Shortly after WWII they gathered together endless feet of newsreel movie footage into 26 episodes of war fighting footage. Broadway's Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the original score. I remember seeing it on TV as a young child. It turned up in a Wal Mart bargain DVD bin and so I brought it home.
It's all black and white, color film in the 1940's was hard come by and so insensitive to light that everyone shot the faster black and white. Looking at the images today, you marvel at how bad the film really was. Out door scenes are over exposed except in the shadows which are pitch black. No dynamic range, no grays, at all. A good deal of the footage is captured enemy film, showing Japanese and German troops from their side of the trench.
Lots of quaint shots of horses and horse drawn carts, French Navy sailors wearing red and blue striped T-shirts that no American male would be caught dead wearing. Dramatic shots of a great steamship capsizing and then exploding.
Containerization is 20 years in the future, hence endless shots of wood crates being hoisted into and out of ship's holds in rope cargo nets. Plus shots of tanks and army trucks and fighter planes swinging up onto decks. And shots of troops trudging up the gangplanks onto transports. That's all gone now, the troops board jetliners, nary a ship in sight.
Anyhow, if you want a good quick rundown on how WWII happened, this is a good watch.
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