Product Details

• Producers: Traditions Military Videos
• Region: All Regions
• Run Time: 40 minutes
• ASIN: B000Y8DOQ0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #354,165 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

This DVD starts with 81st Division soldiers enjoying themselves on the beaches of Hawaii following their jungle training. Scenes of the soldiers boarding ships. Excellent scenes aboard ships on their way to Angaur (boxing matches, Neptune ceremony, religious services.) Division stops off at Guadalcanal to practice for the landings. Back on board ship, General Mueller & Admiral Blandy confer over the landings. Off the shores at Anguar, excellent scenes of intense bombardment by battleships, cruisers, and Dauntless dive bombers from carriers, which began on 11 September 1944. Six days later on 17 September, the U.S. 81st Infantry Division commanded by Major General Paul J. Mueller lands on the northeast and southeast coasts. Excellent scenes of the landings. Mines and congestion on the beach initially gave more trouble than Japanese counter-attacks. Resistance stiffened as the Americans advanced on "the Bowl", a hill near Lake Salome in the northwest of the island where the Japanese planned to make their last stand. From 20 September the 322nd battalion repeatedly attacked the Bowl, but the 750 defenders repulsed them with artillery, mortars and machine guns. Gradually hunger, thirst, and American shellfire and bombing took their toll on the Japanese, and by 25 September the Americans had penetrated the Bowl. Rather than fight for possession of the caves, they used bulldozers to seal the entrances. Also includes scenes at Shrine Hill, Saipan town, engineers constructing airstrip, tanks, artillery, wounded at field hospitals and much more. By 30 September, the island was secure. This video also contains two short subject films. Soldiers training at the Jungle Warfare Training Center in Hawaii and "Voice Of Truth," a war-bond sales picture in which, by dramatization, soldiers on a troop ship listen to Japanese propagandist Tokyo Rose ("The Voice of Truth") reporting news from America to convince the troops that the people at home are not interested in the soldiers.