World War II Documentary Double Feature: Normandy Invasion / The Stillwell Road

NORMANDY INVASION (1945): June 6, 1944. 156,000 soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy to begin the liberation of Nazi-occupied France. The U.S. Coast Guard's cameras were there to document the efforts of the men who fought - and died - on that day. But before that fateful June morning, we are shown the training and preparation that took place. The men huddle together in prayer, knowing the next day may be their last. And then...D-Day. Explosive artillery shells bombard the coast of Normandy as infantry push through German defenses. Injured men are carried to waiting medical ships...some will not survive. The importance of their service and the value of their sacrifice is hammered home in the film's final scenes, as we see captured Nazi officers loaded onto boats, beaten and humbled. Normandy Invasion is narrated by Jackson Beck, one of the most recognizable voice-over artists of the 20th Century. He was the narrator of radio's The Adventures of Superman, the voice of Bluto in Paramount's Popeye cartoons, and a pitchman for dozens of products, including Combat Roach Killer and Little Caesars Pizza.

THE STILLWELL ROAD (1945):The Stillwell Road tells the story of the "almost forgotten" China-Burma-India Front - "a story of humiliating defeat, flaming courage, and hard-won victory." One month after Pearl Harbor, Imperial Japan destroyed the Burma Road - a land bridge between India and China that had kept blockaded China from completely falling to the Axis Powers. Now both China and India were in danger of falling under Axis rule. Thousands of Burmese refugees, their lives shattered by Japan's wanton destruction, sought shelter along the river, or in the jungles and the mountains. A massive multinational Allied force, commanded by General Joseph Stillwell, took on the massive task of rebuilding the road. The British and Americans toiled side by side with Chinese, Indians, Burmese - even African headhunters - to create a new 1000-mile road, striking a major symbolic and strategic victory against Japanese aggression. This stirring documentary is narrated by future President Ronald Reagan. "Study this picture carefully," says the Gipper, "Unless we, the free men of the world, learn the lesson that it teaches us, we will never be able to maintain the peace, the freedom, the security for which all of us have fought."