The fourth orientation film: Fighter Command, the Blitz, and the civilian endurance that the War Department wanted its own conscripts to understand.
The note
Made with substantial help from British sources, this is the most admiring of the series and the most useful as pure audio, because so much of what it documents was itself a matter of sound — sirens, the drone of formations, the BBC. Churchill is heard. The film was shown to British audiences too, which was unusual for an American orientation picture. Federal work, no copyright.
The Battle of Britain, 1943. US War Department, Special Services Division. Directed by Frank Capra and Anthony Veiller. This is the film’s soundtrack: narration, score and location sound, streamed from the Internet Archive’s master. No picture — the audio is the work. A work of the United States government, and therefore free of copyright anywhere it is used.
1 January
1943
US War Department, Special Services Division
53 min
The Battle of Britain (1943). US War Department, Special Services Division. Held by the Internet Archive;