“ BROUGHT TO ACTION! “ 1944 BATTLE OF PHILIPPINES & LEYTE GULF / SAMAR U.S. NAVY FILM 21334a

Love our channel? Help us save and post more orphaned films! Support us on Patreon: Even a really tiny contribution can make a difference. This black & white film is about the battle of the Philippines between Japan and the United States in October 1944 during WW2. Copyright is 1944. “Brought To Action!“ is an incentive / propaganda film produced during WWII by the Office of Strategic Services in cooperation with the United States Navy (:06-:33). Pearl Harbor, October 23. Office of the Navy door. A telegram shows the second battle of the Philippines had begun. Battleships at sea. Men in a briefing room. Pilots head for their planes. Planes in formation dive bomb targets. Targets such as Paramushiro Island, Mindanao Island, Ryukyu Islands, Manila in the Philippines, and Formosa Island. A ship is blown to bits by the Americans (:34-2:10). American planes in the sky. Ships head for the Philippines. GIs on the ships relax before the attack. A map of the Philippines. Ships fire artillery. Amphibious craft land on the shores of the Philippines. General MacArthur famously walks through the water in his return to the Philippines (2:11-3:56). Newspaper headline. U.S. Navy use binoculars. Japanese fleet. Japanese Zeros take off. Japanese Officer tells his men that the end is near for the Americans. Japanese soldiers cheer (3:57-5:06). U.S. soldiers walk through a field. Japanese war plan. U.S. submarines report on the Japanese positions. U.S. subs sinks two Japanese Cruisers. Planes take off from American Carriers (5:07-6:52). Ships at sea. Explosions on the sea at night. U.S. Admiral Thomas Kinkaid has to make a decision. A hand draws on a map. Island of Leyte. U.S. battleships at sea: the USS California, USS West Virginia, USS Pennsylvania, USS Maryland, and the USS Tennessee (6:53-8:48). The ship’s guns are fired, lighting up the night sky. Japanese ship on fire in the gulf. Japanese battleships. U.S. battleship fires. Admiral Halsey looks over a map, strategizes (8:49-11:16). Japanese Zero on fire. Markings drawn on a map. Japanese fleet, pilots run to their planes. Japanese Zeros take off. Battle of Samar (11:46) involving American escort carriers and destroyers against the Japanese fleet. American planes in the sky (11:17-13:15). American planes bank left and head down. Bombs are dropped on Japanese ships. Americans fire. A Japanese Zero is shot out of the sky. Plane after plane from the Japanese forces are shot out of the sky (13:16-15:10). Damaged carrier aircraft return, crash down onto the deck of a carrier. Medics work on American pilots. American anti-aircraft is fired and more Japanese planes are shot down. American carrier based planes take off (15:11-17:00). Cockpit POV and gun camera footage shows American pilots shooting down Japanese planes and strafing Japanese ships. American ships and planes destroy Japanese ships, some of which turn and flee due to damage. Bodies of Japanese sailors float in the water (17:01-18:58). The film ends with a famous sequence, an American pilot buried at sea in the cockpit of his damaged TBM Grumman Avenger. The plane with the pilot is pushed into the ocean by the crew. American planes in the sky. Battleships at sea (18:59-20:55). End credits (20:56-21:06). The Battle of Leyte Gulf is considered to have been the largest naval battle of World War II and, by some criteria, possibly the largest naval battle in history, with over 200,000 naval personnel involved. It was fought in waters near the Philippine islands of Leyte, Samar, and Luzon, from 23–26 October 1944, between combined American and Australian forces and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), as part of the invasion of Leyte, which aimed to isolate Japan from the countries it had occupied in Southeast Asia which were a vital source of industrial and oil supplies. The Battle off Samar was the centermost action of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history, which took place in the Philippine Sea off Samar Island, in the Philippines on October 25, 1944. It was the only major action in the larger battle in which the Americans were largely unprepared. The Battle off Samar has been cited by historians as one of the greatest last stands in naval history; ultimately the Americans prevailed over a massive armada – the Japanese Imperial Navy’s Center Force under command of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita – despite their very heavy losses and overwhelming odds. This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit
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