105mm Gun Crew on Iwo Jima: "Glamour Gal" 1945 US Marine Corps; WWII (Patreon)

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Glamour Gal: A 105mm Gun Crew (G Battery) from the 5th Marine Division and their 105mm howitzer (named Glamour Gal), from the time the unit leaves Camp Pendleton, through action on Iwo Jima.

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glamour_Gal

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Glamour Gal is a 1945 propaganda film documentary film about the eponymous large artillery gun and the ten Marines who work her, "a team of eleven".

Overview

The film follows Glamour Gal and her escorts from the time she ships off through her service on Iwo Jima. Life for the artillerymen aboard ship is depicted as monotonous, as they are, for the moment, "simply passengers" with little to do except read old magazines and brag about their girlfriends. However, the monotony is broken once the captain announces that they are approaching their destination, Iwo Jima, described as "some rock in between the devil and the Dutch East Indies".

The rest of the film is devoted to authentic color footage of the battle of Iwo Jima. No punches are pulled in its presentation of the event; the narrator notes that Mt. Suribachi saw more flames going into it than it ever gave out as an active volcano, "where no Jap could go on living." However, after 28 days everyone starts talking about where they will be sent to next: "Korea, Formosa, French Indochina". Glamour Gal's next assignment, though, will be in Japan "to keep the peace in Ereater East Asia". The film ends on a somber note, informing the audience of the servicemen who will never leave Iwo Jima.

This was the second film the U.S. military produced about Iwo Jima, the first being To the Shores of Iwo Jima, which featured the famous flag-raising sequence...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima

The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps and Navy landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. The American invasion, designated Operation Detachment, had the purpose of capturing the island with its two airfields: South Field and Central Field was twofold. The first was to provide for B-29s unable to make it back to Tinian. The second was to have air fields for shorter ranged fighters to be staged to extend fighter coverage to the bombers. The island could also serve as a staging point for attacks on the Japanese main islands. The five-week battle was some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the Pacific War...

The IJA positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and 18 km (11 mi) of tunnels. The American ground forces were supported by extensive naval artillery, and had complete air supremacy provided by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators throughout the battle.

Japanese combat deaths numbered three times the number of American deaths although, uniquely among Pacific War Marine battles, American total casualties (dead and wounded) exceeded those of the Japanese. Of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner, some of whom were captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled. The majority of the remainder were killed in action, although it has been estimated that as many as 3,000 continued to resist within the various cave systems for many days afterwards, eventually succumbing to their injuries or surrendering weeks later.

Despite the bloody fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the American victory was assured from the start. Overwhelming American superiority in numbers and arms as well as complete air supremacy—coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement, along with sparse food and supplies—permitted no plausible circumstance in which the Americans could have lost the battle.

Joe Rosenthal's Associated Press photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of the 169 m (554 ft) Mount Suribachi by six U.S. Marines became an iconic image of the battle and the American war effort in the Pacific...