82nd Airborne Vets Return Home in ’46

Witness the proud victory parade of the veteran 82nd Airborne Division, just arrived in New York City from Europe in January 1946.

Bomb Mission No. 1

Watch B-17 Flying Fortresses go out on the first all-American bomb raid over Europe, in 1942. This time, everyone comes home… In three installments.

Tampico

June Christy took over the singer’s mic in the Stan Kenton band in 1945. Here she and the band perform the title cut in the movie that same year.

Official 1941 Movie Trailer for Yank in the R.A.F.

 

Official 1964 Movie Trailer for Americanization of Emily

 

Official 1970 movie trailer for kelly’s heroes

 

Red Tails on the Silver Screen

George Lucas brings the story of the Tuskegee Airmen to movie theaters across the country in January 2012.

Ronald reagan learns to ID the Japanese Zero

Future president Ronald Reagan stars in a US Army Air Forces training film that teaches pilots how to recognize planes.

straighten up and fly right

A US Navy film teaches pilot trainees how to level their planes, climb, glide, and more.

Take It Away, Gene

Gene Krupa steals the show from Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire.

Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis

The star of the Wizard of Oz performs the classic "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" in this movie clip from 1944.

Ginger Rogers from the cutting-room floor

Sixty years before Renée Zellwegger played the starring showgirl in the Oscar-winning 2002 film Chicago, Ginger Rogers played the same character. In this scene that didn’t make the final cut of 1942’s Roxie Hart, Rogers does the Charleston as only she could.

America’s First calypso king sings in a zombie movie

Sir Lancelot adapted his song "Shame and Scandal in the Family" for 1943’s I Walked with a Zombie, now a certified zombie film classic.

An operatic national anthem

If you went to the movies late in World War II, you would at some point have seen this 1944 reel with operatic singing by Brooklyn’s Merrill Miller.

Roller skating in technicolor

The Skating Vanities and its star Gloria Nord did a routine for the 1944 Betty Grable movie Pin Up. Skaters take the stage in glorious red-white-and-blue at 2:06 in this clip, and Nord, herself a popular pinup, first peeks out at 2:54.

The Outlaw

Censors thought the 1943 movie financed by multimillionaire Howard Hughes was too racy and blocked its general release. Undeterred, Hughes promoted the movie ceaselessly and by the time it came out in 1946, costar Jane Russell was famous. View the official trailer.

D-day at Sicily

WIth gliders and paratroopers taking the lead, the Allies invade Sicily in this wartime newsreel featuring live combat film shot from US Navy ships along the coast.

Abbott and Costello’s 13 times 7 is 28

In a mind-boggling reminiscent of the Who’s on First routine, Lou Costello makes his case for the equation 13 x 7 = 28 to an incredulous Bud Abbott in this clip from 1941’s In the Navy.

China’s American aviator heroes

Two period newsreel segments profile the 1st American Volunteer Group, with shots of its shark-faced Curtiss P-40 fighters in flight, of its pilots and crews in action, and of its innovative commander, Claire Chennault.

John Wayne, silver screen FLying Tiger

Watch the promotional trailer for the 1942 film Flying Tigers, Hollywood’s take on the US airmen of the 1st American Volunteer Group who helped defend China from Japan.

Buzzing Death Bombs

See and hear the V-1 rocket—the buzz bomb—that tormented Allied forces and civilians in Europe. When an overhead buzz bomb fell silent, death was on its way.

The Bill that Created America’s Future

Check out Uncle Sam’s GI Bill for WWII vets—a deal that gave America an educated workforce and thriving middle class—in this no-malarkey wartime film.

The big, mighty B-29

Pull down the blackout shades and watch the artful wartime propaganda film Birth of the B-29. You’ll be in 1945 faster than you can decipher MCMXLV!

The Bomb is born

On a test site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, men of science and men of war watched the world change forever when they witnessed the first explosion of an atomic bomb. The blast begins about 8:50 in this cut of US government footage.

The surrender is signed

This United News newsreel puts you aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, as a witness to Japan’s official surrender.

GI fun at Hitler’s house

Take a GI’s victory tour of the Berghof—Hitler’s home in the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden, Germany—in this 1945 newsreel.

Hitler Youth tell their stories

In a March 1945 German newsreel, Hitler Youth boys—like the ones GIs encountered in Heilbronn—talk proudly of their combat experiences.

To the Shores of Iwo Jima, Parts I and II

Thanks to heroic military cameramen, you can follow the US marines onto Iwo Jima in this 1945 Office of War Information film. Shown in two parts.

Battle of the Bulge on film

The Battle of the Bulge unfolds onscreen—along with a toughen-up message addressed to home-front civilians—in this 1945 army newsreel.

Carmen Miranda in full flower

Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda adds Latin spice to the 1942 film Springtime in the Rockies with her take on “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”

Germany crushes the D-Day Invasion?

Watch a wartime German newsreel footage and see how the Nazi government made German civilians think the Allied invasion of Normandy was another victory for the Third Reich.

The Andrews Sisters on the silver screen

The iconic vocal harmony trio perform the quintessential swinging WWII song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" in the Abbot and Costello movie Buck Privates.

Veronica Lake and her dangerous hair

In this clip from the US Office of War Information, the silver screen sex symbol with the peekaboo hair gets a look that’s safe for wartime factory work.

Bugs Bunny’s war bond shtick

Porky and Elmer back up the Cwazy Wabbit as he sings and dances for the war effort in the Looney Tunes short “Any Bonds Today?”

Leyte Gulf sea war

See real footage of air and sea combat during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in a segment from the 1950s TV series Victory at Sea.

Ella’s yellow basket

Songbird Ella Fitzgerald jazzes up a Wild West bus tour with her hit “A-Tisket A-Tasket” in Abbot and Costello’s 1942 movie Ride ’Em Cowboy.

World War II Christmas

Travel back to the 1940s and taste the bittersweet experience of wartime Christmas at the front and on the American home front.