Serving as a cameraman for the marine corps. He captured footage of the battle of tarawa that helped marines win an Academy Award for best documentary short in 1945. The World War Ii Museum spoke with mr. Hatch for its oral history collection. This is the first of a twopart interview. Norman one day i was doing press releases and i got i went up into the head on the third floor. I am standing there. Commandantn but the in civilian clothes. He looks at me and says you are marine, arent you . I say yes, sir. He says how do you like your job . What are you going to tell the commandant . I liked it very much because i went to town and the press club, got to know the reporters, the godfrey for example. It was a big thing. I told him i liked it very much. So we got cleaned up and out the door. He said i want to tell you one more thing. He said you be good to the core, and it will be good to you. I never forgot those words. , there had there been applications posted on the Bulletin Board in the stuff that you read every day about a new school in new york for the march of time. You know the march of time . It was a leading newsreel film of the day. It was a half hour show produced only once a month and it was about anything in the world. That was good because our country, the people in our country were not well versed in what was happening in the rest of the world. We were an agrarian country. The kids coming out of high school didnt going to college was not sincerely the first thing they thought about. It was a good thing. People would go to the movies. They would wait for a good movie that was coming to go at the time of the march of time was showing. It was so greatly done. What happened was the producer up there, the founder of the operation and everything had a lot of army and navy stock footage. But he said it was no good. Nothing was telling a story. All of it was great and grim grip and grim kind of stuff. It was not of any use to him. Here is where the story gets funny and good. I, was in thear navy on a destroyer in the dardanelles. ,is roommate, another ensign was now a rear admiral in charge of naval personnel. He calls of his old pal, the admiral, and says all this army and navy footage is unusable. Would you send me at least three or four navy photographers who know their equipment and handle their equipment . Also two marines and i will teach them how to tell stories with their cameras. That started the school of tutorial journalism at the march of time in 1941. So i applied for the school, was turned down, applied again. Third application, i was working for the navy. This quarter the president had come up with, order the president had come up with, one of the reservists came into our office. Because of his background, took over the newsreel department. He had been a director at the march of time. When i learned that, i went back to him one day and said lieutenant, can i go to lunch with you . It was something never done in those days. He was an outsider, so he said, yes. I got a lot to tell you about my problems with mlt, march of time. He said we will see what happens. Day i put in my third application to go. I told him that it was just head ready to come to a whether i would be accepted or not. Lets take a look officer my executive officer said im sorry off,ll you, you are turned turned down again. You cant go. I went back to alan brown the lieutenant and said i have been turned down a third time. What can be done . He said the guy will come into town tomorrow. I have got to give him some film and i will send you over and you can talk to him. I did not know the back story about world war i and anything like that. The admiral. I went, delivered the film the talked. , and he and i he had two Norwegian Air force cameramen with him because he was doing a story on the Canadian Air Force training the Norwegian Air force and giving them airplanes because all of their stuff was in german hands. They were starting a new air force. Anyway i went back. He was very nice. I dont know what happened but two later days later my office comes roaring into the office and says, norman, what the hell have you been doing . I got orders to ship you to new york immediately to participate in the new march of time class 1, 1941. Rts october that started me off in the training. I already had some experience with cameras. I was in the High School Photo set up, so forth and so on. It was not all new to me, but shooting movies was. Up so i spent six months there and two months more breaking in the new class of marines and went back to quantico and was shooting training films. And they shipped me off to join the Second Marine Division when it was forming. Where were you when you heard about pearl . Norman i was asleep. Asleep at my i was place in new york. To come on ato certain times. They heard this news about i heard this news about pearl harbor sort of halfheartedly threw my years. I thought it was another one of the stories like the thing in new jersey where the people came down out of the earth, scared all of them war of the worlds. Everybody in new jersey was scared to death, ready to leave and everything like that. I sort of dozed off and then i ared all Service Members to report to their offices immediately. [laughter] that woke me up. I called the Sergeant Major at the yard, that is where our paper was for the three marines at the march of time are they keep track of your time. I called him up and said, because i was the senior man, the eldest up there, i said you want the three of us to come down to the navy yard . He said jesus christ, now could i got so goddamn many people down here, i dont know what to do with them. [laughter] these were all reservists. What is it called, people realize what had happened at pearl, they were not going to stay out. He never called us. Asked to come was down to the office. I went down and he said you know washington. He said we want you to help load a truck not a truck that one of the cars with the camera gear and Everything Else because on monday the president is going to declare war against japan and we want you to cover it. We loaded up the car. I drove it down on sunday. Dated my girlfriend, took my girlfriend and her mother, who is now my wife, her mother to dinner, talked about what was happening. Next morning i went to the train and picked up the guys, and we drove over to the capital. To get all of the gear up to the highest set up where they were, all the cameras usually hung out in the gallery. , 35mma handheld camera black and white. I went around shooting cutaway shots and that sort of thing for what they were doing. The president came, a bunch of us were out to the channel he drove into underneath the building. Shot a picture of the car coming in. Nobody shot anything while he got out because that was Standard Operating Procedure in those days. You waited until he got up on his feet. He had to lock his braces. He would get up and his son, who was a marine lieutenant colonel, was with him. They walked up the area past the press. When he asked me, he saluted me mepassed me, he saluted because i was in uniform. What was it like . Norman it was very serious. All the people were thinking about i am sure home cities and states. What would have to be done. A nobody was playing around for sure. They had young people up in them. A lot of them would know that this was going to affect them greatly. That is the way it was. It was funny. In the way the galleries were set up, the camera crews and the big cameras they had, there was hardly enough room in the seat to still have the tripod and not have your knees against the edge of the balustrade. They did not have magazinesheir extra for the cameras. Because i was in uniform, i was the only one that was able to go in and out because they locked those stores once you were in up there. They did not want anybody roaming around. I convinced the guard these guys needed to film. I would get to film for all five of the newsreels. When they were running down, but saw getting through 1000 feet. It went through the camera 90 feet a minute. It didnt take long for it to go through. Boxor whoever in their would pick up theirs and take it down, keep the film running. War was declared, you are still here you were still here . Norman i was in new york. When did you get the order to go to the Second Division . Months. Lets see, six 1942, i came april back to consequence i came back to quantico. The actor was already in your he had volunteered. I worked with him quite a bit. E were making training films i got the orders to the Second Division. I dont remember exactly when. Probably in may. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Did you go with the Second Division to guadalcanal . Norman no. The First Division went to guadalcanal and parts of the second right. Norman part of our crew went. Some of our photographers went. It was up to me to tell which ones would go. I was a senior nco at that time. I wanted to go, but they only had room for Something Like two or three and the detail that was going. In the detail that was going. It was on the job training for a lot of the kids. Ofhad had almost 11 months capability of training the cameramen in Motion Picture work because none of them have had experience none of them had had experience. We had 30 men by time we were there. Before we left, before we left the west coast, i had convinced the quartermaster and my boss, who was a warrant officer, who knew nothing about bush pictures tion pictures 0 that is how it goes. Norman he was a taxi driver. He was in the reserve. He got called in. I dont know how the hell he came into the pornographic side, but she did photographic side, but he did know a little bit about photographs. I convinced him in the quartermaster we should go up to buyywood, los angeles and as many Motion Picture cameras as we could. Three had three. We figured going 6000 miles away and land where there would not be any repair ability and what would we do if the cameras failed . Us to do it. That was johnny erbil who was also at the arch of time with me. That is his picture over there. He and i went out to hollywood. Film typeabout 14 cameras. They were the magazine load type. They were called autoload. You just put a cartridge in the back of them, did not have to thread that with your fingers which took up so much thread them with your fingers which took up so much time. You could put them in the pocket. They also had a three lens caret on the side turret on the side so you had a viewfinder whenever you put it up to your eye. We bought a dozen of those, all the color film that existed in the markets there in l. A. And we took that to new zealand with us. I would not use it in new zealand because i found out that in the new zealand photo stores, they had the black and white film that fit the camera. I could buy that. The processing had to be done in australia at kodak australia. We would send the film the guys were learning or using in training over to australia. They would send it back to us. We could see how they would shoot a story and critique them and so on. That was the start of color being used in combat. In the marine corps. Pretty much for the rest of the services as well because the other cameras are just too big and unwieldy. Poundun around with a 14 inyourface, with the lenses, two or three sticking out, that was a heavy load. Though i feeleven like i am Strong Enough, i could not pick one up. I have a 16 millimeter over here which is a duplicate of what the camera looked like, and even that is too heavy for me. [laughter] time they used to say, marches on. It does things to you. You guys leave new zealand with a Second Division. The Second Division. Norman they told us before going that we were going to make a landing. The new that much. They knew that much. The Battalion Commanders had much more information. So when they got aboard ship, they could tell the people what the landing was going to be like and so forth and so on. Were knew which battalions going to be first landers. I wanted the guys to be with them. Wereple of weeks before we , i sent my guys out to the battalions so they thed know the people in Commanding Officer so the people would know that they were with them, not strangers and anything like that. I wanted them to get training with the unit. Fromshot everything getting prepared to go aboard aboardn ship, training ship, stuff like that. Each one of them would do the same kind of story so that we would have compilation of all of it at some time or later and we want to edit a film. Later when we want to edit the film. The Battalion Commander i thought would be into trouble the most. That would be where the best pictures would be made. Is name was jim crowe he was a major. He was well known, a sharpshooter, on the major team that would compete against the other Services Every year. He was a great football player. That was a big thing in those days. Been i dont think he had been in world war i, but he had been in what we call the manner wars. Banana wars. I got an appointment with him and i walked into his office and he said, who are you . I said i am Staff Sergeant norman hatch. He said, where are you from . I said division headquarters. Why do you want to come with me . I said because i am a Motion Picture cameraman. He said i dont want any hollywood marine. Goddamn that is what he said, hollywood marine. I said i am not. I have got all the training and i know that if i need a rifle, all i have to do is spend one pick one up. And hes good all right, but stable hell deste all right, but stay the hell out of my way. I made sure the guys got on the regular boats. They gave me one to run around in and do that. I had a maybe guy driving it of course. Crow was the boat jim on. I got myself hold up on that. I found a place to live and found out where he was and also later on found out what boat he was going over the side to get into. I wanted to be with him. Came and i watched them go over the side. I followed him right on down. He got up on the edge of the lcvp, one side, i got on the other side and sat next to him. He looked at me and grinned. I was in. We were not supposed to go in on the first wave because he as the Battalion Commander would have ample boatloads of marines to come in after the first landings had been successful. His assistant Battalion Commander ashore with the men. He knew that they would be well taken care of. But all of a sudden he saw the amphibious tractors that had carried in most of the first three waves sort of piling up against the pier. We used to say looked like a junkyard, they were piling up on each other because the pier stopped them. There was a japanese machine gunner buried in a tank top on one side over there and they were shooting machine gun bullets at the tractors, and they were not heavily armored or anything. I imagine the driver was hearing bullets going on and scared to death. That was causing jim crow to sit out there and say i am losing my beachhead. I dont have any beachhead and i have all these votes coming in boats coming in. Amn boat in right now. So we did. As we hit the reef, which we knew would happen, told the guy to lower the ramp and get down. Now we had to go over the side pv, and i stayed in the boat until everybody was off except my assistant kelleher. He was a pfc i was training. I put him over the side and he carried one camera and put it on his wrist. We had two canisters of film that were that long each, put on our shoulders. The navy put them online when i went over the side to on mine when i went over the side to do the same thing. We were standing up and everybody else was dog paddling. Why we never got shot, i dont know. There was an observer with us, a lieutenant col. , who would kneel down and shoot underneath the pier. You would see the bodies fallout. That probably is why i did not get hit her walking in water is not easy, even though the weight on our shoulders kept our feet on the ground in the salt water which was a good thing. We were able to walk in without getting our cameras wet and Everything Else. The film was in these tin cans, and we had them taped up with waterproof tape. The camera, we could not do anything with except carry it. Fortunately neither of the two cameras got wet. If they had, we could have cleaned them off with fresh water, but we didnt have any. That was our problem. Nevertheless the cameras worked for the threeday battle. Tarawa was important in two ways. Ever since the battle of gallipoli in world war i, which was ordered by the british equivalent of the secretary of the navy, he almost lost his job from that because of such a ailure, was a landing against group of germans and turks who were up against up in the hillside and who practically annihilated the new zealand, australian and British Forces trying to make a landing. That particular episode is still revered as by the australians and new zealanders as anzac day. They celebrate all who were wounded. It was a complete failure. From that day on all military any command ofe anything like that would say that you cannot make a landing against a heavily fortified beachhead is successful landing. Col. Had one lt. Lieutenant colonel during the 1930s and 1940s who would show that we would have to make landings of that type. He trained marines on the Potomac River and also whatever we were down doing training in the caribbean. Landing. W to make a he was left at 5 was laughed at by most of the military people. Islandours, we took an that the commanding admiral on that island thought could not be done in a million years. And so it was done in 36 hours. That just shows you you can never tell what can happen. One of the interesting things about that, nobody knew about during the battle, was that we had annihilated the commanding troops of the japanese and his complete staff, becaus e he decided to walk across the airstrip to another post. He was too close to the landings and was moving across the landing strip. An aviator above spotted him and destroyer that was very close to the island and had been firing shells at the various installations on the island, that those guys were walking, and to get them. And they did. They annihilated the whole staff, japanese staff areas so the japs didnt know where their commanding general was. We did not know it. I dont know if that would have changed the battle in any way. It is an interesting point. Probably the only time the Commanding Officer of the unit had been killed before his men in any battle. That 76 hours, there were a little over 1000 marines 1250 some oddut marines wounded and pretty nearly 4500 japanese killed. Definitely a bloody three days. Norman that is why you cannot compare battles, when people try to do that. You can look at a battle going on today where three people get. Illed, you see it is a great consternation by everybody that this happens. The wars are not the same. You cannot compare them in any shape or manner. Let me stop you ok, all right. Tell me about how the landings went from your perspective. Inman after jim crow put us on the beach, a few more votes tried to more boats tried to come in. The plan was at a certain time after the first landings, they boatsstart sending in the with the ball of the men. In the amphibious landings we have had, we had put ashore between 700 and 800 men. That is all it was. Eagerly awaiting the boat crews coming in because that would enforce the troops line. In, andt boats to come i was sitting with my back to the seawall loading a camera and having to watch this, as soon as it hit the reef and dropped the ramp, a show would come in and in andshell would come hit it from the other side of the island. Blasted altarpieces, people people, and jim crow had the radio that was active. He radioed the command ship, dont send in any more troops at all until we figure this thing out and we are able to negate it. The japanese had three eight had rifles which they ght from the british and 1900, yeah, for the russian war they were in. They never used them. Had them stored for a long time until they broke these out and put them on the islands to act as strength for them and fighting off any landings. It was doing it all right. They called the command ship and say dont send anyone in until we tell you to. As the day wore on, all of the Battalion Commanders on the beach, three beaches as it was called, were very concerned. They knew how many japanese were there. They figured there would be a charge in theai evening. There was talk from the ship outside of bringing in replacement boats after dark. Saying, wejim crow will be shooting each other because we will not know who is on the beach. Wordput out the practically for the love of god, dont send anybody in in the dark. I have a dozen japanese crawled wounded beach and were on the beach. Beach, jim crow said i dont want to hear anybody firing a pistol or a rifle at any japanese. Use your knives. We all slept with our knives underneath us spirit he said i will shoot the son of a bitch that shoots something. Body that shoots a pistol he did not want anybody firing on the beach. It would cause trouble. The japanese were all killed with knives are there were five or six of them. Everybody thought there would be a charge, but there was not. They could have pushed us off. The lack of the governing body talk tone, nobody could anybody. Crazy. The next day, the boats came in and eventually they stopped those rifles. Why they did not stop them the first day, i dont know. They know the boats had to come in. They were curious about the tractors. They did not know anything about the amphibious tractors, the japanese did not have any of them. We did not get all of them we needed. Our commanding general had ordered so many, and they came two days before the landing. They came aboard ships from hawaii. [laughter] have to get them, ever ship that was needed. Ship that was needed. It is amazing it went off as well as it did. To this point this is the most hotly contested battle in the pacific and you are there on the beach with no weapons. You got a camera. Norman i had a pistol. I finally convinced everybody the only people that had pistols in the marine corps were officers or military police, and that was it. To go to they boss commanding general to get an ok for all photographers to carry pistols stray with all of the photo gear they had strapped on themselves and pouches, you would never be able to carry a rifle. It would be falling off your shoulder all the time. If it was strapped across, it would be in the way of everything. That was a hard sell, but i succeeded. We had the armory near the photo section in new zealand. He had plenty of thistles. We arm pistols. We armed everybody. Not firing like the marine corps taught us, but i had a guy in my squad trained by the fbi schooling quantico how to fire pistols. He even showed us how to fire through the holster. Some guy comes around the corner, quick, he has got a gun up on you, shoot right through the holster. [laughter] were pretty well trained along that line. It was like being like a kid and a candy store. The in a candy story. They were fighting, yes. They were. They were doing what they had to do. They were maneuvering in a certain way or doing this or that your there was a machine gunner that had this dead aim. Walked around shooting him. I would get up on what was considered the front lines for the second battalion, eighth marines, and the guy says what are you doing here . I would have to convince him i did have to be there because if the public could not see what we were doing, we would not get any support. They would buy into that. Didnt heckle me anymore. I would always go to his meetings, whenever he had one in the morning especially. He would call in his battalion executive officer and everybody else and they would sit and talk. I dont know where to go, where they were going to do this stuff. When they decided to take the big house, that was the third day. So i am trying to think of the assistants name right now. He was a major. When it came out of the morning meeting, he said we are going to take that house. Do you want to come up and shoot them . I said sure. We half crawled and walked up to where his cp was. We sat in the big show whole shell hole, he called in the guise of his organization the guys of his organization and they talked about how they would take that big building. Everybody movies, looks at their watches so like the movies, everybody looks at their watches, 0900 will be the jump off time, so on. He told the people what they are going to do. He said you ready . He gets up and stands up. It is quiet. There is not anybody shooting anything at that time. He yells follow me. He raised his arm like this for the two of us come like this. The two of us come up out of his hole. The sand it is like one foot up and two eight back because you keep sliding. I only had one hand to help us get up here we finally got up, two of us got up there were five or six japanese outside the doorway wondering what we are doing on their command post. I look at him and say major, where is your rifle . He said i gave it to a man who lost his in the water coming in. I said where is your pistol . He said it doesnt work. This happened in nano seconds. We did not have that word than. I can say it now. And say it [phone rings] that heajor tells me has neither rifle nor pistol. I know mine was in my back and i could not reach it. I said we better get the hell out of here quick because i did not know if there was another stairway they could come up and catch us quickly. Urn around and the marine we were the only two on top of the tallest building on tarawa. We could see the whole island. Arender where in the hell those marines . We run down the side and he holds another meeting and he was not very nice in what he was saying. [laughter] organize themselves took off. Once again we did not run up on top of the thing again. I photographed down bottom what they were doing. That is when i was able to get the shot of the japanese coming out and the machine gunner walls on this side of the wall on the other thing, like a corridor between the buildings. One of our machine gunners is set up dont there to cover the field test out there to gunners is set up down there to cover the field. They could see we were going down the beach and would come up behind them. They wanted to stop that. They came out and made a big mistake because the machine gunner was shooting them as they came out. I was able to get that. They were 20 feet away. Able to get that shot very nicely. As far as the only time in the pacific war, and i think in the european war we were able to get Motion Picture film shot of our troops and the enemy troops in the same frame. That was one of the scenes, one of the shots i was going to ask you about your they come running out of their pretty about. They come running out of there pretty quick. Norman i was in the back of the block house. Somebody over by the machine gunner said here comes the japs, i just turned my body. Like this and shot, and it worked. At the pretty iconic norman yeah, it is. In the european war or the japanese were everybody was dug in. Them. Didnt see until you crawled off, if you did, to throw a grenade in or Something Like that. Day wars like the old when people were out on the open ins running against to against you, you know . They did not do that very often because it would be killed. Theres another shot in there. It looksrine like a bangalore torpedo and he. Ets hit, just flat out did not tell you , when thess about bulge came in, i explained that part. They were really zeroed in on that. They made a perfect target for them. Guns were the three big. Nd they really annihilated i dont know whether air stopped them or not. Why they did not knock them out before we ever landed, i dont know. That was one of the mistakes made in the early part of the battle. It probably would have saved many lives if it had. You have probably heard the any albert story. Pretty well. And he and i sat together one. Ight i was out there at the museum of the pacific out in texas he and i were talking on that particular day with each other. Fact, the people who put us up in a hotel, very unusual. A man had gone around the log cabins. Bought but he bought them up. He took them apart and put them to this place and made a motel out of them. Eddie albert and i were together. He was little older than i was. The gal that was running the things says she wanted to wanted me to take care of him, make sure he was ok and what have you because they both had been we set up that night until about 4 00 in the morning. He was emotional, and i guess to be a good actor youve got to be emotional sometimes. Things which was very unusual, when he reported aboard ship, the doctor on board ship said do not have any runins with the skipper. He said, if you do he will really kill you and eddie says why . And he said because he hates jews. , im not jewish, im of german extraction. He said, he thinks youre jewish. Eddie stayed very carefully away from him doing all the things he had to do and doing them right and so on and so forth. , he is the onele who would line up all of the votes and make sure they were ready to go in, and he went in and discovered there were a lot of mortars laying around. So he decides to sit there and take command of his boat. He sent another boat out to the ship. So he did that for three days. Probably one of the most dangerous parts of the island on the beach. But he made sure that no boat went back out to sea without the wounded and it and he probably save the lives of many, many men. But at the time, the marine over, after the battle was hey brought one for eddie some kind of distinguished service cross, some high navy award for what he did. And the routine, the things of that nature, the recommendation, we were not his commanders. It would have to be approved by his Commanding Officer. So anyway the museum out in the medal. Hey were awarded a bronze star. Ut the he told me one time he came to washington and met an old friend who had been on the ship with him. When i got to lunch and he got through telling a story, he went back to his hotel in tears. He asked if he would come up and hold his hand. He was crying because of what he was talking about. When he got up to make his talk at the museum. Talking about a soldier or , theyre practically in tears talking about it. I really enjoyed him. We stayed in contact through the years. What about the body washing up on the surface. Twohe surf questioner slain another thing i was shooting black and white 35mm. The film was made in color. Color. Nted it in sometimes you cant tell which is which. A third of that film is mine. You think about 70 years norman 70 years this fall. There is the second one. It is kind of a harbinger of things to come. What do you think now . Norman i dont know. There are so many crazy people taking over that general area. It would be hard to predict anything. Honorabley think the leader there likes to threaten what he can do. At least, they havent done it. They dont have the necessary ipment, which in that case i think he has studied outside the korean area. He knows what the outside world is. I hope he can put some of that knowledge to good use. China had taken over years and years ago. There was no worrying about that. Of food, lackack of a lot of other things. I saw a film. Thats where it was. 60 minutes. They got away from the camp. The chinese had been running that for years and years and years. And he never knew anything about it. Everyone in the camp were prisoners. A few of us have escaped. It was not going to be anything like what he saw existed in the world. He even ordered his mother and brother to be killed. There were no emotions. It was his responsibility under they still dont to this day. Ageknow, he grew from the of 36 to 47 without knowing anything outside the world. When you are shooting, if the you, ian took a shot of seem to remember you are wearing a white shirt . Norman the shirt i was wearing was a Japanese Navy tshirt. After being on the island for three days there is no airconditioning. It was hot. Running around, carrying the gear. You perspire a lot, you were dirty. Little warehouse dug in the ground where there were a lot of japanese uniforms. Theres enough of to be in there to be large enough for me. At that time i was six feet. Fairly broad shouldered. We looked. We pulled our tshirts and sure enough, there was a big one. I took my old one off and threw it away and put that one on an war that until we went off the island. Back, a flap down the navy flap. That shot was a surprise because i forgot who shot it down, but i was shooting the troops leaving the island. Somebody yelled my name and turned around. That shot has been used a lot. But that is how it happened. Theres another shot in their. In there. Kelly and i were walking alongside of the japanese tank that was pretty badly damaged. I heard a sound and i thought, i bet that is a jap down there waiting to quote polk their head in. The other end of the tank was pretty well covered with sand. I thought it might be dangerous. The sounds increased. Flashlight and very quickly turned it on down there. When i saw the eyes and the eyes were so small, i knew they were human. I said, its got to be an animal. Its got to be a cat. This is the third day. A japanese coffee pot laying there in the sand. He sniffed it a little bit more and started to drink. Petted her she would have had to been brought there by one of the japanese because kittens were not indigenous to the island at all. To pick her backup, but she came back up. She did go for another drink. She ran around. Kelly had the other camera and shot this picture. She ran around and around, dancing around and went to the bank again. That was home. It was safe. You can imagine two or three days. Things bouncing off. I did not want to get it to take it back aboard ship. I did not know if she had anything to eat or anything else , but she would not come out. You know, theres another shot and it is like a slow pan. The camera shoots him and then it comes up to a bunch of marine standing there. And they are just standing there. One guy looks at the cameraman. Looks at the common man and the japanese looks back. Do you recall that shot . Do you remember that . I shot a david number of shots norman i shot a number of shots of dead japanese. That thing that we took. Hans was one shot where he had his arms over the other one. I think i remember the shot you are talking about. They are looking down at the bodies. The japanese bodies everywhere, all over the island. Oh, yeah. You could not pick them all up. With the best things i did, i sand and took my out. A and i cleaned it it have a little sand in it. I cleaned out the gates. Plain, surfaced place where your film would go through and you would stop for a second and take a picture and go. Being in the sand is awfully hard. What was the box . Time, if you have not heard the story, there was trouble with water. Thenavy realized that island had no water on it. They would need water. Gallon gasfive tanks. They painted him white inside. Were hundreds and hundreds of those things. When you drink that water, the gasoline taste was still there. They had not gotten rid of it. It was not strong. It was Strong Enough that you could taste it. If you drink that water dont stand next to a flamethrower and burp. [laughter] because you are likely to go up with it. I thought it might be tainted. They might have poisoned it. Its tohought they buried keep it cool. I took little sip of it. I was still sitting up. It tasted so good. It was so sweet in comparison to what we have been drinking. We took two bottles and reburied it. I said, im not kidding. You drag out the bottle. The line. Up and down i kept it covered up. I never uncovered it. You leave and you guys go back to new zealand, or david norman i went to hawaii. The army promised our camp general that he would have this built. Shipgot on board the first. They got to what they thought floorboards and flat tents. Kitchen, no galley, everything was supposed to be done. They blamed that on general richardson. He was known as a very unlikable guy. Including the army. Officer whoior army ran all of the military efforts and hawaii. Camp. Ad to build a they did. Know several thousand men, they call it no place to live. Once they got settled in hawaii, they really liked it. Aftercalled back directly landing. I did not go to the barker ranch. Name of the village. When did you start putting together the film . Norman well, the film was edited, basically by warner bros. The industry was very good. It was what the military or the government had to do or wanted to do, they would do for free. A if the Administration Organizations wanted to have a trailer made to talk about the make aey would help trailer, they would put it out, shoot it, if there is any shooting to be done, anything like that. So, thats the way our films were made. There was a great number of documentaries of battles and they would send them through the theatrical Motion Picture houses. If warner bros. Made one this would distribute for them. , warner bros. Would distribute next time, warner bros. Would distribute and maybe one of the others would make the film. They rotated that way so they did not all have to be added. But it just so happened they were both done at warner bros. With the marines, like louis , he had been overseas with us in new zealand in the battle. He was there. He did editing. I think the assistant officer was also there. He did some editing. But not much. I was in headquarters. I went out talking to people all around the country. When that was over, i wound up in hollywood. I was still working on the film. I did not bet on that, not much. Was somethinghere out of place, Something Like that, you know. I would check it. It. That was about fact thatrse, the they got the Academy Award in 1945 was pretty good. Did you go to you a jima . General smith was the commanding general. 20th century fox invited him out. He and his wife and several other members of the staff down to the Association Get together, you know, where they were handing out the awards and he went up and accepted it for the marine corps. So many writers would say i won the Academy Award, and i didnt. Film was a great help in showing it won the Academy Award. But i did not recall it. You are watching American History tv, a weekend, every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation, like cspanhistory. Ago that 75 years adolf hitler committed suicide. Up next on history bookshelf, david king recounts adolf hitlers trial for high treason for his part in an attempted coup, the author reporting that hitler used the trial to promote his political ideologies and political ideologies. David king speaks at politics prose bookstore in washington, d. C. This is 317