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Marsilius Boa
This motion picture newsreel covers the Allied activities of the war (and one year of postwar events) from June 1942 through September 1946. Each weekly release contains one to nine news stories and averages a bit over nine minutes in length. It has the added bonus of a complete and "swell" propaganda-type narration.
To make this happen, Roosevelt established the Office of War Information (OWI) by Executive Order 9182 on June 13, 1942. This order consolidated the functions of the Office of Facts and Figures, the Office of Government Reports, and the Division of Information of the Office for Emergency Management. The Foreign Intelligence Service, Outpost, Publication, and Pictorial branches of the Office of the Coordinator of Information were also transferred to OWI.
In other words, OWI became the official arm of government propaganda. All of the activities previously covered by the above-mentioned offices, as well as over 3,000 employees, were placed under the direction of Elmer Davis, formerly a prominent CBS radio newscaster. Davis was keenly aware of the need to interpret the President's war aims onto the silver screen in order to make the motion picture an indispensable weapon of democracy.
Through its Overseas Branch, OWI launched a huge information and propaganda campaign abroad. Part of this vast effort was the production and distribution of the United News newsreel designed primarily to counter enemy propaganda and advance the Allied cause. Under the direction of the Overseas Motion Picture Division, United News was produced cooperatively by five major American newsreel firms, reportedly in 16 languages. It was not only distributed to Allied, neutral, and not-so-friendly nations scattered all over the globe, but also parachuted behind enemy lines in a German-language version. It also found its way to American audiences through non-theatrical distribution to groups like community organizations, libraries, and educational institutions.
The exact roles, arrangements, and agreements that produced the United News newsreel seem lost in the fog of history, but snippets of anecdotal evidence and some applied logic would suggest the following scenario. In mid-1942, and at OWI's request, Paramount Pictures (Paramount News), RKO Radio Pictures (Path News), 20th Century-Fox (Movietone News), Universal Studios (Universal Newsreel), and the Hearst Corporation (News of the Day) voluntarily formed a private, nonprofit, fully government-funded organization, named the United Newsreel Corporation.
Each newsreel company, with War Department approval, was permitted to send two civilian camera crews to the major fighting fronts. Once the 35mm film was exposed, the original footage was gathered and combined with motion pictures filmed by military combat cameramen. All of these reels were sent to the War Department for evaluation and to be censored, as necessary.
When it was finished with its review, the military would make copies available of the approved footage to all U.S. newsreel companies, including United News headquartered in New York City. As you might imagine, with shipping times and wartime priorities, this process could sometimes take weeks or even months to complete. As a result, war-related stories released to the public were seldom considered timely.
In the meantime, United Newsreel partners would document motivational and informational stateside stories and send them to New York City where OWI personnel would review the film for content, censor it as needed, and release the approved footage back to the partners for their use. At that point, war front and home front scenes would be selected as needed to visualize the United News stories set for the next issue.
Integrating "canned" music and sound effects, occasional wild sounds, a rare sound-on-film speech segment, and an OWI-written narration in the appropriate language, the corporation manufactured 16mm prints and distributed them through the established overseas outlets of the partner companies. Further distribution was made through military and diplomatic channels in areas and to audiences not served by established nongovernment networks.
The relatively short history of the OWI is marked by political intrigue, overstepped authority, and an extraordinary drive to do its part to help shorten the war. This history makes for some fascinating reading.
But the United News story doesn't end with the cessation of hostilities. In recognition of a job well done, it continued production of a weekly newsreel for oversees audiences. As soon as OWI ceased to exist, the United Newsreel Corporation reorganized into a new company, United Newsreel International, Inc., with the same partners, under the direction of the U.S. State Department. This arrangement allowed United News to provide a key component in the successful informational programs used in the occupied territories through June 1946.
According to the online National Archives Catalog (NAC), 258 1,000-foot reels of 35mm film along with boxes of production files and notes were transferred to the National Archives from OWI and State Department files sometime before 1955. The collection was officially cataloged as:
Altogether, 267 United News items are listed in the catalog. But when a duplicate story and a misidentified reel are subtracted from the list, the collection contains 265 historically significant World War II newsreels.
While the individual story titles within a given issue are not listed in the National Archives Catalog, the "Scope & Content" section for each release gives a brief summary of the content. About a third of the newsreels also have online transcripts.
The subject matter of the United News stories runs the gamut of the life and times of the people, places, and events of a war-torn world. All major (and some minor) fighting fronts are covered, in the air, on the ground, and on the sea.
The unity of the Allied nations, under the banner of "United Nations," is highlighted regularly, as are stories regarding the perils of Fascism and Nazism, especially during the first two years. Home front stories focus on multiple points, including military training, civilian war production, women in the workforce, war bond drives, and many other subjects. Postwar stories include coverage of the establishment of the United Nations Organization, the war trials, reconstruction efforts, famine relief, and anything atomic, just to name a few. Basically, if it happened and wasn't classified, it's probably shown in the United News newsreel.
Based on image content and script vocabulary, I believe the first group contains those issues that were released to American and other English-speaking audiences. The source of the newsreels in the second group proved elusive until I discovered a short reference to a "London Edition." These issues were produced in collaboration with the British Ministry of Information, the Free World Newsreel, and London-based representatives of exiled governments. Since all the stories in this second group feature a preponderance of Commonwealth moving images, storylines, and language (except, of course, for the one narrated in French), I believe that these reels are the surviving releases of the United News London Edition, intended for viewers in the United Kingdom. Based on a review of all the stories in the entire collection, there appears to be little overlap of story titles or shared footage between the two groups.
To give you a better idea as to the scope of the subject matter covered in this newsreel, below is a representative "as recorded" transcript (with story titles added) of United News #95, released on March 24, 1944. The title of this reel is listed in the National Archives Catalog as "U.S. BOMBERS IN FIRST DAYLIGHT RAID ON BERLIN [ETC.]" It contains seven stories and is approximately 10 and a half minutes long (RG 208-UN-95, NAI 39002). Much of what you will read below is "propaganda style" English, and the spaces between blocks of narration are filled with music and/or sound effects.
NARRATOR: Leaving trails of steaming vapor in their wake, United States bombers bound for Berlin to destroy armament industries in and around the Nazi war capital. In their first daylight mission over the heart of Hitler's fortress, American bombers, combined with British Air Forces, are pounding Germany with raids around the clock.
Wounded soldiers, war correspondents, and diplomats are among her passenger list. They bring firsthand news of conditions in Nazi-occupied countries. Douglas MacArthur, nephew of General MacArthur, was attached to the American Embassy at Vichy.
RALPH HEINZEN: We're very glad to get home. We've been thirteen months interned in Germany and thirteen bad months for the Germans as well as for ourselves. Because in those thirteen months Germany has lost the war. They know they're whipped, but they're wondering how they're going to get out of it. Last year, Hitler has lost tremendously his prestige, particularly as a military leader. All through Europe, there's a very fierce underground warfare going on against Germany. In every occupied country of Europe, but particularly in France, there is this mighty organization of courageous patriots who are waging a war day and night against the forces of occupation.
NARRATOR: Nazi prisoners of war at a camp in northern United States. In full accord with the Geneva Convention, prisoners are well-housed, well-clothed, and well-fed. Although prisoners are not required to work, many volunteer as lumberjacks, for which they are paid 80 cents a day. A snow-shoveling detail. Prisoners keep their own camp in order.
These Signal Corps pictures show a fully-equipped recreation room provided for the captives, who even have their own band. America scrupulously observes the principles of humanity in her treatment of war prisoners.
NARRATOR: Officers of the Allied military government draw up plans for the evacuation of thousands of homeless civilians from Italian battle areas. At one large estate, more than 10,000 Italians found refuge from fighting zones.
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