert west; air battles over Germany; President Roosevelt inspects troops in Sicily.

Part 1: United News main titles. 'Gen. MacArthur's forces win new bases in Pacific'; In New Guinea General MacArthur walks through a tented camp where paratroopers (possibly 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment) are checking their equipment. Australian forces (7th Australian Division?) walking through a grassy meadow (in the Markham River valley?) towards Madang; local people carry some of their supplies. A group of local tribesmen. Close-up tribesman with a bone through his nose. Australians cross the Salamaua River (?) Using a pontoon bridge. Crossing another bridge. Australian soldier with binoculars lying in the jungle. Air attack by divebombers in the distance. Aussie troops advance through a wrecked village and investigate a bunker. Reading mail from home; one man's letter bears lipstick marks from a distant lover. Soldiers walk with a bedraggled-looking sailor.

Part 2: 'Navy airships guard convoys in Atlantic'; Interior large hangar with American airships. A US Navy airship (K Class?) is rolled out of a hangar and bombed up. A US Navy officer (and a female officer) looking out (from the gondola of an airship?). Aerial views of airship in flight and of a convoy sailing below. Wireless operator aboard the airship. Another view of the interior space aboard the airship, looking forward towards the cockpit. Dropping a bombs and views of explosions. More views of airship, its shadow passing over a merchant ship, and of the convoy.

Part 3: 'Latest films of Iran's royal family at home'; Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, Shah of Iran, with his wife Princess Fawzia Fuad of Egypt, Queen of Iran, and their daughter Shahnaz walking along a treelined avenue (in a garden?). They have a small dog with them. Princess Shahnaz and the dog. The family pose together.

Part 4: 'U.S. arms experts develop powerful new weapons'; views of a B-25G Mitchell medium bomber marked '10' below the cockpit. Close-ups show a large 75mm cannon mounted in the nose; cut to shots of a US Army howitzer being fired. A Sherman tank drives forward, firing its main gun as it goes (turret is marked AFS (or AF5?)). Back with the B-25; the pilot fires the cannon and the aircraft rocks back on its undercarriage. A man passes the 75mm ammunition up into the aircraft. Cockpit interior; pilot presses firing button. View from behind the aircraft looking down range. More test shots of the cannon. Aerial footage; three B-25's in flight during a firepower demonstration. Wide shot of distant explosions. The aircraft drop parachute-retarded bombs from low altitude. US Army spectators with binoculars. Firing a howitzer (split trail, large tyres); wide shot shows a screen of bursting shells and smoke.

Part 5: 'Engineers rescue wild animals from desert viaduct'. A group of engineers drive a small (and old-looking) car along a viaduct; they encounter a porcupine and use forks to lift it and drop it over the top of the viaduct. They then encounter a small (White-tailed?) male deer, which tries to jump out of the viaduct. The men are then shown hoisting and heaving the animal out of the viaduct; it bounds away without obvious ill-effect.

Part 6: 'U.S. planes down Nazis in battle over Germany'; aerial footage formation of B-17 Fortress bombers, with a P-47 Thunderbolt escorting. Cut to camera gun footage of a strafing attack against a locomotive. Further camera gun footage showing Luftwaffe single-engined fighters being shot down, intercut with close-up of a P-47's port guns being fired (the aircraft is wearing nose art, possibly of an Native American chief, but it cannot be seen clearly).

Part 7: 'Enroute home, Roosevelt hails troops in Sicily'; President Roosevelt, in the back of his car, with Winston Churchill standing nearby, looks at the Sphinx and Pyramids of Giza. Churchill and Roosevelt in conversation. Roosevelt, Churchill and various ministers pose for the camera with Turkish President İsmet İnönü. Roosevelt inspects American troops of 7th Army from a jeep with General Eisenhower. Lieutenant-General Mark Clark with a number of his officers. Roosevelt decorates American troops of 3rd Infantry Division and then decorates Clark with the Distinguished Service Cross. March past. Roosevelt eats a packed lunch in his car with General Eisenhower. Roosevelt poses with his two sons Elliott and Franklin Jr. United News end title.

35mm