 was taken from Air Force Combat Film Digest. It tells a story of the vital contribution made by the Army Air Forces to victory in the Pacific. Since December 7, 1941, the world has decreased in size and its shape has been considerably ordered. This phenomena, which had brought disaster to our enemies, will remain as a lasting tribute to the skill of American aviation, its workers, and the personnel of the Army Air Forces. In less than four years, the distance around the world has been spanned thousands upon thousands of times. Places that were once obscure specs on the map have become bywords in every home in the land as they were bombed, rebombed, and blasted out of existence until victory was won. The Army Air Forces played an important part in winning the war. It is equally important to ensure our winning the peace that America remain what is today, the leading air power in the world. You and every American can play your part in maintaining the freedom and security for which we have all fought, by buying and holding bonds. Or comes to Japan, lays Salomawa, New Guinea. We start for Tokyo, the Aleutian Islands. We start from another direction, China, where there was never enough of anything to fight with, except Japs. Just another one of a hundred blobs of land, a retake in the Pacific. Wake Island, penetrated by the airborne infantry of every nation. Practically nothing stopped us. On the road to the Philippines, Holandia, obscure names on the map of the world that were blasted out of existence. For every bomb, every bullet, and every dead jet, we paid. We paid for a global war under conditions that hardly seem possible now. We paid with endless supplies and materiel. And our men fought and sweated and labored endlessly to advance the bomber line. That was the watchword in the Pacific, to advance the bomber line. To advance the bomber line to Tokyo, not just from the dank, malarial infested jungles. From the ice and snow and solitude to the advanced the bomber line, get the planes in the air, destroy the Japs. American supplies from a nation mobilized for war. Supplies of every size, shape and description. Supplies destined for China after being shipped halfway around the world. Supplies for a global war. Flown to their final destination by the Army Air Forces. This was more than a fight against the Japs. It was a fight against time and the elements. But finally, all over the Pacific and the Far East, our time began to arrive. The supply line that stretched halfway around the world served its purpose. And the airstrips that had been hacked out of the jungles, the Army Air Forces gave the infantry the one thing they lacked for so long. Air ground support. Fighter aircraft swooped down to destroy the enemy. Patrol Burma, 90 miles southwest of Mandalay, is just one example of the thousands of times that air ground support catapulted our advances forward. In this instance, air power was used to clear the way for a push south to Rangoon and win that port for our own forces. P-47s in the first air commando group were used to aid the British infantry to cross the Irrawaddy River and establish a beachhead. The air action ranged in a 50-mile radius. The pilots, guided by intelligence reports, were in constant communication with ground installations. They bombed and strafed everything the Japanese had so carefully installed. What would have taken months, hand-to-hand fighting and heavy casualties, was accomplished in a matter of days. And even as this beachhead was consolidated, it was clear that the British-American air ground coordination would push the Japs out of Burma. This is an emergency hospital located seven miles behind the front lines in northern Burma. General Stillwell watches as Chinese casualties are brought in to be treated by Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Segrave, the famous Burma surgeon and his staff of Army doctors and Burmese nurses. Because of the constant presence of snipers, most of the wounded were brought in during the night. They made the seven-mile trip from the front lines over jungle trails in crude man-carried litters. This base, like many others, was supplied with medical equipment and plasma by the Army Air Forces. The wounded men after being treated were carried an additional 14 miles to a landing strip where they were flown back to a general hospital at Lido, a trip that would take 15 days by foot. The Army Air Forces made it in one hour and saved the lives of countless soldiers of the United Nations who were patched, mended and revivified by the combined miracles of modern medicine and air power. No sooner was a new base secured in the Pacific when the same relentless, monotonous tasks began all over again. At Saipan, supplies, equipment, engineers followed in the wake of the invasion forces to make the island operational for the Army Air Forces. Work began even while the freshly wounded men were still being evacuated to Kwajalein. Just a few short days ago, these men had left Kwajalein whole and ready for battle. Now they were going back to where they had started from. The victory at Saipan had been a costly one, but the enemy had been made to pay double. Once more, the potency of air power manifested itself. Now the strongest Jap bases in the Pacific have been reduced to rubble. The Japanese warlords knew now that soon no part of the homeland would be safe. Then began one of the miracle jobs of the Pacific, a job that had to be completed within hours at the time it was begun. To rebuild and lengthen the newly captured airstrip to accommodate the weapon that was eventually going to win the war. This is history now how the job was accomplished. And out of the vast stretches of the Pacific, roared the mightiest bomber the Army Air Forces had ever dreamed about. The B-29 Superfortress, the dust of the Kansas Plains still embedded in the shiny silver wings. This was the bomber that was designed to carry the war directly to Japan itself. The zenith of the long-range plans for victory in the Pacific was in sight. However, there was an obstacle in our path. It was called Iwo Jima. We needed this tiny stretch of land for many reasons. As a fighter base, as an emergency landing field for B-29s returning from missions over Japan, and also because it was filled with Japanese aircraft that had to be eliminated before we started on the road to Tokyo. Using Iwo Jima as a base, the Japs attacked Saipan in every opportunity. And we shot them out of the sky as fast as they came over. They hit us, too. Hit men in the painstakingly built airfield in B-29s. Reasons enough to make the step that followed. We had to take Iwo Jima, no matter what the cost was. When the smoke and the fire and agony and the dying was over, this is what was left. But Iwo Jima was ours. The fighter planes on its airstrip were ours. And the B-29s had their emergency landing field. The road to Tokyo was wide open. Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Rabaul, and Tarawa were left behind now as the army air forces began to systematically destroy vital targets of the stolen Japanese Empire. The valuable oil supplies at Balikbapan and surrounding vicinity were subjected to devastating aerial bombardments. These were long, dangerous missions, but they were worth it. The major supply of fuel for the Japanese war machine was destroyed, and the enemy onboarding was softened up for the inevitable invasion that followed the heavy air attacks. The high-geared Japanese war machine was slowed down to a walk. Even as the B-29s from Saipan began flying missions against Japan itself, other portions of the army air forces were spearheading the attacks against the Philippines. Here the Japs were firmly entrenched. But here again they were made to feel and realize the potency of air power. The Japs had done a lot of damage to our bases in the Philippines in 1941. When General MacArthur said he would return, he didn't mean that he'd come empty-handed. The army air forces had delivered the goods prepaid. Recapture of the Philippines and the liberation of its long-suffering people is just part of the archives now. And General Douglas MacArthur has reached his goal to avenge Batan and Krigador. There was still another base we paid to secure. Okinawa, on a nearby island, rests one more soldier. Now it too was soon operational. General Doolittle arrived from the European Theater and assumed command of the redeployed 8th Air Force. The stage was set. In General Arnold, commander of the army air forces, flew to a far eastern base to discuss the knockout blow with Generals Kenny and Whitehead. The bomber line had advanced to Tokyo at last. And what a bomber line. 400 plane raids. 500. 600. A thousand. The island hopping, the naval battles, the hand-to-hand fighting of the Marines and infantry were all paying off at once. Japanese aircraft production was reduced 50% within a space of weeks. Japanese shipping was slashed to shreds. And their war plants were systematically eliminated. The super fortresses rained a constant stream of destruction and were accompanied on their missions by strong fighter escorts to protect them. Tokyo. Kobe. Nagasaki. Yokohama. Kuri. And every other major city of Japan was bombed and rebombed by the B-29s. Entire cities were destroyed. While others were left smoking and paralyzed. Millions of Japanese were forced to flee. In these final days of the war, air power and air power alone was bringing a nation to its knees. It remained for air power and air power alone to finish the job. One day, August 5th, 1945, one B-29 left on a special mission. One airplane that represented the people of the United Nations and the millions who had lost their lives. One airplane that represented millions of man-hours of labor and billions of dollars of American money. That airplane carried the atomic bomb. This destination was Hiroshima. A city in ruins with one bomb. This was the first test of the atomic bomb in New Mexico. Nagasaki destroyed a few days later with a second atomic bomb, so much more powerful that the first one was already obsolete. On August 14th, 1945, the Pacific War was over. Japan surrendered unconditionally, simply by pressure from a distance. That pressure was air power, the strongest air power the world had ever known. It remains for the people of the United States to keep it that way.