Underplayed Gems

The Fleet That Came to Stay (1945)

The Fleet That Came to Stay poster
Directed by
Budd Boetticher
Genre
documentary film, propaganda film
Country
United States
Runtime
21 min
Rating
8.0 of 10 from 1 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like this

How it feels

This is a short propaganda film from 1945 about the US Navy's role in the invasion of Okinawa. It shows American servicemen preparing for battle and explains the threat of kamikaze attacks.

patrioticinformativeearnestbriskhistoricalmatter-of-factdatedsomber

What happens

The Fleet That Came to Stay was a propaganda short film produced by the US Navy in 1945 about the naval engagements of the invasion of Okinawa. The film opens with the small talk of the American GIs soon after they find out where they are headed. One notes that he hears the island looks like San Francisco, while another responds that he once drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco in eight hours, prompting another to boast that he once covered the 360 miles from Buffalo to New York in six. Then it dawns on the servicemen that they will be less than 350 miles from Japan when they get to Okinawa. The narration begins at that point explaining that the fleet on its way to Okinawa will be the first in history to come into battle with a land-based aerial opponent. Up to this point the Japanese have been at an aerial disadvantage, needing to fly a great distance from Japan to engage the enemy, or be stationed on an aircraft carrier that could be sunk. But now the Americans were coming to their home base. The narrator also talks at length about the kamikaze pilots and the difficulties the Navy has had with them in recent months. Much of the film is taken up with the kamikaze attacks, and the American pilots trying to shoot them down over the Pacific so they will not crash into Allied warships, which many of them do. There is much footage of the Americans trying to repair the ships while the battle is still going on. Twice during the film, the GIs take time to reflect on news coming from abroad: on April 13, they learn of Franklin D. Roosevelt's death, and on May 9, VE-Day. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.