 To Germany From Alaska to Puerto Rico All over the world the United States Army is on the alert to defend our country you the American people against aggression This is the big picture an official television report to the nation from the United States Army Now to show you part of the big picture here is Sergeant Stewart Queen For the past five weeks the big-picture camera has been roaming throughout America Picking out the highlights of the principal units and installations of our continental armies Today our camera swings to one of the coasts the Pacific Coast We're going to be conducted on a special tour of one of America's continental armies the 6th Army In area 6th Army touches our neighbor to the north Canada and on its southern extremity at borders, Mexico Within this wide range of country 6th Army performs many kinds of activities As in our other on-the-spot reports lieutenant John Mortimer will be our guide This is a lieutenant John Mortimer inviting you to take another look at the big picture This time we're going to tour the last of the 6th Army commands within the United States We start our trip in the picturesque country surrounding the Golden Gate Bridge at the western edge of the nation on the northernmost point of the Peninsula of San Francisco and bordering a thriving business district only a few miles from downtown San Francisco lies the Presidio Ideally located to serve as headquarters of the 6th Army Near what is now the center of the main post the Spaniards laid out their original Presidio So-called from the Rome word Pricidium meaning a garrison or fortified camp This tablet marks the northwest corner of the original Presidio of San Francisco Founded by the Spaniards in 1776 Nearby stands the Presidio Chapel whose Spanish architecture honors the early California missionaries In Colonel Donahue post chaplain we find a guide well-burst in the Presidio's history Good morning, chaplain. Good morning. You chaplain Donahue sir. Yes, I'm chaplain Donahue. This is chaplain Lewis our post Morning, sir. You certainly have a wonderful view from up here, sir We certainly do I think this is one of the prettiest views that we have in San Francisco From the Presidio and with our beautiful chapel here on the hill. Yes, fine Now what are some of these buildings sir? Well, this is our service club here Now from right over here you can see the officers club which is the oldest building in San Francisco You can see right through here the tile roof building Yes, and then right beyond that is the Chapel of our Lady Which is the Catholic Chapel of the Presidio which was established here in 1776? Well, I see mass is just getting over there. Yes, you can see the people coming out of mass right now It's a beautiful beautiful little chapel and is a historic Spot for the place of first Christian worship here in the Bay Area I would like to show you the mural that is on the side of our building here It's a really depicts various scenes of California history as you approach it, of course you see the Statue of St. Francis of Assisi after whom San Francisco is named and Then you see in the mural various scenes depicting eras of California history in fact right there is the picture of the officers club Which I showed you a minute ago and then in front of him here is Probably father Juniper Cerro are one of the Franciscan missionaries with his Indian converts and then over here you see something of the Gatun locks of the Panama Canal and its importance to California history and The planning of the Golden Gate Bridge Yes, well lieutenant. It's just about time for church to begin. Would you come into church like you're very much fine fine? glad to have Lord Almighty ever lasting God therefore with angels and our angels and with all the company of heaven we love and magnify by glorious name ever more crazy be and say Oh Happy to have you at church this morning very nice to be with you So then Lee general and mrs. Wyman are coming out right now and general and mrs. Dean will follow them Good morning. This is mrs. Wyman. Good morning. Good morning. This is general. Good morning, general How are you sir? I'm very glad to see you start at your chapel at our chapel for the tour that you're going to make of the sixth army It is Unally important that we lean on the faith of our fathers For the development of strength and guidance in the tasks that are ours in modern times To the TV audience I'd like to say how proud I am that I have been a signed command of this army in the Presidio of San Francisco Where were the air forces in the Navy? We make the price service team for the defense of the great west of the United States That is not our only mission. However, but we must be prepared to support Our allies of the free world wherever we must defend ourselves against communism and It isn't the sixth army that I feel her tradition is particularly applicable to her responsibilities With the history of the great war behind her where she fought those great battles We have that spirit which will carry us on through the requirement of modern defensive Operations Thank you very much general. Good luck on your trip. Thank you, sir From the chapel we move on to another part of the Presidio to the sixth army's CBR school The C in CBR stands for chemical warfare the B for Bacteriological warfare and the R for radiological warfare Will you please jot down about six ways? You may employ the use of these grenades in a tactical situation Morning, I'm lieutenant Marmar big picture camera. Oh, yes Well, lieutenant, we're just about ready to have a chemical munitions demonstration down at battery Chamberlain Would you and your big picture like to join us fine? We'd very much like to see what's going on good If you'll excuse me just a minute right certainly If you'll pick up your things we will go down to the demonstration area at Battery Chamberlain for the chemical munitions demonstration The students will be briefed by Major General William F.D Deputy Commander of the Sixth Army his boys rising above the roar of the surf You are here for a three week course CBR Now I know a great many of you are wondering why in the world You are receiving this kind of instruction Many people say why do we teach this type of war warfare? Well, we have not used chemical warfare in our past two wars either World War two or in Korea, but we know That our potential enemy is equipped with All three types of warfare that you're learning about here these next three weeks. We know they have it We know we must know how to defend ourselves against it and we know they initiate use of them That we must employ them ourselves and know how to employ them too often We have weapons entirely familiar with That must never be the case again That's why we have these schools Now we'll join the students on the beach for the demonstration Private solar the instructor is going to tell us about this demonstration What are these props you have down here private? These are the props for the first part of our exercise in which we will cover possible field Expedients for the soldier when faced with a problem of decontamination When I what if this clothes line looking to fair you have actually that is a clothes line We have two 25-foot strands of primer cord with rags wrapped around it We do this to show you the effectiveness of primer cord as it will be used with the munitions for the rest of the afternoon. I see No more clothes right Next we'll show you how we may decontaminate a field contaminated with liquid blister gas Here we will use primer cord with molasses residue to simulate the mustard or the liquid blister agent What's the fallout? Now we will show you how we will decontaminate this field contaminated with mustard agent What we will do is use bleach over two strands of primer cord The primer cord will blow up the bleach and through the use of the wind it will fall out directly upon that mustard in the field Notice the fallout right on top of the mustard That is decontamination right there. Yes, sir. Bleach is a very good agent to decontaminate mustard We could march the troops right across that field now with no harm Now if you will imagine that this is a grassy or brushy field contaminated with mustard gas We will show you how the explosive effect of primer cord will blow a path through this area So that we may safely march some people through there or even a truck as in the second case Now imagine that we can throw this out by hand or projected with a rifle, but what's the primer cord blow that path in the middle? I'd say that's quite a path there right if you notice that that would be a grassy field There would be an area there large enough for a truck to drive right through very safely Now lieutenant if you'll follow me down a little farther We'll get on with the second part of our show and show you some of the other munitions We find it's extremely interesting What is this part private Next we will illustrate some of the miscellaneous chemical core munitions that we use here to CBR school Down there you see privates Eller de Graf and Goss who will show you the white phosphorus grenades What are they used for? They are used for screening purposes for burning purposes and also the fragments themselves may injure personnel As you can see it puts up quite a billowing smoke and it is one of our best screening smokes Any of those fragments that come in contact with personnel will injure them and burn them very seriously What do you have next next you will notice corporal Thompson down here will illustrate the use of some of the Burning type munitions that we do have These grenades burn at approximately 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit Actually, they will burn right through water. There's nothing you can do to put out there mate It's all quite light who doesn't quite a light It's not very good to look into it for a longer period of time now We'll move down the beach for the climax of the demonstration and now the finale a Mark atomic bomb right a show Thank you very much. It's a pleasure. Thank you, sir. Right Next stop for the big picture camera truck in his tour of 6th Army is the Yuma testing station 30 miles north of Yuma, Arizona the 6th Army command embraces eight western states Yuma test station includes 1 million acres of desert terrain which adds up to an awful lot of sand In this terrain chiefly sandy bottom land and jagged mountains Research and development for all technical services of the field forces board are conducted Vehicles which survive these rugged courses can be expected to stand up under the most difficult desert conditions Does it have the power to make it especially under these weather conditions? Remember extreme heat is a vital factor on the desert out here The most severe tests are usually reserved for the hottest days in summer Temperatures average 115 degrees in the shade while the sand often is 20 or more degrees hotter The desert plays no favorites. It can have its effect on ammunition too muzzle velocity range accuracy and trajectory of each weapon must be checked and rechecked in desert temperatures This 90 millimeter gun will fire a shell through an electronic coil in order to check its velocity Besides checking the velocity of the shell the test crew will examine its casing Heat may have affected the casing directly or indirectly by damaging the gun barrel Of all weapons of war you might expect flamethrowers to be most resistant to heat But sooner or later the minute Yuma test just about everything the army uses Out here if you want any information about the weather your best bet is to ask the nearest signal corps man One function of the signal corps desert tests is to keep a constant record of weather conditions for every minute of every 24 hours Let's take a typical example Suppose a crew was testing the 90 millimeter gun you saw fired a few minutes ago Suppose they fired around and it traveled only 75 percent of the distance it should have and Suppose they wanted to know what the air temperature or what the wind velocity was when they fired it These questions might not even occur to them until a day or two later All they would have to do is ask the signal corps What was the temperature or wind velocity at 15 32 hours on 12 August if that was the time the shell was fired Here radar tracks a weather balloon to determine wind speed and direction Because of the constant weather check kept by the signal corps each testing group is spared the task of making its own Weather check for each test from Yuma where a menomaterial are tested for physical reactions The big picture returns to California and Fort Ford Here a major activity is the testing of men for their psychological reactions performed by human research unit We have an appointment to interview as director Lieutenant Colonel reader Colonel will you tell our big picture audience about your mission here at the human research unit four-door? Yes, our unit has the mission of performing a psychological research for the army in the areas of motivation Morale and leadership And how large of an organization do you have to accomplish that mission? We have one officer 11 enlisted men 22 civilian professional psychologists and 18 clerical Personnel or they've broken up into teams. They function that way. Is that it? Yes, that is true, Lieutenant All personnel are organized into teams under a civilian professional psychologist who is the project chief The team is composed of some enlisted personnel Who have had training in this area? Of course, all of our personnel are psychologists. We're now do they travel to pick up these facts colonel. Yes We do extensive traveling throughout the United States and the foreign theaters of operation Typically, for instance, we've just had Three teams which have returned from the Far East and Korea What have you found over there say like the ideal characteristics of a infantry fighter? Good, Lieutenant. I have some charts here, which I'll just show you the chief staff As you see the outstanding fighter is a good leader You see here that the outstanding fighter also generally proves to be a fairly intelligent lad Here this chart indicates that the Outstanding infantryman the one who does well in combat Accepts more than his share of social responsibility Here we find that the fighter fits well into a group that he Takes all the Responsibility which is necessary to be a responsible member of any small group. That's it Here we find that the fighter Has his share or more than his share of emotional stability. He's well adjusted gets along well with his squad members and All in all I would say that our findings show that That The good fighter is an all-round good fellow from Fort Ord which overlooks the Pacific south of San Francisco The big picture camera truck has northward in his tour of the Sixth Army to the state of Washington His destination of embarkation To the background music of an army band which greets all incoming ships from the Far East command a Transport brings home a shipload of returning soldiers During recent years Scenes like this have become very familiar But to each returnee waiting to set foot on American soil again and to each waiting part white for child The emotional pang is as great as if it were the first time it ever happened It is difficult to judge who is the more eager the men on board ship or those waiting at dockside We leave these troops for another area of the port to interview Lieutenant Colonel George G. Evans Listen to Lieutenant Colonel Evans transportation officer in charge serve for such a busy seaport You're quite a ways from the open sea aren't you? Well, we're not too far It's a distance from Seattle port to Cape flattery of 113 miles Cape flattery is the northwest most point in the United States Actually ships proceeding from here go 67 miles to Port Angeles Then they're on international waters and then on out into Pacific right from Port Angeles on out past Cape flattery Then they're in the open sea This is more or less the gateway to the east that correct Yes, actually this port is the main shipping port the primary port for Alaska This port is also the closest port to the Orient That reminds me sir of our next stop and our last stop on the big picture the army language school the army language school Well, that ought to be very interesting. I we sure enjoyed this visit to thank you very much fine. Thank you a Quick trip south to the Presidio of Monterey in California and the army language school Our guide is Colonel Douglas B Smith director of training Welcome to the army language school I'd like to show you some of the teaching techniques we use to give our students a Practical command of a foreign language that will help them to do their jobs better Let's start with the beginning of our course phase one Oh Here's a Japanese class in phase one Phase one is designed to give the student a basic command of pronunciation Using the most common everyday situation Oh This is phase two of our course phase two is concerned with the structure of the language In this phase we practice speech patterns all drills are usually the course And we stress In these drills the use of objects which the students can see and handle as you see here Go ahead with your drill We've gotten a nice. Mr. Melon has Sutter. I'll be possible to save the nice in the moon. I'll us up That's correct. That's not cool. She'll be howl of a little mahafada No, I'm a truck. I could telephone at the beauty. No, I'm a maze That's a very good exercise gentlemen. Thank you very much The on-grip is for more than a few or 30 on deserts these the military Lager My topum have by good talk my man. What's doing? See here? We're speaking a tactical off-gap on sandcasten. Oh, that's Very good. I'm seaford What's up? We've got a lot of stuff. He is the military Lager My topum have by to name in fight with the stand today. The linear xx When upon serve, we find in sich im Breitestellungsraum zudlich despacis end. This is phase three of our instruction. In this phase, we expand vocabulary, particularly military vocabulary, and in grain still further, correct speech habits that we've already started. We use many varieties of oral drills, such as discussions of military situations simulating actual conditions as they occur in the field, interrogation of prisoners, and a practical lecture size, such as the one you see here. Barn sie fort! Wie gedenken Sie den Angriff zu vielen? Na kurze Artillerievorbereitung breitenfasset unsere Panzer in den feindlichen Linien ein. Dankeschön, mein Herr! Auf Wiedersehen! Wo wird der Schwerpunkt des anderes liegen? Auf der Straße nach Adolf. Let's take a look at this map. Here are three nations all over the world whose problems and whose people we must understand. We feel that the best way of achieving cooperation and understanding is through our ability to speak their languages. Our students are endued with this idea, and when they leave here, they feel that they're much better qualified to do their jobs. The big picture hopes that you have enjoyed these tours of the Sixth Army Commands within the United States, and that the panorama offer has shown you not only the activities of the Army throughout the land today, but also the spirit that inspires these men with a mission. That's the story of Sixth Army, the last of our great continental units to be surveyed in this special series by the big picture camera. If you followed these first-person reports week by week, you've seen and heard the leaders of our great force in the zone of interior. You've learned their missions and seen how they are being fulfilled. Men and women of the United States Army, ever vigilant to keep our defenses strong. This is Sergeant Stuart Queen inviting you to tune in next week for another look at your Army in action on The Big Picture. The Big Picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the Army at home and overseas, produced by the Signal Corps Pictorial Center, presented by the U.S. Army in cooperation with this station. You can be an important part of The Big Picture. You can proudly serve with the best equipped, the best trained, the best fighting team in the world today, the United States Army.