The Color of War Episode 16 Covering War
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00:00During the Second World War, an entire generation recorded their personal experiences for posterity.
00:08Combat cameramen braved enemy fire to send home moving images, many of them in color.
00:15They captured history, and in the process they captured ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events,
00:22bearing witness to the color of war.
00:30World War II
00:48World War II was the most extensively documented conflict in history.
00:54But the stories of the men and women who recorded the war have all too often been overlooked.
01:02Thousands of combat cameramen, war correspondents, artists, radio reporters and others went to war,
01:09often risking their lives to capture and preserve the tales that defined this epic period.
01:19They did it, in part, by employing new technologies, such as color film and the location sound recorder.
01:27Using these tools in the midst of war was not an easy task.
01:32But their most nerve-wracking challenge was going into battle right alongside the servicemen they covered.
01:501500 combat cameramen helped record World War II.
01:56They served in every branch of the armed forces and in every theater of the conflict.
02:01They shot stills and movies in all the mediums that existed at the time, both in black and white and color.
02:10The stills were employed in materials such as newspapers and reports.
02:16The moving footage was edited into newsreels, propaganda and training films.
02:22Sometimes images were captured simply to document an aspect of the war for posterity.
02:29Despite their title, most of the film shot by combat cameramen was not of combat at all.
02:36Instead, they documented the activities behind the lines that constituted the vast majority of military activity in a modern war.
02:45But their most memorable images were those shot in the midst of battle,
02:50where they were just as much at risk as the servicemen they were filming.
02:56The bomber crewmen called us the hard-luck bastards.
03:00At first they weren't very enthused about us going along because we were the 11th man in a 10-man crew.
03:07But once they knew we had been trained in aerial gunnery and could therefore take over the position of any wounded gunner,
03:13they had more respect for us.
03:18All the combatants in World War II recognized the power of the cinema and devoted considerable resources to it.
03:26But only the United States could afford to have its combat cameramen shoot large amounts of color.
03:33Kodachrome color film had been introduced in 1935 for amateur photographers using the new 16mm home movie cameras.
03:44These little cameras were light and portable, and the smallest ones didn't need batteries,
03:49making them perfect for use in combat situations.
03:54Kodachrome required very bright light to expose properly, being only one-tenth as sensitive as today's color films.
04:03It was also expensive, but it could produce extremely sharp images with intense colors.
04:10With tools like these, combat cameramen shot much more color footage in World War II than the public realized,
04:17since, for reasons of economy, much of it was transferred to black and white for inclusion in the popular newsreels of the day.
04:27Ironically, the greatest quantity of color footage was shot by the smallest branch of the U.S. Armed Services, the Marine Corps.
04:36By the last year of the war, almost every unit of Marines was issued a color camera,
04:42with one of their members being quickly trained to use it.
04:47Since the Marines did the bulk of the fighting in the Central Pacific,
04:50these images are among the most brutal and moving of the entire war.
04:57But not everyone was moved in the same way.
05:00One U.S. Army soldier commented bitterly on the amount of coverage received by the Marines.
05:08They always had a cameraman.
05:10Marine Rifle Squad, they'd have eight Marines and a cameraman.
05:13That's what we used to say.
05:17The U.S. Armed Forces also had experienced Hollywood cameramen to draw on.
05:23One of them was George Boggs, who joined the Navy in 1943.
05:31They sent me to their photo training school, but I'd already been a cameraman before enlisting.
05:36So they ranked me photo one and gave me assignments on everything from coal barges to carriers.
05:42Everything I shot for the Navy was in color.
05:46Yet no matter what type of film they were using,
05:49the combat cameraman's job was both daunting and dangerous.
05:54Many were not trained in combat skills and carried only their cameras into battle.
06:00Director John Ford had already won three Academy Awards by the time the war started.
06:06In June 1942, he was serving as a lieutenant commander on Midway Island
06:11when it was attacked by Japanese planes.
06:17I was close to the hangar and was lined up with my camera,
06:20figuring it would be one of the first things they got.
06:24A Zero flew about 50 feet over it, dropped a bomb, and it hit him.
06:29The whole thing went up.
06:32I was knocked unconscious.
06:34I did manage to get the picture.
06:37You may have seen it, where the plane flies over and everything goes up in smoke and debris,
06:42and you can see one big chunk coming for the camera.
06:48The concussion knocked the film out of the camera gate and permanently deafened Ford in one ear,
06:54but he did get the picture.
06:58Another, less famous combat cameraman was Dan McGovern.
07:02He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps and shot thousands of feet of the air war in Europe.
07:08I was photographing a formation of B-17s coming over the field.
07:13One of the B-17s moved up and hit another,
07:16and the two of them came down in a pile, just like that.
07:20When I went down there to photograph the action,
07:23the first thing I seen was a head inside of a helmet.
07:27Just a head.
07:29First of all, it doesn't affect me.
07:32I was there to take pictures.
07:35But after, when I got home, I was shaken like a leaf.
07:39Just shaken.
07:41Gradually, as the years wore on, I figured that I just had to shoot it out of my mind,
07:47not let it bother me.
07:50In the Pacific, Marine Sergeant William Janoust shot one of the most famous scenes in movie history,
07:56the flag raising on Iwo Jima.
08:00Just days later, he was dead, killed in action.
08:04His body was never recovered.
08:08Of the 65 combat cameramen who served in the 165th Signal Corps Group,
08:14only 30 survived the war.
08:17Why did they do it?
08:19Part of the reason was the thrill of shooting unique images,
08:23ones of undeniable historic importance and dramatic impact.
08:28When you look through that viewfinder, you're in your own little world.
08:32And you're just hoping.
08:34And you really would like everything to happen in that frame.
08:38And it's only after someone around you got hit, or problems with the aircraft,
08:42that you realize,
08:44oh my God, I'm out of the movie land.
08:48I'm in the real world now.
08:58Like John Ford, George Stevens was another experienced Hollywood director working for the military.
09:06His job was to coordinate coverage of the American invasion from D-Day to the end of the war.
09:13All of his men worked in black and white.
09:16But Stevens also took along his own home movie camera
09:20and shot his personal record of the war in color.
09:23His journey climaxed on August 25th, 1944 with the liberation of Paris.
09:29In a single day, Stevens filmed everything.
09:33Wild ecstasy.
09:35Sudden death.
09:36Fear.
09:37Fighting.
09:38And most of all, the overriding sense of victory that swept over the city.
09:44He later wrote that it was the greatest day of his entire life.
09:48It was in Paris a short time later that Stevens ran into another famous Hollywood director
09:52shooting color film for the army.
09:55William Wyler.
09:57And while Stevens would never edit his color footage into a completed film,
10:02Wyler would create one of the greatest war documentaries of all time.
10:11I have the privilege to meet General Laker,
10:13commanding general, 8th Air Force.
10:15General Laker, commanding general, 8th Air Force.
10:34One of the first color documentaries of World War II was Combat America starring Clark Gable,
10:40which was made in 1943.
10:42The sleeve is a fog wolf.
10:44It was about aerial gunners taking on the Luftwaffe
10:47and was groundbreaking in both its use of color film
10:50and of occasional synchronized sound sequences.
10:54Synchronized sound was difficult to make in the field
10:57because of the complex recording equipment of the day.
11:01This airplane's got to fly in the morning. It's going to be ready.
11:04So, Major?
11:05I don't know, sir.
11:06Well, let's have no ceremony. Let's get the fans turning.
11:13These early movies produced by the Army's own production personnel were adequate,
11:18but they weren't exactly exciting filmmaking.
11:22When the paste is dry, the brush is removed,
11:25leaving a light but fragile imitation rock.
11:32This situation would soon change.
11:35Hollywood was the world's center of moviemaking
11:38and many of the best directors,
11:40such as John Huston, Frank Capra, and William Wyler,
11:45offered their services to the war effort.
11:50Wyler wanted to make a film about the American bombing campaign in Europe
11:54and he wanted it to be in color.
11:58The technical problems were staggering.
12:02Aerial warfare takes place in altitudes where the oil in your camera freezes,
12:07where you have to wear oxygen masks or die,
12:11where the world below you looks like the map of another planet,
12:15where things happen faster than any man can think.
12:19These and many other conditions are far removed from the comfort of Stage 18 in Burbank.
12:26As soon as he arrived in England,
12:28Wyler took his camera and went on a mission in a B-17 bomber.
12:33They soon ran into German fighters and flak
12:36and the crew marveled at the relatively elderly Wyler,
12:39seemingly unafraid, as he dodged around the ship
12:42and tried to grab shots wherever he could.
12:46Vince Evans was the bombardier.
12:51We could hear him cuss over the intercom.
12:54By the time he'd swing his camera over to a flat burst, it was lost.
12:58Then he'd see another burst, try to get it,
13:01miss, see another, try, and miss.
13:04Then we'd hear him over the intercom asking if the pilot
13:07couldn't possibly get the plane closer to the flat.
13:13By the end of the mission, Wyler had only shot six minutes of film,
13:17but he was convinced that the technical problems could be overcome.
13:22At the time, if a crew survived 25 missions, they were rotated home.
13:27So Wyler decided to tell the sprawling story of the U.S. bombing campaign
13:32by focusing on the 25th mission of the Memphis Belle.
13:37The Memphis Belle.
13:39324th Squadron, 91st Heavy Bombardment Group.
13:44Just one plane and one crew in one squadron,
13:48in one group, of one wing, of one Air Force,
13:52out of 15 United States Army Air Forces.
13:57Well, fellas, we've never had an easy ride over there yet.
14:01And today won't be any different.
14:03No escort except unfriendly.
14:05So keep your eyes peeled.
14:07Don't get excited and yell when you're talking on the intercom.
14:10Save your ammunition and make your shots count.
14:13Stay on the ball, gang, and she'll bring us back like she's always done.
14:16Okay? Let's go.
14:21Charles Layton was the bomber's navigator.
14:27I knew Wyler was this great Hollywood director,
14:30but I liked the way he worked.
14:32He seemed to make decisions, get things done his way.
14:36He wasn't bossy or offensive.
14:38What amazed me was why a guy like him would do something he didn't have to.
14:42I remember thinking,
14:44what a way to make a living,
14:46coming along with us just for pictures.
14:49Taking that kind of risk?
14:51That guy had guts.
14:55The crew filmed on numerous missions,
14:58and Wyler himself flew on five of them.
15:01Robert Morgan was the Memphis Bells pilot.
15:06The nerviest thing he ever did
15:08is something I would have never let my own men do.
15:10He rode in a ball turret under the belly of a plane
15:13on takeoff and landing.
15:15It was completely unsafe,
15:17against regulations,
15:19but he wanted pictures of the wheels and the runway.
15:23You see the shots in the film.
15:27The commander of the 8th Air Force, General Ira Aker,
15:30became concerned for Wyler's safety
15:32and passed down an order for him to quit flying.
15:37Wyler pretended that he hadn't received it
15:39and went on another mission.
15:42This time there were problems with his oxygen system
15:45and he almost died.
15:47Afterward, he wrote in his diary,
15:50got good pictures, then passed out.
15:53It was so dopey I thought I was dead.
15:56What a fool I was to go.
15:59Who asked me?
16:01Threats to Wyler's life were also supplied by the Germans.
16:05On many missions, he and his crew filmed actual combat.
16:11The flak stops.
16:13That means fighters out there somewhere.
16:16A staffer lurking behind that cloud
16:18or hiding up in the sun where the glare blinds you
16:21and you can't see them, waiting to dive down on you.
16:24Fighters at 6 o'clock.
16:26This is what a gunner sees.
16:28A speck in the sky. That's a fighter.
16:30And then a blink. That means he's firing at you.
16:322,300 rounds a minute.
16:43By the time the Memphis Belle returned safely
16:46from its 25th mission,
16:48Wyler believed that he and his crew
16:50had shot enough authentic footage.
16:52But it would still take him many months of editing
16:55to create a great film.
16:57While the crew barnstormed through America,
17:00selling war bonds,
17:02the completed 45-minute film, The Memphis Belle,
17:05was released in theatres all across the country.
17:08The film received wide acclaim
17:10and is still considered one of the classics of American cinema.
17:15Wyler returned to a successful career in Hollywood after the war,
17:19directing such legendary films as Ben-Hur.
17:23But the war left deep marks on him.
17:26He suffered permanent hearing damage
17:28from filming without protection in a loud camera plane
17:31and would be almost deaf for the rest of his life.
17:35Still, he had no regrets.
17:39The only thing that mattered were human relationships.
17:43Not money, not position, not even family.
17:48Only relationships with people who might be dead tomorrow were important.
17:53It is a sort of wonderful state of mind.
17:58It's too bad it takes a war
18:00to create such a condition among men.
18:04Modern photography made World War II
18:07the most widely filmed conflict in history.
18:10Yet with all those hundreds of miles of film shot,
18:13many aspects of war continued to be unrecorded.
18:18It would take combat painters and sketch artists
18:21to convey some of the deepest insights and understandings.
18:29At Anzio, one nutty soldier,
18:32had punctured a small hole in a five-gallon gasoline can
18:35and placed it beneath a tub full of water.
18:38As the gasoline dripped to the ground,
18:41he had bravely ignited it to create a continuous flame
18:44that kept the water hot as he soaked contentedly.
18:47And if shelling commenced,
18:49everyone scurried like burrowing animals seeking their holes.
18:59The passion and visual sweep of war
19:02has always been one of art's most challenging and magnetic subjects.
19:08In World War II, combat artists still had an important role to play.
19:13Newspapers had long since switched to photography
19:16as a practical means of covering war.
19:19But the best artists could provide a personal vision
19:22that was often as psychological as it was physical.
19:26These soldier artists didn't need to imitate photography.
19:30They were free to interpret what they witnessed.
19:34Nazi Germany and Japan also had a tradition of war art,
19:39producing works both heroic and inspiring for the war effort
19:43and always in a realistic style.
19:46American artists were given a completely different mandate
19:50as revealed in one of their directing memorandums.
19:55Any subject is in order if you feel that is part of the war.
20:01Battle scenes, the dying, prisoners, hospitals,
20:06character sketches of our troops,
20:08natives of the countries you visit,
20:11never official portraits.
20:14The nobility, courage, sacrifice, cowardice, cruelty,
20:20the boredom of war, try to omit nothing.
20:25Forty-two artists were selected for the Army program.
20:29Half were already in uniform
20:31and the others were recruited from civilian life.
20:35Howard Brody was one of them.
20:37Assigned to cover fighting near the Rohr River in February 1945,
20:42his efforts became a visual essay that was published in Yank magazine.
20:48We passed a still doughboy on the side of the road with no hands.
20:52His misshapen, ooze-filled mittens lay a few feet from him.
20:57I saw a dead GI and his hole slumped in his last living position.
21:02The hole was too deep and too narrow to allow his body to settle.
21:07Two GIs had their arms around each other.
21:10One was sobbing.
21:12That was a moving moment to me,
21:15to see that compassion in combat.
21:18The U.S. Navy had artists too,
21:21but unlike Army artists who rarely fought or carried weapons,
21:25they all had to become commissioned officers.
21:28They stood watch and had other assignments.
21:31Painting and drawing was restricted to their hours off duty.
21:35Artists in the Marines also had to be fully trained soldiers.
21:39Many even credited this combat training with saving their lives on the battlefield.
21:45Richard Gibney spent three years in the Pacific,
21:49sketching and fighting with the Marines.
21:53I was there.
21:55I was a Marine like any other Marine,
21:58and as a result, I was scared to death.
22:01Your fellow Marines are your concern.
22:04The success of the campaign is your concern.
22:07So there's this tremendous personal discipline you have to exercise,
22:11but that doesn't say that you're not feeling the most terrible anguish and fear inside.
22:16The fight is to not give in to it.
22:19The other fight is to find cover.
22:22You can't say, hold the war, I'm drawing you.
22:25When you get a chance, you think you can stick your head up to make some quick sketches?
22:30I think one good thing that us artists should always have is a damn good memory.
22:37Painter Tom Lee joined the Marines invading Peleliu in the South Pacific.
22:42His landing craft was set to hit the beach just 15 minutes after the first wave.
22:48Along with his rifle, he carried his sketchbook.
22:53Over the gunwale of a craft abreast of us, I saw a Marine.
22:58His face painted for the jungle.
23:01His eyes set for the beach.
23:03His mouth set for murder.
23:08Tom Lee completed his paintings much later,
23:11but his direct experience and immediate quick sketches
23:14ensured that they would be completely, painfully accurate.
23:22Suddenly I was completely alone.
23:25Each man drew into himself as he ran down that ramp, into that flame.
23:31I fell into a small hole as mortar burst through dirt on me.
23:36Lying there in terror, I saw a wounded man near me,
23:40staggering in the direction of the LVTs.
23:44His face was half-bloody pulp
23:46and mangled shreds of what was left of his arm hung down like a stick.
23:51The half of his face that was still human
23:54had the most terrifying look of abject patience I have ever seen.
24:00He fell behind me, in a red puddle on the white sand.
24:05I remained under fire for the first 32 hours of the assault.
24:10On the beach I found it impossible to do any sketching or writing.
24:14My work there consisted of trying to keep from getting killed
24:17and trying to memorize what I saw and felt under fire.
24:22On the evening of D plus 1, I returned to a naval vessel offshore
24:27where I could record in my sketchbook the burden of this memory.
24:32I remembered a tattered Marine,
24:36staring stiffly at nothing.
24:39His mind had crumbled in battle, his jaw hung,
24:43and his eyes were like two black empty holes in his head.
24:48Down by the beach again,
24:51we walked silently as we passed the long line of dead Marines
24:55under the topolins.
25:02During the course of World War II,
25:04more than a hundred American military artists created over 12,000 works.
25:10They provide a powerful, if not well-known legacy
25:13of personal visions of the conflict.
25:18While combat art was one of the oldest methods
25:21used to record impressions of battle,
25:23some of the most immediate and compelling reporting of the war
25:27came through one of the newest mediums, radio.
25:31A few intrepid radio broadcasters
25:34hauled their heavy equipment right up to the front
25:37and produced many extraordinary recordings,
25:40some of which have not been heard in over half a century.
25:47It's the G.I. Journal!
25:50Yes, sir, it's the G.I. Journal again,
25:52your radio newspaper, the A.E.F.
25:54And as your editor-in-chief for this edition,
25:56we proudly present the man who Bob Hope claims
25:59is Frank Sinatra's father, Bing Crosby.
26:02I am in!
26:04I see our staff for this edition, Mel Blanc, the sad sack,
26:07and we have the Van Nuys nightingale, Andy Devine.
26:10And as our special guest, lovely Linda Darnell,
26:12the girl the men in the Signal Corps have just voted,
26:15the girl that they would most like to flag down.
26:19World War II
26:25World War II would see broadcasting mature as a medium.
26:29In one of its biggest advances,
26:31radio would move out of the confines of the studio
26:34to bring back actual recordings from the battlefronts.
26:38One of the earliest ear-witness recordings of combat
26:41was made by George Hicks
26:43as he stood exposed on the deck of a Navy ship
26:46under aerial attack in 1944.
26:51Heavy firing now just behind us.
26:53And anti-aircraft bursts in the sky.
26:56Here comes the planes. More anti-aircraft fire.
26:59The whole seaside is covered with pressure fire.
27:04That's the first time we've shot our gun.
27:06Now just take a deep breath for a moment and stop speaking.
27:09Here we go again. Another plane's come over.
27:12Here we go. They've got one.
27:15We shot it right here. Did we? Yeah.
27:17Great lots of fire came down and it's exploding now in the sea.
27:22George Hicks speaking.
27:24Now returning to the United States.
27:28Location sound recording was in its infancy.
27:31The wire recorder, such as this model,
27:33being used to record a prisoner's interrogation
27:36aboard a U.S. submarine,
27:38used spools of wire to store sound
27:41and had only recently been invented.
27:44Audio recorders were heavy
27:46and had to be powered by either A.C. or large batteries.
27:51But radio correspondents continued to innovate
27:54and push the boundaries of the possible.
27:57Marine correspondent Alvin Josephy, Jr.
28:00loaded his heavy wire recorder into a half-track,
28:03loaded that into a landing craft
28:05and joined the invasion of Guam in the second wave.
28:09It was his first experience under fire.
28:15It is now almost 8.30 in the morning.
28:19None of us knows what is going to happen.
28:21We're going to take you down to the level
28:24of the individual Marine and his problems
28:26in getting ashore under fire.
28:28Unless we get hit or our equipment is flooded
28:31or gets destroyed by shrapnel,
28:33you'll hear everything that happens.
28:35At any moment, this description may come to an abrupt end.
28:39There's all hell to pay directly ahead of us.
28:43The beach looks as though it's practically on fire.
28:47The coconut trees along the beach are shattered,
28:51looking like burnt telephone poles.
28:53I'm thinking right now of my home and my wife
28:57and my little daughter,
28:58and I hope I come back to them all right.
29:00What is that?
29:01Oh, yeah.
29:02Oh, we can see machine guns on the cliff now
29:05directly ahead of us, firing out at us.
29:08This is quite a moment.
29:09Here we come to the reef now.
29:11There we've hit it.
29:12We're grounding on it.
29:13We're up on it.
29:15Our machine gun just fired.
29:17The men are now going out ahead.
29:19Let's go.
29:20I'm going to jump off and wait.
29:22Well, it's up to my knees.
29:25I think my pistol got wet.
29:26I don't know.
29:27It's about a half a mile to the beach.
29:30There's a lot of fire around us.
29:32There's bullets coming through the water now.
29:34And there's one boy been hit.
29:36One boy's been hurt now.
29:38What's the matter?
29:39Hey, spit out!
29:41There's one marine lying on the back
29:42with blood pouring out of him into the water.
29:44Hey, Jay, you all right?
29:46The whole beach is just piled with marines.
29:51They're flat down, hugging here.
29:54It's a very strange thing to watch,
29:56one man at a time.
29:58Hey, Jay, what are you going to do,
30:00make a dash for the coconut?
30:02Hey, Jay, do you think it would be better
30:04for you to get out of here?
30:07Here, Josephie's recording ended.
30:11But both he and his equipment survived,
30:14and he continued to make reports.
30:17Other aspects of the war that were recorded as sound
30:20were less dangerous to the reporters,
30:22but no less horrific.
30:24Captain Henry Putnam filed this sobering interview
30:27with a soldier assigned to carry out burial detail
30:31for thousands of Japanese casualties.
30:36I don't believe anybody can imagine
30:38how terrible this job is.
30:40But we are getting it done,
30:42and the men have really done a fine job.
30:44We've also found that there are some life gaps
30:46in these so-called revetments.
30:49They crawl in with their own dead,
30:51pull a blanket over them,
30:53and we have to go in there and flush them out.
30:56That is the type of enemy that we are fighting.
30:58They can crawl in with their own dead
31:00and live with a stench and stand it.
31:03On this island itself, we have buried over 3,000 Japanese.
31:09One of the final recordings made during the war
31:11came from Okinawa in 1945,
31:14as a Marine battery prepared to fire
31:16its final salvo of the campaign.
31:25This is Okinawa.
31:26This is Lieutenant Ned Berman
31:28speaking from an artillery fire direction center,
31:30the 1st Marine Division,
31:325,700 yards from the Japs.
31:34Bitter fighting is continuing.
31:36We think it is interesting to note
31:38that 65,313 rounds have been fired
31:41since the landing on Okinawa,
31:43and 124 more are about to be fired on this target.
31:47Request battalion. Can observe.
31:50Battalion, 10 volley screw effects.
31:52Adjust EZ battery right.
31:54Fire mission.
31:57Box battery.
31:59Fire mission.
32:05EZ battery ready.
32:07Battery is ready.
32:09Fire. Fire for effect.
32:11On the way.
32:19Keep firing in the building.
32:21Keep firing in the building.
32:23The last mission is fired,
32:25and continues on Okinawa.
32:29These pioneering radio reports,
32:31recorded at the front for the first time in history,
32:34brought home an entirely new aspect of the war.
32:39As important as radio was to the American public, however,
32:42the G.I.s themselves usually got their information
32:45from the military's own publications,
32:48Yank and Stars and Stripes.
32:52These unique, totally American publications
32:55were universally popular
32:57because they were written and published
32:59by G.I.s for G.I.s.
33:03Their effect on morale was incalculable.
33:08These opinions on G.I. equipment
33:10were picked up from 20 men of an infantry division.
33:13I asked them how they liked what they had
33:15and if they could make any suggestions.
33:18Sleeping bags.
33:20Not worth a damn.
33:22They say they can't get out of it fast enough.
33:24Would rather have blankets.
33:26Backpacks?
33:28Too big and bulky.
33:30A thing a rider can.
33:32Gloves.
33:34Why not mittens with a trigger finger?
33:36The men say that present gloves are not warm enough.
33:39The G.I.s
33:47Hundreds of reporters, photographers and journalists
33:50covered the war for the American public back home.
33:54From young cub reporters to famous writers like Ernest Hemingway,
33:58there were always men and women eager to bring back
34:01eyewitness accounts of the great drama that was World War II.
34:06But the G.I.s themselves were kept informed
34:08by two publications unique in the history of warfare,
34:12both of them written not only for, but by American soldiers.
34:18Stars and Stripes was a daily newspaper
34:20that had been started in the American Civil War,
34:23but it had its greatest revival during World War II.
34:27It offered its G.I. readers a mix of up-to-date news
34:30about the progress of the war,
34:32along with features by authors such as Andy Rooney and Ernie Pyle,
34:38and the popular cartoons of Bill Mauldin.
34:42Stars and Stripes was the old standby,
34:45but some thought it had become a bit too stodgy.
34:48As a result, a fresh new magazine was proposed
34:51for America's huge new army of citizen-soldiers.
34:55The weekly magazine Yank, founded in 1942,
35:00was based on a radical concept.
35:03It would be staffed, written, and edited entirely by enlisted men.
35:09If any staff member was promoted to officer rank, he had to resign.
35:16This dog-face-to-dog-face approach made it completely unique.
35:21President Roosevelt himself recognized this
35:23in a letter he wrote for the first issue.
35:27You have established a publication which cannot be understood by your enemies.
35:32It is inconceivable to them that any soldier,
35:35or any citizens for that matter,
35:37should have any thoughts other than those dictated by their leaders.
35:41I look forward myself to reading every issue of Yank from cover to cover.
35:51Yank cost five cents.
35:53It carried no advertising.
35:55And it was a huge success.
35:58It had two million subscribers
36:00and was thought to be read by more than ten million.
36:04By the end of the war, Yank was printed around the world
36:07in 21 different editions.
36:11Serving as the enlisted man's forum,
36:13there were caustic letters and discussions,
36:16and officers were often fair game.
36:19G.I.s were encouraged to send in their own ideas,
36:22complaints, and even poetry and cartoons.
36:26Most of the coverage in Yank was upbeat,
36:29and it also had to contain a good mix of what the soldiers wanted to know.
36:34Besides war coverage, there were hometown stories,
36:37humor, and of course, pin-ups.
36:41These pin-ups were the most popular features.
36:44They were posted on Quonset hut walls and tent poles
36:47everywhere in the world where G.I.s were sent.
36:51The content was cheery, but that didn't mean it was gung-ho.
36:55Indeed, the coverage of the war was very irreverent for the time,
36:59as this Yank article from Germany in March 1945 demonstrates.
37:07Durin, the queen city of the Rohr,
37:10is nothing more than a heap of rubble today.
37:14Oddly enough, one of the few intact structures
37:17is the 25-foot statue of Bismarck.
37:20But the Americans made two modifications in the statue.
37:25One is U.S. Army Signal Corps telephone wire,
37:29strung by an unawed G.I. who used the statue as a telephone pole.
37:35The other is a shell hole piercing the scroll in his right hand
37:39and with poetic justice.
37:41The shell continued on through and lodged in the very spot
37:45where many of the subject peoples of his empire
37:48would have often liked to rent it.
37:54Both Yank and Stars and Stripes had their official G.I. cartoonists.
37:59Yank featured Sad Sack by Sergeant George Baker.
38:03Stars and Stripes had Willie and Joe by Bill Mauldin.
38:07Both of these comics are considered classics of G.I. humour and attitudes,
38:12which meant that they were often bitingly critical of superiors
38:16and what the men considered to be idiotic rules and regulations.
38:23Since I am an enlisted man and have served under many officers,
38:27I have a great deal of respect for the good ones
38:30and a great deal of contempt for the bad ones.
38:33He is given many privileges and he is required in return
38:37to give certain things which a few officers choose to ignore.
38:41I try to make life as miserable as possible for those few.
38:47Bill Mauldin often found himself the subject of controversy.
38:52General Patton tried to have him censored,
38:55but the young cartoonist who had already won a Pulitzer Prize
38:58and a Purple Heart was much too popular.
39:03The cartoons stayed and Patton, however reluctantly, learned to live with them.
39:09Ernie Pyle was another journalist whose style was based on extreme candour.
39:13His writing was syndicated in 300 newspapers, including Stars and Stripes,
39:18and he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1943.
39:22In North Africa, Pyle wrote frankly about how the locals were reacting to the Americans.
39:29Our troops have made a poor impression in contrast to the few Germans they've seen.
39:34We admittedly are not a rigid-minded people.
39:37Our army doesn't have the strict and snappy discipline of the Germans.
39:41Our boys sing in the streets, unbutton their collars, laugh and shout, and forget to salute.
39:47A lot of Algerians misinterpret this as inefficiency.
39:51They think such a carefree army can't possibly whip the grim Germans.
39:55They admire strict rules, because to them strictness is synonymous with strength.
40:01They can't conceive of the fact that our strength lies in our freedom.
40:07Pyle understood that the strength of the American Armed Forces
40:10lay directly in their citizen-soldier attitudes.
40:14He loved to write articles about hard-working, low-ranking G.I.s
40:18who were solving problems with their independent initiative.
40:22The following excerpt is from an article Pyle wrote in July 1944
40:27about machinists repairing tanks with a tool of their own invention.
40:31But he also wrote it as a tribute to the army's millions of support personnel.
40:38That one little invention may have saved 50 Americans' lives,
40:42may have cost the Germans a hundred men,
40:45may have turned the tide of battle.
40:48And it's being done by a man 45 years old,
40:52wearing corporal stripes, who doesn't have to be over here at all,
40:56and who could be making big money back home.
40:59He too sleeps on the ground and works 16 hours a day and is happy to do it.
41:04But the boys who are dying are not 3,000 miles away and abstract.
41:08They are 10 miles away and very, very real.
41:12He sees them when they come back, pleading like children for another tank, another gun.
41:19He knows how terribly they need the things that are within his power to give.
41:24Pyle lived the war up close and so was unable to romanticize.
41:30Our soldiers can still hate, glorify or be glad with true emotion.
41:36For them, death has a pang and victory a sweet scent.
41:41But for me, war has become a black, flat depression without highlights.
41:47A revulsion of the mind.
41:49I have heard soldiers say a thousand times,
41:52if only we could have created all this energy for something good.
41:57But we rise above our normal powers only in times of destruction.
42:03Ernie Pyle followed the front line soldiers because he knew they were the ones making the real sacrifices.
42:09And he paid the ultimate price for it.
42:11Just 100 days before the Japanese surrendered,
42:14he was killed by a machine gun on the obscure island of Ieshima in the Pacific.
42:21Sixty-six American journalists were killed during the war.
42:25And Yank had to run these brief notices all too frequently.
42:30Sixty-six American journalists were killed during the war.
42:34And Yank had to run these brief notices all too frequently.
42:41But through it all, Yank continued to cover the war.
42:45When the conflict ended in 1945, so did the magazine.
42:50No army has seen anything like it since.
42:54It was the Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought and won World War II.
43:02But without the work of the correspondents, cameramen, broadcasters and artists who covered the conflict,
43:09many of the accomplishments and sacrifices of the fighting men would have remained unknown.
43:15It is this record that will continue to live on.
43:19A vast mosaic of human experience that will educate, entertain and move future generations for decades to come.
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