Free World War II Documentaries to Watch Online
During World War II, the U.S. government asked some of Hollywood’s best directors to put on a uniform and make films. Frank Capra, John Ford, William Wyler and John Huston all did, and the documentaries they made are still some of the most powerful war footage ever put on screen. Because they were made by the U.S. military and other government agencies, they are in the public domain, and Starlite TV airs a large collection of them on Doc Vault, our documentary channel.
With Veterans Day coming up on November 11, it’s a good time to watch a few. One honest note before you start: most of these were made to persuade. They are wartime films, made for soldiers and for the public at home, and some of them reflect the attitudes of the time, including harsh caricatures of the enemy. They’re worth watching as history, and as a record of how the war was explained to the people who fought it.
Frank Capra’s Why We Fight
Capra, already an Oscar-winning director, was asked by the War Department to explain to new soldiers why the United States was at war. The result was Why We Fight, a series of seven films made between 1942 and 1945, built from newsreels, captured enemy footage and animated maps by Walt Disney’s studio, and narrated by Walter Huston. President Roosevelt had them shown to the public too, and in 2000 the Library of Congress added the series to the National Film Registry. Starlite TV airs all seven.
Start with Prelude to War, which sets out the series’ argument about the free world against the dictatorships. It won the Academy Award for best documentary of 1942. The Nazis Strike and Divide and Conquer cover Germany’s path from rearmament to the fall of France. The Battle of Britain tells the story of the air war over England in 1940, and The Battle of Russia, the longest of the seven at well over an hour, covers the war on the Eastern Front. The Battle of China turns to Japan’s war in China, and War Comes to America closes the series by looking at how Americans went from staying out of the war to fighting it.
John Ford at Midway and Pearl Harbor
The Battle of Midway is only 18 minutes long, and it’s extraordinary. John Ford, by then a Navy commander, was on Midway Island on assignment when the Japanese attacked in June 1942. He and cameraman Joseph August filmed the battle in color with handheld 16mm cameras, and both men were wounded while filming. Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell are among the narrators. It was one of four films that shared the first Academy Award for best documentary.
December 7th, directed by Ford and the great cinematographer Gregg Toland, is about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The original 82-minute version wasn’t released at the time; a 32-minute cut was, and it won the Oscar for best documentary short. Starlite TV airs the full-length version.
The air war in color
William Wyler directed The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress. It follows the crew of a B-17 that in May 1943 became one of the first heavy bombers to complete 25 missions over Europe, and it was shot in 16mm color aboard bombers on real missions. One of the cinematographers, Lt. Harold Tannenbaum, was killed when the bomber he was flying in was shot down over France. Thunderbolt, which Wyler made with John Sturges, follows a squadron of P-47 fighter-bombers based on Corsica attacking supply lines in Italy, again in color, with an introduction by James Stewart, who had commanded a bomber wing in the war.
Target for Today is longer and more methodical. It walks through how a big Eighth Air Force raid on targets in Germany and occupied Poland was planned, briefed and flown in October 1943, with a lot of real combat footage of B-17 and B-24 bombers.
John Huston’s war
John Huston directed four films for the Army Signal Corps during the war, and three of them air on Starlite TV. Report from the Aleutians, narrated by Huston himself, shows the men stationed on the cold, windy islands off Alaska; it was nominated for an Academy Award. The Battle of San Pietro covers the fight for an Italian hill town in late 1943. Huston presented it as filmed during the battle, but historian Peter Maslowski later showed that it wasn’t, which makes it an interesting film to think about as well as watch. Let There Be Light follows soldiers being treated for what we would now call post-traumatic stress at an Army hospital. The Army suppressed it for decades, and it wasn’t released until the 1980s. It is quiet, moving and unlike anything else here.
The Marines in the Pacific
With the Marines at Tarawa uses real footage from the battle, most of it in color and some of it shot by Marine Staff Sergeant Norman Hatch from just yards away, and showed American audiences more of the real cost of combat than earlier films had. President Roosevelt personally approved its release, and it won the Academy Award for best documentary short. To the Shores of Iwo Jima, also in color, was the first time American audiences saw the famous flag raising on Iwo Jima in color.
Finally, The Negro Soldier, produced by Capra’s unit, written by Carlton Moss and directed by Stuart Heisler, was made to encourage Black Americans to serve, and tells the history of Black soldiers in America’s wars. The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2011.
How to watch
All of these air on Doc Vault, which runs around the clock alongside NASA films and other documentaries. Each title’s page lists its next showtimes in your time zone, and many let you start watching right away. If you have a veteran in the family, The Battle of Midway or The Memphis Belle makes a good short watch to share with them. For more real history on film, see our guide to NASA’s Apollo mission films.