Research Guides: World War II in the Pacific: Media: Audio/Visual

Image Collections

These image collections cover World War II and the years immediately following, to document both the war and its aftermath in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. All are scanned from physical images held by the Pacific Collection or the University Archives. The image above is a poster from the War In the Pacific digital collection (see link below).

Margo Duggan Collection
Images of early post-WWII Micronesia, taken by a civilian employee of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands administration.
Pacific in Wartime
The images displayed here are drawn from several distinct art and photograph collections held in the Pacific Collection. The images cover several geographic regions and time periods. Taken as a whole, they document multiple facets of WWII Pacific, from the brutal and the tragic to the mundane day-to-day existence of life in a war zone.
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The images contained in this online collection are digital reproductions of materials in several distinct art and photograph collections, covering a range of geographic regions and time periods. Taken as a whole, these collections document many facets of life in the Pacific during World War II, from the brutal and the tragic to the mundane.
Trust Territory Archives Photograph Collection
Early post-WWII images of Micronesia, most taken by various government agencies. Includes some WWII era photos, as well as photos documenting damage of the war. (To find images, use the term war in search box.)
Hawaii War Records Depository Photos
Includes roughly 1,500 photographs taken by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, the U.S. Navy, the Honolulu Star Bulletin and the Honolulu Advertiser between 1941 and 1946. All document the impact of World War II on Hawaiʻi.

Online Film Resources

Docuseek2
Docuseek2 includes a small selection of Pacific-related documentary films, including Advertising Missionaries (PNG), Arrows Against the Wind (West Papua), ,i>Rising Waters (sea-level rise in the Pacific), Standing on Sacred Ground: Profit and Loss (PNG and elsewhere),
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Note: OneSearch does not search the contents of the Docuseek2 database -- to find films held in this database, you will need to search directly within it.

Ethnographic Video Online: Volume III, Indigenous Voices
Ethnographic Video Online is a comprehensive online resource for the study of human culture, behavior and society around the world. The collections contain over 1,300 hours of streaming video, including ethnographic films, documentaries, select feature films, and previously unpublished fieldwork. It's also a resource for a study of the discipline itself: By placing examples of traditional ethnographic methodologies alongside indigenous-made films representing previously overlooked perspectives, scholars, teachers and students of anthropology can gain a sense of the discipline's history and of its future direction.
Films on Demand
Films on Demand provides streaming access to educational videos in the humanities, social and natural sciences, business and health.
View Films on Demand tutorial

Hawaii & Pacific Streaming Films
This guide contains links to numerous online-streaming Hawaii- or Pacfic-related films that have been digiized from the library's physical film holdings. UH login is required to view most of these films.
Internet Archive : Movies
A collection of open-access films. Use the "advanced search" mode for better results.

Kanopy Streaming Video
Kanopy is a "Netflix-like" video platform for college campuses. UH-Manoa licenses select videos from the platform for course reserves. Covering many topics, featured producers in Kanopy's collection include Criterion Collection, PBS, HBO, The Great Courses, California Newsreel, Kino Lorber, Media Education Foundation, First Run Features, BBC, New Day Films.

Micronesian Seminar videos
The Micronesian Seminar video studio has produced more than 68 videos on health care, migration, history, youth, land, education, economics, business, and social issues. Most are available for free online viewing.
Moving Images of the Pacific Islands : A Guide To Films and Videos
This database of over 3,400 entries is produced by the UH-Manoa Center for Pacific Islands Studies, and is intended as a reference for those interested in films related to the Pacific Islands.
NZ On Screen
A wide array of documentary and feature films produced in Aotearoa/NZ, most of which are available for free online viewing.

Finding videos, music, etc. with OneSearch

OneSearch Manoa
Web-scale discovery tool for finding millions of articles, books, media and more using a single search. Includes the UH Voyager Catalog plus a huge index of academic journals on most topics. Also includes conference papers, maps, government documents, music scores, DVDs, archives & manuscripts, and more.

Selected films

The photo above is from the film A Walk Through the Past (Part II).

Fifty years of silence : the untold story of Japanese American soldiers in the Pacific theater, 1941- 1952 by Sheryl K. Narahara
Call Number: UH Streaming Videos
Publication Date: 2011
Documentary film which tells the story of the thousands of Japanese-Americans who served in World War II as linguists and language specialists for the Intelligence Service.
Guam : the legacy of war. by Pacific Educational Network.
Call Number: UH Streaming Videos
Publication Date: 1984
While the flames at Pearl Harbor were still burning, Japanese forces overwhelmed American troops on Guam and occupied the island. When the U.S. military liberated the island, it began buying land for next to nothing. Today, Guam's inhabitants want fair compensation.
Windward Oahu : the war years by Hawaii. Office of Library Services.
Call Number: UH Streaming Videos
Publication Date: 2010
Historians Mars Chang, Richard Miller, Thomas Higa, Budd Murray, Cy Gillette, Henrietta Chang, David Akui, Robert Belt, Ron Deisseroth and Bill Kaleleike present their recollections of what Windward Oahu was like during World War II.
With paintbrush, not gun : experiences of an Army artist in the Pacific by Caroline Yacoe
Call Number: UH Streaming Videos
An Army artist talks about his experiences during World War II in Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and Japan. He also returns to those areas after the war to collect art.
A walk through the past : images of Micronesia by Francis X. Hezel
Call Number: DVD 10980
Publication Date: 2010
Available online via Micronesian Seminar Videos.
A film about the history of colonial occupation in Micronesia. From the "Early Contact" to "Coming of age: from Trust Territory to self government," this is a collection of clips and pictures taken before the 21st century.

World War II in the Pacific: Media: Audio/Visual

Finding Films and Photographs

Image Collections

Online Film Resources

Other places to find online videos

Finding videos, music, etc. with OneSearch

Selected films