Target - Invisible (Radar)

This 1945 documentary short, produced by the U.S. Army Air Forces’ First Motion Picture Unit, unveils radar’s pivotal role in WWII, once a closely guarded secret. Filmed in black-and-white, it dramatizes a B-29 Superfortress mission from the Marianas to Japan, narrated by Arthur Kennedy with Clayton Moore as the radar operator. The film showcases radar’s power in aerial navigation and precision bombing: after a six-hour flight under overcast skies, the crew uses radar to pinpoint islands off Honshu, guiding bombs to an unseen target with pinpoint accuracy. Scenes inside the cramped bomber highlight the radar scope’s glow, contrasting dark water with bright land returns, as the operator calls out data to the bombardier. Post-mission, Kennedy’s narration shifts to postwar optimism, noting the atom bomb’s August 1945 use and urging Victory Loan bond purchases to sustain scientific progress like radar. A blend of wartime suspense and peacetime propaganda, it’s a vivid “picture epic” of technology triumphing over Japan’s defenses.