Today’s film from the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) illustrates a forgotten part of World War II, the titanic allied effort to arm and equip a future adversary: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (“USSR”). A major import channel for these supplies was through the Persian Gulf by way of a network of ports and airbases in Iran and Iraq.
This roll, shot by the US Army Air Forces in 1943, opens with the American star livery on an aircraft being repainted red for the Russians. Hundreds of large crates and ships suggest this a large, port, probably in Basra, Iraq. Enlisted personnel move crated aircraft around, opening one to reveal a “factory-fresh” Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter plane. Russian and American officers inspect the shipments and greet each other. The attitude illustrated is very much “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”!
Films like these aren’t well described in NARA’s on-line catalog, truly accessible only by those willing to work in the physical research rooms with the background granted by years of experience. Hire a professional researcher for your next production or publication and add impact!
This short film was produced by the German-American Bund in the 1930’s as a promotional tool. It was later seized by the Department of Justice as part of an investigation of Fritz Kuhn, the Bund’s leader, on charges of being an unregistered agent of a hostile foreign government. The iconography of the Nazi swastika side-by-side with the flag of the United States underscores the fact that political extremism is an existential threat to a pluralistic, democratic society. Sadly, today the elected government of the United States is taking radical steps that remind us that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. As John Stuart Mill said “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
This is one brief story of among millions waiting to be told by using content available at the National Archives. An experienced professional researcher can leverage archival media to help bring your story alive.
This “found footage” from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) begins with casualties returning to England from the Normandy invasion. The last minute or two shows naval vessels shelling Omaha Beach. The high cliffs in the final shots are unmistakable as Pointe du Hoc, the highest point along the invasion beaches, the site of captured French 155mm artillery, and a target for the 2nd U.S. Army Ranger Battalion. Shot at eye-level, one can’t really make out the “point”, except for some shallow rocks. If you look carefully, in the last thirty seconds you can just make out the figures of troops at the foot of a scree slope before a tall cliff, without a lot of additional supplies, equipment and reinforcements. The tide is in as well, which builds a strong case that this is later in the morning of June 6th, so this could be the only moving image footage of the Rangers’ assault on the Axis position at Pointe du Hoc. Many thanks to sharp-eyed fellow researcher Thomas Hogan for identifying this film!
The included slates identify this as footage from Coast Guard, U.S. Navy and OSS cinematographers despite the reel being found in the holdings of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. OSS footage of the invasion is usually found in Record Group 428, the records of the Navy Photographic Center.
This footage is described in the NARA Catalog, but without identifying the location, so ordinarily, this footage would be overlooked. A knowledgeable researcher will recognize what they see. Choose a professional media researcher for your next production or publication! Researchers add value!
UPDATE:
Thanks to an upgraded 4K transfer from the archival film, I was able to locate the scene of the first section of the film, showing the incoming casualties returning to Britain as Weymouth Harbor, by identifying the business sign for “Cosen and Co Ltd”. Photographic Specialist Clarence “Sam” Moran was the photographer. He was 42 at the time of the invasion.
The photographer for the second segment was Lt. Cmdr. Allen G. Siegler, born in 1892 and was old enough to have registered for the draft in World War I. He had established a career as a cinematographer in Southern California beginning in 1914 and was an member of the American Society of Cinematographers. He would have been 52 years old at the time this film was taken. Both men were early volunteers for the Naval Reserve film unit founded by John Ford, which became the basis for the Field Photographic Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) the wartime predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Further research details that Lt. Cmdr. Siegler was detailed to the destroyer USS Satterlee (DD-626) during the invasion. The Satterlee is known to have the naval gunfire support mission for the Army Rangers assault on Pointe du Hoc. This help builds a strong circumstantial case that this was shot during the Rangers’ mission. Thanks to the extended resolution offered by a 4K transfer, we can clearly see details we only speculated on before. Landing craft pass from left to right in front of the camera, together with a Landing Craft Control ship. At about 9:19 you can clearly see figures moving at the base of a notch in a cliff face. This was all shot from quite a distance, on a moving ship, which makes the camera tracking ability in those final frames impressive!
Film producers may be familiar with the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) as a source of “uncopyrightable” moving images created by the United States Government, but did you know that a substantial body of copyrighted film content also exists in its holdings? Material can be collected by Federal Agencies or donated by production companies (in this case the Fox Movietone collection), individuals, and even former Presidents (most of the content in NARA’s Presidential LIbrary system prior to 1981 was donated!).
Thanks to changes in the Copyright Law in the US in 1977 and 1978, all films created in 1928, including this newsreel item, an early talkie from 1928, fell into the Public Domain on January 1st of this year. It features the first filmed interview of famed playwright and author George Bernard Shaw. You can hear his approaching footsteps and hints of birdsong from the country setting. His meandering interview touches on many topics, even, amusingly, his impression of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini! The audio recording for film was still very new and Fox Movietone was in its first year of operation, so they were charmingly still figuring out how to use this new technology. This particular film was recorded off a flatbed film viewer in NARA’s research room in College Park, Maryland.
Older content finds its way onto the web with regularity, but less than 10% of the moving image content in the National Archives’ collections is available digitally on-line. Professional researchers have the ability to locate content that is only available on-site in many institutions nation-wide. Contact an archival media researcher today to add special value to your production or publication!
Nine years ago this September, I authored a post on the National Archives and Records Administration’s “Unwritten Record” blog about a mysterious film I found in NARA’s research rooms. I uncovered the fact that this artifact was likely the first “documentary treatment” of the Operation Overlord assault on the beaches of Normandy, D-Day, June 6th, 1944. The film is influential because the shot selections largely duplicate the footage provided to the newsreels around the same time. Those selections have imprinted the imagery of D-Day in our collective imagination.
The story going around at the time I found the film was that Hollywood “A list” director John Ford, wartime head of the Field Photographic Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (“OSS”), recalled his wartime experiences, recounting that his unit compiled an overall report on the invasion that was shown to FDR, Churchill, and Stalin. Ford recalled his experiences in a D-Day interview from “American Legion” magazine from June 1964 on the twentieth anniversary of D-Day. Having trained and equipped hundreds of photographers, Ford watched the first few days of the assault from the decks of the USS Plunkett, a Navy destroyer. In my post I made a strong circumstantial case that the film I found at the National Archives matches this description. A letter in the OSS personnel folder for Captain John Ford recommends him for the Distinguished Service Medal on the strength of his activities documenting the D-day invasion, specifically mentioning:
“The returning film was assembled under his directions, and an overall D-Day report, complete with sound, was competed on D plus 5, and was shown to Mr. Winston Churchill. Copies were also flown to President Roosevelt and Mr. Stalin.”
I was unable to verify these claims or make the link to my “found” film at the time of this earlier article. Thanks to some additional research I’ve undertaken at NARA, I’ve now made that link. Below, find an image from an OSS project log found in its London Field office files.
I was able to re-confirm this information in an “officer biography” found in the Official Military Personnel File for Frederick A. Spencer, Ford’s Chief Deputy at Field Photo.
These documents confirm that the production was intended for presentation to chiefs of state FDR, Churchill, and Stalin, adding that a print was delivered to FDR on D-Day plus 8, or June 14, 1944 and that the film was commissioned by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (“SHAEF”) Public Relations Division (matching the film found at NARA). They contribute additional detail, too: that the original production was no more than “approx 4,000 ft”, or about 44 minutes (the finished production at NARA comes in at 33 minutes) and that the production elements (cut work print, sound negative, and composite duplicate negative were turned over to SHAEF. Finally, the project log gives the last names of OSS Field Photo personnel responsible for what had to be an epic 72 hour edit session that assembled this edit within days of the Operation Overlord assault.
Some details remain a mystery: those film elements remain to be found, the copy found at NARA appears to come from four work prints of uncertain provenance, also no production file from Field Photo has been found to date. The Field Photo assignment log also notes a copy was intendedto be made available to Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, but the Spencer biographical note lists only FDR, Churchill and Stalin. Hopefully, records of the presentation of these film reels to the “Big Three” will be found in the future.
Without further adieu, this is the “mystery film”…
Historicity Research Services 