The World at War

Using newsreel footage and captured Nazi films, this documentary covers the decade leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, during a speech in which he calls 7 Dec 1942 "a date which will live in infamy," asks Congress to declare war on the Japanese. The film then chronicles events that led up to Pearl Harbor: Before America's entrance into the war, the country is divided into those who are eager to fight, and those who believe that legislation can curtail the war. Others want to assist England with supplies and aid. The debate becomes bitter. American Nazi sympathizers speak, preaching racial hatred and segregation. The Axis countries perceive the fight of labor against management in the United States as weakness. Although few realize it in 1941, the U.S. has really been at war since 18 September 1931, when Japan conquered Manchuria: The U.S. signs a Pact of Peace which guarantees China's integrity, but little is done either by this country or the League of Nations to force Japan to withdraw its troops. After Japan resigns from the League, Japanese troops enter Shanghai and bomb China. Chiang Kai-shek leads the Chinese army in its fight against Japan. In Italy, Benito Mussolini marches into Ethiopia, and in spite of Haile Selassie's appeals to the League of Nations, conquers the country in two years. Then, in 1938, Adolf Hitler annexes Austria. German and Italian forces also fight in Spain with Franco, but again the democracies refuse to intervene. When Hitler demands the Sudentenland area of Czechoslovakia, Britain's Neville Chamberlain and France's Édouard Daladier sign it over, hoping to maintain peace. Germany signs a treaty with Russia, and on 1 September 1939, invades Poland. Poland's antiquated army cannot defend itself against Hitler's superior military and surrenders. Hitler then invades the neutral countries of Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands, planning to outflank the French defensive Maginot Line. To frighten other nations into submission, Hitler shows films of the devastation produced by Nazi armies. The Nazis are the first to use paratroops in force. Their tanks, dive bombers, and heavy artillery overcome Dutch resistance in four days. Refugees clog the roads. Eighteen days later, Belgium surrenders. The countries have no defenses in place, and French and British aid is ineffective. When the British army is driven into the sea at Dunkerque, British civilians use whatever boats and ships they can find to retrieve their soldiers, but weapons and tanks have to be abandoned. Now the Germans begin their attack on France. On 10 June 1939, Mussolini enters the war. The Maginot Line falls, Paris is taken, and the Vichy government is installed. Expecting England to surrender, Nazi submarines set up an embargo around the country, and the German air force begins regular strafing. German bombers attack English ports, railroads and factories, first by day, then by night. In May 1941, Haile Selassie is restored to his throne by the British. The Italian fascists lose the war in Africa and Europe. Now Hitler turns to Russia, with its rich resources of oil and wheat. He believes that the country can be conquered in six weeks, but Stalin rallies the Russians against the Germans. Using whatever weapons they can find, civilian guerillas fight the Nazis. The people harvest wheat, drive their cattle east and burn their crops and homes behind them, leaving nothing that can be used by the Nazi invaders. The severe Russian winter temporarily halts the invasion, and after winter ends, the Russians return to the fray with new tanks and weapons. The United States is unprepared for a war in the Pacific. After General Douglas MacArthur fights a delaying action in the Philippines, he retreats and establishes his headquarters in Australia. President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act, which supplies the Allies with weapons. Time is needed to convert factories from peacetime to wartime production, to train civilian soldiers and ship them overseas, and to build an air force. In 1942, nine of the Pan-American nations sever diplomatic relations with the Axis. Nine others declare war on the Axis powers. Resistance movements grow, and men from conquered countries fight with the Allied soldiers.