YANKEE NOODLE

[Music] American worker this is your factory this web of metal and light crammed with intricate machines drilling punching bending weapons into shape is yours you thought it up it was born in the good old Yankee noodle the great heritage of American ingenuity has worked miracles here at home and it's working miracles overseas our boys here's how they live and dream some of them a lot of others close relatives of rube goldberg are determined to prove that man can stand alone that males can build and operate washing machines any place any time without women of course they really don't want it spread around with pieces of wire and old wheels with worn-out hack saws and rusty nuts and bolts they've improvised gadgets to save time and labor and lives here an old grappling hook a rope and a grenade launcher are used to explode mines the hook is shot out into the field then carefully hauled back in as it slides over the ground it catches any hidden tripwires and explodes the mines this is a cable binder invented by a group of boys in the Pacific where it used to take an hour to string a line this gadget does it in 15 minutes [Music] this pole climber in India had another bright idea just take an elephant and well just take an elephant an oxygen tank from a p-47 and copper tubing coiled inside an oil drum is all that's necessary for the construction of a steel a steel from battery water of course [Music] it used to take from two to three hours to change one of these big airplane tires a gadget built with salvaged parts from a bombed out Italian hangar does the job in 20 minutes flatten this dolly with the tire riding along like a racehorse in its kart is another labor saving idea instead of seven men who used to load and unload tires from standard trucks it now takes just three [Music] a special wrench designed and built overseas tightens nuts and bolts in what used to be inaccessible places [Music] this mobile service and repair unit is mounted on a truck that once carried supplies over the Burma Road a discarded Jeep motor supplies power for the various tools here is the instrument panel mounted behind the driver's seat an air compressor is one of the many features of this assembly [Music] a 110 code generator supplies electric power work lights our rheostat controlled there are rough lights a soldering iron an electric drill everything that can save time and labor in the field the unit is light easy to handle it uses little gas and oil and can be transported by air a very important feature in the China Burma India theater of war this fortress its brakes gone is bound to overshoot the field or is it coming in on a wing and a prayer and a parachute one Yankee noodle improvised that emergency air brake and ten lives were saved the Yankee noodles good in peace it's just as good in war on the homefront it's accomplishing the day-by-day miracle of war production on the Battlefront the same Yankee noodle is batting our ideas on an endless belt all around the axis but the one thought that's in the Yankee noodle everywhere is winning the war with every tool every weapon every idea [Music] these pictures are from a confiscated Japanese motion picture made five years before Pearl Harbor the picture shows how officers were now fighting us were trained with Japan's West Point Japan gecko to this Tokyo school every year come the cream of Japanese youth about 2,000 students each has received training from the day he first walked at age of 14 the toughest and healthiest are selected the survivors take special exams perhaps fifty nine o'clock one passes he goes on to attune urea cavity and after two summers he moves to the final phase the first day ended Japan's West Point the CEO is welcoming them we congratulate you he says we will train your body and your mind you will work 17 hours a day seven days a week nothing must distract you from your mission remember the words of your first emperor we should spread ourselves all over the world we shall make the whole world our Dominion four men with a destiny day begins the break of dawn [Music] later in the day there are more practical exercises the Japanese can't get enough they make each jump like they're landing on the face of an American jiu-jitsu their most valued items they think it's unbeatable it is in 10 big matches against American wrestlers jiu-jitsu experts were flattened black pancakes but the favorite exercise is bending their backs each morning the Hirohito's holy palace it develops the spine in the classroom there is absolutely no instruction in international relations nor economics yet the men who were graduated to helped rule Japan their lack of knowledge about other countries about the qualities of other people about production causes them to take wild Gamble's but on other subjects they are very thorough trigonometry chemistry yesterday there's a great emphasis on languages German as an access partner English they once hope the user from California and Russia a favorite cultural pastime is Kenda [Applause] [Music] being pounded on the head is supposed to make a man alert there are other outdoor studies signal practice surveying and this class in yelling to prepare a man for giving command and a try scaring the hell out of the enemy eventually every Japanese officer candidate must specialize many go into cavalry school others go into the armored forces the engineers whose instructors have spent years rigging bridges in China a popular course of Japan's West Point as the artillery but the most glamorous branch of them all is the Imperial Air Forces bonded ears have their own private workout over a moving map leave it was Chongqing pilots get into the air very early on their training later these men will prepare to die for their Emperor in zeroes and Nakajima bombers finally the big day at Chef Wong ghako the Emperor God Himself is on ham a thrilling moment for the Japanese officer but only a beginning he must spend eight months in the ranks before becoming a lieutenant his highest base pay will be the equivalent of twenty-one dollars a month he must by his own uniforms and go into depth purchasing a samurai sword he may take a wife from the special school for army brides the honor student of the class receives a special scroll and later will be given a silver watch by the Emperor God silver instead of gold to teach blue gallery and living and for preparing the students so well the CEO receives a special gift from Hirohito yes this is a big day and every graduate dreams that his training will lead him to one hand world domination or Japan but it's being proven otherwise and the stream of actions being returned to Tokyo there is a more fitting end the dead end for the sword waving graduate of Japan's West Point [Music] how long will it take these men to get to Berlin to Tokyo how many years how many months how many minutes these men are the human minutes of this war the inevitable Doughboy the infantryman what soldier one part of millions of parts of the American army ever moving forward ever taking one step of the millions of steps ahead of them these are the men who assault the enemy mop him up with small arms fire plant Old Glory in the ground received most of us think of him as the guy with a rifle a bayonet world's best with both of them too but the infantryman has 17 different weapons of his demands he wields flamethrowers [Applause] even lighthouses master of half-a-dozen knives these storms beaches and she'll rake the salt boats waving from the landing craft [Music] he comes in behind the lines glider plane [Music] the Evan flow of his blood determine the ebb and flow of the tide of battle [Music] here it is was represented by that thin black line on the wall maps in newspapers and magazines and on the screen one general said he is that line if what are these men anyone up falls down on the job platoon maybe lost position maybe lost battle may be lost if any one of these men Fuller's other men may die here are the units of war the men whose deeds shape and change history but soon do boy infantryman foundation for victory and yet look hard at these faces you recognize one you see a relative good neighbor perhaps someone whose pictures been in the papers [Music] no you probably don't you know them only as men in arms men with drawn faces and with red eyes that have looked upon death men with heavy boots that sink in a dust mud water when the cans of film reached the War Department some combat photographers overseas they're accompanied by caption sheets that describe the scene these caption sheets give place names like San lo and Bologna and Saipan they give men's names like general sounds Oh Admiral stone so and so and so who won the Congressional Medal of Honor but with film like this the caption sheet as a rule refers simply to what soldiers it says foot soldiers digging in or what soldiers moving up foot soldiers in action the cameramen don't know their names either there's so many foot soldiers and there's so little time to chase around after last name first name middle initial the bullets are chasing the man who's making pictures after looking at thousands of feet of film showing tens of thousands of unnamed foot soldiers you start wondering about wondering whether from how they're feeling what the names are it's not inconceivable for instance but among this group of weary infantryman is one whose birthday it was the day the film was shot perhaps this one whose name perhaps is Fred you think that's a hell of a way for Fred to spend a birthday [Music] and this shivering fellow would calm Sam as the snow feels soft and friendly like the snow of his Minnesota was he from San Diego and this his bit of baptism by cold about that Sam how long since this man hugged his own baby his name might be Jerry and you for in pain what's your name [Music] when it comes to names isn't so very much different on the home front identities a lost of the great lines of workers these men and women and their jobs the factories in which they toil a lost in the monumental mass of workers and jobs in war plants we think in terms of thousands of factories millions of jobs tens of millions of workers we rarely think in terms of Charlie town working here on a machine gun trigger a harry gold or an ax boy cookus or tom pelo margaret wine gardener there the foot soldiers of industry there's the anonymous unglamorous tasks that had a eventually glory and victory often their loudest dreary monotonous uninspired too often they do not even realize how their work is related to the dazzling concept known as winning the war they don't understand how by their mere presence at their jobs they're like the foot soldier at his station creating a small change at the front they to plug up little holes on great battlefields produce little punches that emerges great knockout flows there the human minutes in the long years of industries war efforts they are the soaring black line on the chart that shows our progress in the battle of supply they too are the foundation for victory [Music] but let one of these foot soldiers fall during his job and this foot soldier may died a station unsung heroes what are your names [Music] but your name soldier and yours worker and yours and yours yours and yours and what was your name fighting man for this unknown soldier the unknown worker is building a monument this Monument [Music]