Soldiers of the Sea is a 1939 RKO-Pathe News

Pathe News

Pathé Newsreels were produced from 1910 until the 1970s, when production of newsreels was in general stopped. Pathé News today is known as British Pathé and its archive of over 90,000 reels is fully digitised and online.-History:...

 two-reeler short subject

Short subject

A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

 narrative featuring the U.S. Marine Corps.

It was produced by Frederic Ullman Jr. and supervised by Frank Donovan

Frank Donovan

Frank J. Donovan was a Welsh footballer who represented Great Britain at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Donovan played amateur football with Pembroke Borough.-References:...

. Through narration and film footage, the film shows and tells the history, mission statement

Mission statement

A mission statement is a statement of the purpose of a company or organization. The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making...

, capabilities, equipment, and training of the United States Marines. Many sequences of the film were used in RKO's Victor McLaglen

Victor McLaglen

Victor Andrew de Bier Everleigh McLaglen was an English boxer and World War I veteran who became a successful film actor.Towards the end of his life he was naturalised as a U.S. citizen.-Early life:...

 and Edmund Lowe

Edmund Lowe

Edmund Dantes Lowe was an American actor. His formative experience began in vaudeville and silent film. He was born in San Jose, California.-Film career:...

's 1941 comedy Call Out the Marines

Call Out the Marines

Call Out the Marines is a 1941 military comedy released by RKO in January 1942. It stars Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe playing the same characters with different names that they played in What Price Glory? and several sequels; however the original film trailer mentions What Price Glory? and The...

.

Subject matter

The film begins with an aerial view of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego

Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego

Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego is a United States Marine Corps military installation in San Diego, California. It lies between San Diego Bay and Interstate 5, adjacent to San Diego International Airport and the former Naval Training Center San Diego...

. Recruit Training

Recruit training

Recruit training, more commonly known as Basic Training and colloquially called Boot Camp, is the initial indoctrination and instruction given to new military personnel, enlisted and officer...

 and the Sea School of the Marines are shown along with sequences of rowing whaleboat

Whaleboat

A whaleboat is a type of open boat that is relatively narrow and pointed at both ends, enabling it to move either forwards or backwards equally well. It was originally developed for whaling, and later became popular for work along beaches, since it does not need to be turned around for beaching or...

s, foot drill

Foot Drill

A Foot drill is an essential part of the training regimen of organized military and paramilitary elements worldwide. "Foot drill" or "Drill" stems from time since antiquity when soldiers would march into battle, be expected to gather in a formation, and react to words of command from their...

 and bayonet

Bayonet

A bayonet is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon designed to fit in, on, over or underneath the muzzle of a rifle, musket or similar weapon, effectively turning the gun into a spear...

 fighting conducted by Lieutenant Colonel Anthony J. Drexel Biddle

Anthony J. Drexel Biddle

Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle I , also known as Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Sr., was the man upon whom the book My Philadelphia Father and the play and film The Happiest Millionaire were based...

.

Marines are shown on shooting ranges firing M1903 Springfield rifles and M1917 Browning machine guns. The machine gunners are shown firing at targets on the range held up by a visible Marine laying downrange of the weapon and an officer walking up to the firing weapon holding the target in his hand as the machine gun bullets hit it.

United States Marine Corps Aviation

United States Marine Corps Aviation

United States Marine Corps Aviation is the air component of the United States Marine Corps. Marine aviation has a very different mission and operation than its ground counterpart, and thus, has many of its own histories, traditions, terms, and procedures....

 is featured with scenes of the VMF-2 squadron of Grumman F3F

Grumman F3F

|-Popular culture:The F3F was featured as an "experimental fighter" in Warner Bros's Wings of the Navy .The F3F-2 was featured in the 1940 film Flight Command, starring Robert Taylor as a pilot whose work developing instrument landing systems helps his lost squadron return to NAS North...

 biplanes accompanied by narration of its increasing role and importance after the years.

The roles of Marines on the U.S. Navy's capital ship

Capital ship

The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they generally possess the heaviest firepower and armor and are traditionally much larger than other naval vessels...

s are discussed with scenes of a Ship's Detachment on an aircraft carrier

Aircraft carrier

An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...

.

The Fleet Marine Force

Fleet Marine Force

The United States Fleet Marine Forces are combined general and special purpose forces within the United States Department of the Navy that are designed in engaging offensive amphibious or expeditionary warfare and defensive maritime employment...

 is seen conducting an amphibious warfare

Amphibious warfare

Amphibious warfare is the use of naval firepower, logistics and strategy to project military power ashore. In previous eras it stood as the primary method of delivering troops to non-contiguous enemy-held terrain...

 landing operation. In addition to their portable 75mm M116 howitzer

M116 howitzer

The 75mm Pack Howitzer M1 was designed in the United States in 1920s to meet a need for an artillery piece that could be moved across difficult terrain. The gun and carriage was designed so that it could be broken down into several pieces to be carried by pack animals...

s, the landing force has communications specialists calling for Naval gunfire support

Naval gunfire support

Naval gunfire support is the use of naval artillery to provide fire support for amphibious assault and other troops operating within their range. NGFS is one of a number of disciplines encompassed by the term Naval Fires...

 from offshore ships as well as the onshore artillery by radio and flag semaphore

Flag semaphore

Semaphore Flags is the system for conveying information at a distance by means of visual signals with hand-held flags, rods, disks, paddles, or occasionally bare or gloved hands. Information is encoded by the position of the flags; it is read when the flag is in a fixed position...

. The advancing Marines demonstrate their expertise in military camouflage

Military camouflage

Military camouflage is one of many means of deceiving an enemy. In practice, it is the application of colour and materials to battledress and military equipment to conceal them from visual observation. The French slang word camouflage came into common English usage during World War I when the...

 and chemical warfare

Chemical warfare

Chemical warfare involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from Nuclear warfare and Biological warfare, which together make up NBC, the military acronym for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical...

.

The film ends with an inspection of the 6th Marine Regiment by Commandant of the Marine Corps

Commandant of the Marine Corps

The Commandant of the Marine Corps is normally the highest ranking officer in the United States Marine Corps and is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff...

 Major General Thomas Holcomb

Thomas Holcomb

General Thomas Holcomb was the seventeenth Commandant of the United States Marine Corps . He was the first Marine to achieve the rank of General. After retiring from the Marine Corps, Holcomb served as Minister to South Africa .-Early years:Holcomb was born on August 5, 1879 in New Castle, Delaware...

 and a military parade of the 2nd Marine Brigade featuring antiaircraft searchlights and guns.

Availability

The short is a feature of the DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

The Crucible: Making Marines for the 21st Century.