Short answers, pulled from the story.
Momotaro: Sacred Sailors is the first feature-length animated film ever produced in Japan, running 74 minutes and first screened on the 12th of April 1945. It was commissioned by the Japanese Naval Ministry and directed by Mitsuyo Seo as a wartime propaganda film aimed at children.
Mitsuyo Seo directed Momotaro: Sacred Sailors. He had also directed the film's predecessor, Momotaro's Sea Eagles, a 37-minute 1943 film produced for the same Naval Ministry and starring the same traditional Momotaro character.
The Naval Ministry ordered Mitsuyo Seo to produce the film as wartime propaganda. Seo said his personal aim was to give children dreams and instill hope for peace, drawing inspiration from Disney's Fantasia, which the Naval Ministry had shown him as a model.
After Japan's defeat, the film was presumed to have been confiscated and destroyed by the American occupation forces. A negative copy was discovered in Shochiku's Ofuna warehouse in 1983, and the film was re-released in Japan in 1984.
The film follows four animal recruits completing naval training and then conducting a military operation against British forces on the island of Celebes, which the film explains was acquired by the Dutch East India Company. It ends with children jumping onto a chalk outline of continental America, depicting the United States as the target of their generation.
Momotaro: Sacred Sailors was selected for the Cannes Classics section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. That same year, UK distributor All the Anime and US distributor Funimation both announced home video releases; Funimation planned to include the film alongside Spider and Tulip on a single disc.