The Last Bomb (1945)

Directed by

Frank Lloyd

Genre

propaganda film

Country

United States

Runtime

35 min

Rating

6.2 of 10 from 5 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This 1945 film documents the Allied bombing campaign against Japan in World War Two. It follows B-29 bombers from their Pacific island bases to the firebombing of Tokyo and shows the dangers of combat and landing damaged planes.

propagandisticpatrioticsternfactualmatter-of-facthistoricalsolemn

What happens

The Last Bomb was a 1945 propaganda film mainly concerning the conventional phase of the bombing of Japan in 1945. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film begins by describing the taking off points in Saipan, Guam, and Tinian, remarking how they have changed since American occupation. General Curtis LeMay is shown planning a daylight raid on Japan's industrial areas. Squadrons of B-29s then assemble and the audience rides with them through a space of ocean as wide as the US from Mexico to Canada, special attention being given to the island Iwo Jima, which is midway through the journey, the base for P-51 fighters that will escort the bombers. The film then proceeds to the actual bombing of Japan, showing one of the B-29s in combat with Japanese fighters, dogfights between the escorting P-51s and Japanese aircraft and the destruction leveled on Tokyo by the B-29s' payload and subsequent strafing by the escort fighters. When the bombers return to base, the hazards of war are assessed, particularly the problems associated with landing the large planes, often damaged by Japanese flak or fighters, which could sometimes be fatal. At the very end some color footage of the mushroom cloud at Nagasaki is shown, the narrator, Reed Hadley, telling us that it saves thousands of American lives by preventing an invasion of Japan. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Birth of the B-29 (1945)
• Know Your Enemy: Japan (1945)
• War Comes to America (1945)
• D-Day -1 (1945)
• The Atom Strikes! (1945)
• The Fleet That Came to Stay (1945)
• Saga of the Franklin (1945)
• My Japan (1945)