Speed Graphic Film and Video | Stopping at the North Platte Canteen, August 1945 @SpeedGraphicFilmVideo | Uploaded March 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
In the first weeks of August 1945, troop trains were moving personnel all over the country as part of the build-up for the invasion of the Japanese home islands. On the Union Pacific, those trains always stopped at the legendary canteen at the North Platte station. Through a tremendous community effort there was always coffee and a friendly welcome waiting for the soldiers and sailors passing through. And somebody was always the birthday boy, even if it wasn't actually their birthday.
This is film taken by the Army of several different trains stopping at North Platte. I've cut them together into a single sequence. In the still-segregated Army, Black soldiers apparently rode in separate cars. Did they ride in separate trains? I don't know. Black soldiers were, however, welcome in the canteen, and weren't just served outside.
Only weeks after this film was shot, of course, the war was over, Japan having surrendered. Back alive in '45, indeed. Sadly, the depot was torn down in 1973, despite community efforts to save it.
The original film is silent, so I've added music by American composer Samuel Barber to the soundtrack, excerpts from his Capricorn Concerto, written 1943 while he was in the Army.
Note: after the credits is one shot taken from a train moving the opposite direction. It just didn't fit into the edit.