WAR FILM 23 – PRIVATE SNAFU CARTOON & LEDO ROAD IN CHINA / BURMA

la [Music] probably the most battles scarred veteran of the war in the air is the Blue Streak a liberator bomber with more firsts to its credit than man of war and over a much rougher track cars after 110 combat missions the Blue Streak doesn't have many of its original parts left unscarred and unshaken though is the courage of its crew back home now to Feel Again The Good Good Earth of America the men of the liberos group lost count of the miles they flew and the thousands of gallons of high octane they used on those 110 missions but they know that 23 enemy Fighters ventured too close to survive and three enemy vessels sank under her reign of bombs the Blue Streak was in the first group to bomb the European continent first over pest's oil fields first over Naples first over Rome but it wasn't just the wear and tear of those countless miles that made fresh Parts necessary from time to time this old veteran returned from one combat raid with both Wings a Rudder and an engine so badly shot up as a result of enemy action that they had to be replaced there have been 19 engines installed on this one plane because of action what happens when planes in a combat zone need new Engines new Wings new Rudders sometimes they get them new but often they come from what looks like a junk pile like this one in Italy officially it's an Army Air Force Reclamation and Salvage Yard this Mitchell finally succumbed to too many Flack filled miles now it will be disassembled from Wing section down to the tiniest nut and bolt and anything with an ounce of life in it will be reissued to conserve vital materials to save man hours of Labor and to speed repair very little will go to the scrap pile another Mitchell damaged in a forc landing is waiting for these wing [Music] sections this fuselage and tail section is from a battle weary Fortress whose Rudder has already been installed in another Fort these window fittings will fly again the undamaged skin will patch Flack and bullet holes in sister ships instruments are probably the most precious of all reclaimed Parts even this stripped fuselage now functions as a store room for reclaimed spare parts undamaged bulletproof glass covers are urgently needed every secondhand part from these junkyards that keeps one of our planes flying frees a factory new partk for a new plane to pound the axes into defeat oh w [Music] oh I'll be the war's greatest hero what these guns I have nothing to F my guns are the best they can meet any test oh I'll be the war's greatest hero oh I'm the world's best damn fighting machino them Nazis will Le what I meano my wonderful guns will M them bums and I'll bury them in the L tree [Music] now stick him up or I'll blow your brains [Music] out what a rifle camad H that rifle looks just a bit gooey if you think I am scared your plums crey go on fire away Buck your damn guns full of muck when nothing comes out but just [Music] Hy sh oh a what a gun I'm defeated such a gun just can't be beaten [Music] that gun was neglected no water connected no Ved got overheated now in German army man liba here our weapons work fine cuz we give them great care [Music] now I'm sunk I am King oh you're perfectly safe I am thinking it's musty and Dusty and mighty damn Rusty conditions inside are just stinking really they are [Music] what a dumb cup what a clown just the kind of boob who lets his battery run [Music] down though like all careless gents he Vines a behind fence snafu is the war's greatest [Music] zero two years ago General Joseph W Stillwell retreated from Burma with a band of ragged Yanks British and Chinese he said frankly the Japs gave us a hell of a beating today over vast trackless Cloud scraping jungle geography like this we are battling our way back into Burma our purpose in retaking Burma is to blast open a land route to our great Ally China now cut off by the jeps here in this gigantic Army Depot in Kolkata India are the supplies shipped from home 15,000 M away our job to get the fighting contents of these enormous cases over these Sawtooth mountains to our troops supplies and equipment that must still go the last and hardest few miles this is the beginning of the end of one of the most epic Transportation battles of the war fought day after day by army railroaders army truck experts transport Pilots native workers [Music] faced with primitive Transportation facilities in India we use every available means of moving supplies use river barges for these P40 Warhawk replacement motors head them for our Airfield spread over the China India Burma battle area airfields from which general Clare Chanel's Pilots are blasting the Jets we take over this rail line leading out of Kolkata to our principal North Burma base at leol headquarters of General still Wells forces and starting point of the Leo Road here we meet strange [Music] difficulties along the Route we are forced to Halt and switch from broad to Narrow Gauge tracks complete loads have to be shifted fuel must be reped there are only a few pieces of modern machinery here the bulk of the work must be done by hand at the end of the line we reload on American built heavy truck and keep rolling and here begins what will go down in the annals of rubber wheel Transportation as probably the most dramatic and dangerous run ever made on a 24hour a day basis this is the Leo Road still under construction through North Burma to China a hairpin Highway with a roller coaster grade a muddy dusty road through Teakwood forests malarious swamps a road infested with sniping [Music] jeets and subject without warning to another enemy landslides the workers at home who made these bulldozers and trucks probably never realized they would end up above the clouds in far off Burma but the job isn't finished yet this is the headquarters for an air droppers company from here by transport plane and parachute in specially constructed wicker containers supplies are delivered from the sky to Alli patrols and roving jungle armies deep in the burmes interior to General Merl's yank Marauders to British chindits to the Chinese Battalion spearing down from yunan Province all concentrating on wiping out the Japs in [Music] Burma food from America packed with rice husks as shock absorbers by proper packing by using multiple parachutes even the most delicate equipment can be safely landed radio transmitters like this have been dropped to our troops and retrieved in perfect [Music] condition 50-gallon oil drums machine guns grenades clothing mail from home all these are carried for air delivery and our giant flying box cars the c47 sky trains [Music] smoke signal Wind Drift indicator this is where we drop the stuff [Music] here for the first time in military history troops are armed fed and equipped from the sky are free to move without danger of being cut off from their source of supplies [Music] General Stillwell is supplied almost exclusively from the sky depending on Airborne support as he advances against the Jeffs in Burma to the fighters on the CBI front he is Uncle Joe here he is with some of those Fighters these are the men who are blasting open the land route from India into China were fighting the battle of the hills with the Japs in North Burma Chinese troops fighting side by side with American Doughboys for a year before General Stillwell started climbing back over the 6,000 ft barrier separating India from Burma thousands of Chinese soldiers like these were undergoing training at a secret American jungle training center in India The Identical training the yank Doughboys themselves were getting today well trained wellfed well-led tough and hard armed and equipped with weapons from our own production lines this is a remarkable Army a mixed Army of hard-hitting Yanks and equally hard-hitting Chinese both sworn to clear the world of the brutal Japs a job the Chinese soldiers have been trying to do since 1937 and dying in doing it we're headed for Action now headed South toward Mandalay where the Japs are sitting as stride the Burma Road and Fanning out in strong counter attacks toward India our forces prepare to cross a jungle stream load equipment on bamboo rafts float them [Music] across four-legged long-eared hay burning Jeeps the only kind that can be used here sometimes we're able to build a bridge with Native materials as we push deeper into the interior after the Japs Chinese Joe and GI Joe both headed in the same direction we heck our way through impenetrable forests in Burma the fighting differs from Jungle fighting on the coral islands of the Pacific here both we and the Japs try infiltration cutar arounds weave backs roadblocks all the Maneuvers in the book and a few that we make up as we go along we run into [Music] snipers bring up and imp place our guns these are typical scenes of the Combat Action taking place in all sectors of the vast China Burma India front a a [Music] [Music] battles of the hills battles of the brush battles of the roads and trails and passes battles of the streams [Music] typical too are these scenes those of our Chinese wounded who can walk under their own power the more serious casualties are treated in the field before being carried in crude litters to Frontline emergency hospitals [Music] an American Medical unit set up in the north Burma jungle only 7 miles behind the front line a hospital with a canvas roof and no electricity this man operating is Colonel Gordon Seagrave the distinguished American surgeon who lived and worked in Burma for many years before the war on his staff here are burmes nurses he trained [Music] after receiving emergency treatment the wounded are prepared for removal to a base hospital at [Music] Leo by foot this is a trip that would take 15 days Airborne in these small ambulance planes the wounded can make it in an [Music] hour and here as the tiny ambulance planes return to civilization with their wounded in another part of the Burmese Sky a giant Supply transport crosses back over these Great Hills with more weapons more equipment more ammunition that the fight against the [ __ ] Invaders in this Wilderness below may go on vast crackless tropical jungle Burma an enormous [ __ ] held barrier cutting the Burma Road starving off China from Land delivered American and English supplies where Yanks and British and yank trained Chinese are carving a new Supply Route over Razer back mountains through malarious swamps through an army of desperate Jacks who know that from American maintained airfields in China we will hit the Japanese Mainland itself as we and the RAF have burned and blasted industrial Targets in Hitler's Europe pinpoint Precision delivery these precious bundles must hit these tiny patches cleared in the jungle or be [Music] lost we are on our way oh