It is a montage of color footage of the Battle of Midway with voice overs of various narrators, including Johnny Governali, Donald Crisp, Henry Fonda, and Jane Darwell.

The female voice over (Jane Darwell) takes the personality of a middle aged woman from Springfield, Ohio, who is a mother-type figure pointing out how she recognizes a boy from her home town.

After returning to Los Angeles, he gave the footage to Robert Parrish, who had worked with him on How Green Was My Valley, to edit in secret.

Ford spliced in footage of James Roosevelt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's son and a Marine Corps officer; when the president saw the film in the White House, he told William Leahy: "I want every mother in America to see this film", thus protecting Ford from censorship.

[3] The film runs for 18 minutes, was distributed by 20th Century Fox, and was one of four winners of the inaugural, 1942 Academy Award for Best Documentary.