This Oscar-winning documentary features amazing footage from the U.S. Office of War Information and the British Ministry of Information in the final year of World War II. General Dwight D. Eisenhower introduces the film which features narration of the words of soldiers and others who contributed to the war effort. The documentary footage begins with the Normandy landings on D-Day of June 6, 1944, all the way through the battles in France and Germany up to the fall of Berlin and the German unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945. Along the way, dramatized voices from the Allied Forces chime in with accompanying combat footage from land, sea, and air.
While it's not a comprehensive history lesson of the final year of the war, it certainly leaves an impression of what the last year of World War II was like in the European theatre of combat. From the beaches of Normandy to the concentration camps in Germany, you'll see the triumphs and horrors of this major 20th-century conflict, restored in high definition by the U.S. National Archives. The direction of the film is attributed to British director Carol Reed, with many other significant contributors, utilizing footage from over 1,000 cameramen.