George Stevens (1904-1975) was the director of numerous enjoyable films before World War II like Swing Time and Gunga Din. After the war he directed increasingly pretentious films like A Place in the Sun Shane and Giant. This short film helps explain why his choice of themes changed.In 1943 Stevens joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps and was put in charge of the Special Motion Pictures Unit assigned to follow the invasion of Normandy with the 6th Army for the purpose of recording their operations for the archives. Using 35mm Kodachrome film Stevens and his team (which included cameramen Joseph Biroc and William C. Mellor and writers William Saroyan and Irwin Shaw) filmed the D-Day invasion the destruction in French villages the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 the meeting of the American and Russian armies the liberation of Dachau concentration camp with the furnaces still burning the trench in which Hitler''s body was burned and so on. The film also includes 16mm home movies made by Stevens.