Tag: John Ford

D-Day Insights: PT Boat Operations in the English Channel

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As part of an extended look back at D-Day for the 82nd anniversary of the assault on Hitler’s Europe, today’s film examines PT boat operations in Plymouth harbor and the English Channel.

Regular readers of this blog know that written descriptions found at NARA are sometimes misleading, incomplete, incorrect, or missing all together. In this case the shot card for the film, shot by the US Navy and the Office of Strategic Services (“OSS”), identifies this as having been shot on August 11, 1944. That description may apply to the first part of the compiled reel, but the second half of the film includes the following slate:

We know from related research that Lt. Marcus Armistead was filming aboard PT boats in the channel on June 5th and 6th. Specifically, he was tagging along on missions by PT Boat Squadron 2(2). Commanded by Cmdr. John Bulkely, this small squadron of 3-4 “Higgins” PT boats was tasked with supporting special operations in the Channel, and running messages as needed.

Armistead was a veteran of “John Ford’s Navy”, a member of the veteran Hollywood director’s navy reserve unit which evolved into the “Field Photographic Branch” of the OSS. He was responsible for the testing and mounting of the fixed cameras installed on dozens of D-Day landing craft. He later moved onto several other projects for the OSS and the US Navy through the Korean War.

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Moving Image from D-Day Found

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This World War II US Navy footage found at the National Archives and Records Administration shows combat footage from a minesweeping operation off of New Guinea. Unremarked for decades, a short segment of film at the end of this reel is unrelated footage from a camera affixed to a landing craft, LCI(L), off the coast of Normandy, France for the D-Day seaborne assault on Europe.

The National Archives on-line catalog entry contains the text of the US Navy’s shot descriptions. The last segment, starting at about 9:44, is undescribed. My sharp-eyed colleague, Tom Hogan, identified the footage. Based on unique physical characteristics of the boat, he has identified this as LCI(L)-88. That particular boat was one of several landing craft selected by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) for the installation of a fixed motion picture film camera of the unloading operations.

A team from the OSS’s “Field Photographic Division”, commanded by John Ford, spearheaded a crash program to install the cameras in April and May of 1944. Below is a screenshot of the prepared title that appears in this segment.

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D-Day Landings: Archival Insights from the OSS Film

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Our film today is from an Army Signal Corps roll of 35mm motion picture film, composited from several 100′ film camera reels. As I’ve come to expect, this reel is not fully described in the shot cards, likely because the Army catalogers did not have access to the original photographer’s “dope sheets” describing the film they took. The first three reels were from the “Special Installations” program, which mounted remotely operated, battery powered film cameras on D-Day landing craft.

The program was spearheaded by the Office of Strategic Services (“OSS”) Field Photographic Branch, which was commanded by legendary film director John Ford, and staffed by Hollywood veterans in Ford’s Naval Reserve unit. The officer in charge of the program, which involved significant modifications to the cameras, was Lt. Commander Marcus Armistead. The film depicts British or Canadian troops as they come out of the landing craft. Weather conditions the morning of June 6th were foggy, misty and spitting rain, which is why the film is low contrast. Later reels in this compilation including shots of a glider being towed by a C47 for the invasion and a couple of reels of pre-invasion activities, including troops being issued invasion currency, which they promptly throw dice for! The OSS folded operations in 1946 and the film they created was scattered among the CIA, Navy, Coast Guard, and Army Signal Corps film repositories. I captured the roll straight from the film “flatbed” viewer at the National Archives, so this copy doesn’t necessarily do the original film full justice.

Context is critical to gain the full impact of archival film for your production. An experienced archival media researcher can leverage the full power of archives for you!