practice. while i was at the sand table, the word got out and i was told to stay there until everyone was briefed. no matter what time of day or 0 night. whether they were individuals or platoons, whom every was there for about two days. i was also told that i was not to leave the briefing tent until colonel wo 0 lverton sent for m. on the night of june the 5th, about 11:00 the unit was

alerted, they got out on trucks and went to the planes which was nearby, the air field in england on the coast, i was waiting until the orders came to come to the plane. the runner came over and said that colonel was waiting for me. when i got to the plane, the engines were refed up and propellers were going, my gear was on the ground. it was about 150 pounds of gear to jump with. and the colonel himself was in the door and said, james, your seat has been occupied. occupied by an observer from

nevada, 16 inch gun observer. you have to go to plane number so and so, well, i have no idea in the world the number he told me because i was nervous to say the least and scared to death to say the most like the rest of us. he said this jeep would take me to the plane that i was to jump from. when i got to the plane, again, being nervous as i was and scared as i was, i have no idea who the jump master was when he said james you are going to be number 19 make sure they clear the plane when we get the green light. i remember it distinctly, i said

sir, i thought there were only 17 or 18 people on the planes. he said this one is going to be 19 you. i jumped on the plane, got in, got to the back, crossed over, couldn't see a thing because i was in the back, all we could see was flashes of light when we g got to the back. it was a huge flash, the plane had blown up and had tore pea d torpedos on the bottom. the green light came on, we jumped out before we jumped out, we were shuffling to the front of the plane the gentleman in

front of me slipped. he had a weapon in his gear. wrapped around the gear, and nothing unusual, we jumped with tripods and 81 milimeter bases. but he slipped. by the time i got him up, we must have gone seven miles because that was how far i found out island ee ee eed eye eed i jump zone. i jumped into a maze of fire works. it looked like the 4th of july

everywhere. you can hear the shells going through your chute. a sound i still hear. a sound that bullet going through the silk. how long it took me to get down i don't know. it wasn't very long. i imagine we jumped about 700 feet. some people jumped at 300. they were trying to evade flag xgt whether my plane was hit i'm sure it was. there was so much there you could almost walk through it. it looked like stuff was curving. it was straight. so when i got down, i hit into a bunch of cattle, i had no idea in the world where it was.

had i know at that time, where i was, at that time, i would not be here today because i would have dropped dead right then. i found out later that i was at the carnation milk factory in the cattle shed. it was good a half our after i landed i found out because we knocked on the door of a farmer after picking up five of my men but other people's men. and i had no idea which way to go or when but we did have a trace plane that was going north and south but i knew that we had to go northwest to get to our objective.

but i picked up five men and we huddled around after five minutes and we decided that we were going to knock on the farmer's door to find out where we were. we knew that the farmer's knew the lay of the land and they would tell us and we would get an idea of where to go. so this was about a little after midnight on june the 6th. knocked on the door and a man and a woman came to the door and she started to scream and we slapped a hand over her face and dropped her down. i put my map on the floor with my flashlight and i said to him directions. we explained to him that it was

an invasion. he understood and she never did. she was almost ready to scream. her daughter wouldn't scream, she was almost ready to scream. we had all black faces and we must have looked pretty good from mars or what have you. anyhow, i told the farmer, i said saint mary and he said we and pointed this way. i moved the map around and got the directions. i said the next when and he said yes and i moved the map more. and then i said brivan and he said yes and pointed this way. shoved it around and then i said carentan and i knocked on the

floor and said -- yes, carentan. and i said it again. and he said yes. so, i told this guy with me, i said my god we are here. and i had put a sign on the ste steeple of the church that we had fabricated on our sand table. be aware at all costs because we knew that was the command post division armored corp. so i told the guy that i was with let's get the held out of here right now. and after getting out, and i realized i passed atre eed a sti

knew where we were then and we started hitting our objective and i picked up 18 different people on the way. and 3:00 in the morning, this officer came out of the bushes there, and it was a colonel, colonel johnson he was a commanding officer the 502nd and we clicked with each other with our devices that we had with our clickers. recognition clickers and he said sergeant do you know where you are? and i said yes, i know exactly where i am. and he said i'm colonel johnson.

he went this way and i went min mine. it was our objective for the 635 people that we should have had there. we had a walk key talk key with us. and it would get the british broadcasting company. we found out that the invision was a success. we stayed there and hold those

bridges until we were released. >> anyway, we will get to that later. norm? first cameraman to go in want to talk about that? >> not exactly. the first division was sent out and had the first photographic unit that we had put together. but because they were so new, they said what the held do you do? things were so new in these days we had so little information of the areas that we were in the

navy, for example, was still using the nav al maps of 1902. if you had been around water, you know the islands would change and grow larger or smaller and that is another story. but it is pretty much a jungle. on top of that, we had no idea of the terrain and a lot of photography was spent on detailing for the troops, what lay ahead of them. they had small aircraft and took pictures of what would be take the next day and very little was

done of the battle. here we had an island that was part of a chain of islands and the enemy was building an airstrip on it. it would easily interdict the naval activity in that area. they didn't want that flight spot going down there while the ships were down there. so, we were to take it. it was pretty close to 4,000 japanese marines. here we were going to have probably the first tyime in the world a marine battle. they are a fairly large group of

korean workers there. in any event, when we made the landing, we had ten people who were shooting motion pictures and probably another ten shooting still photography. as luck would have it, things never happen as you think or plan they are going to do. our first landings were amphibious tractors because they could walk across the reef which would hold up our boats. and so, so the amphibs got in fine. we got one photographer ashore

and he was a still man. and i was with the commander of the 8th marines who was sitting there watching the beach head be eroded. because the tractors were being buried with the machine gun and the others were not set up like fi fire to actually, to bring in supplies. anyway, everything was fouled up, so jim crow said put this boat in right away. jim crow was a hero in the corp. he was the type of guy that led

his unit out of the grass and waiting for the japanese to shoot at him. and then when they did he said there are the sob's go get them. they would open up with the situation. and i figured anybody like that would be a good man to be with because he would be in trouble all the time. when he saw what was happening to his beach head, he wanted to get in, so he said put this boat in. when i went to see him, to tell him to go with his unit, he asked me to go and see him. he said i don't want a hollywood marine with me. sir, i have five years duty and i know if i need a rifle all i have to do is bend down and pick

one up. i said yes, sir. i was in his boat when we went in. igoing to be with him. i was the first cameraman to get on the beach there. i met up with a still man who was a corporal and the two of us stayed together as a team through the whole operation and he was important for this reason. because of an order that churchill gave during world war i to make a landing that was very, very poorly done, the british, the new zealanders and the australians were niannihilad at tripoli.

that is what it was. and he almost lost his job because of that. he was the equivalent of the secretary of the navy for the british. none of the milt, army or air force planned on it being successful so they didn't train for it. but we did train for it. you have heard of smith. he could yell. but, he believed in the concept so he trained and that is why we landed. when we landed, we landed against the beach head and it was said that it couldn't be done and we took that island in 76 hours.

it was no larger or the island was no larger than a third thek. and a little over 1,000 people wounded. fortunately, of the killed, a little over 4,000 were japanese. fortunately for us. not for them. but when the general was talking about things happening that you don't expect, the complete general staff of the command was killed on the first day. and nobody knew it. how were they killed? some reason or other, the admiral wanted to change his command post so he got his men together and they were walking across the air strip to another part of the island, when an aircraft was going overhead and spotted them and sent word out to a destroyer, and said, there are a bunch of men walking across the strip, go get them. they dropped a couple shells on them and killed them all.

nobody, us nor the japanese, knew their command staff was killed. would that have changed the battle? who knows. it might have. one way or the other. but anyway, it didn't. so we went ahead and took that. now, my job was to document what went on. and that's what i did. i shot motion picture camera with the idea of telling stories, what i saw. and consequently, as a result of that, and the men, the other photographers, were in boats. and because of the fact the japanese were zeroed in on the reef, they had three eight-inch rifles as they were called on the other side of the island. they had never been knocked out either by the heavy bombs that were dropped or the heavy gunfire from a battleship. why, i don't know. i'll never -- but anyway, they

were zeroed in on the reef and every time a boat came in and the beginning of those boat waves and the ramp went down, a shell would explode. it would blow the boat to pieces, blow the people to pieces, and that was it. so that went on for about ten minutes. all the leaders on the island radioed out to the command ship. said, don't send any more people in till we tell you to. so that's how rough things were right at that particular point. we probably had -- at that point in time. but there's a rumor i like to mention. because it's a good rumor. i've never been able to prove it. i say it's a rumor in letters that high. and that is that churchill was having trouble with eisenhower and his staff about landing on the places where this gentleman landed. and because they said, well, the

germans have got the whole waterfront covered so well with heavy guns that if we do we're going to be annihilated on the beach. well, anyway, churchill was smart enough supposedly to know that we were going to make that kind of a landing. and when we succeeded, he then turn to churchill and his own staff and said, we can do it because the marines did it. but, you know, that's a rumor. but it's a good story any wie. people have asked me a lot of times were you afraid. that's a good question. you knew you were going into combat. you knew people were going to shoot at you. my answer to that, all times, is once the adrenaline starts moving and you're starting into the action, you then do what you have been trained to do. now, that's what you're there for. a lot of guys would ask me, as a

cameraman, what are you doing here? you don't have to be here. well, i did have to be there because i told them i was as important as they were, because the public had to know what they were going through. and that was -- that's the case all along, right up till this date actually. and so it's very necessary. yes, you're scared. yes, things are strange. bombs going off all around you. i laid down after i walked in, i had to get off the boat, walk in with camera gear on my shoulders, and my assistance was walking in behind me, same thing. if you ever walked in water and -- fortunately by the weight i had, my feet stayed on the ground, i stayed upright. when you got in, you were exhausted. walking through about x number of feet of water. i forget what it was now. anyway, the -- when you fall down on the beach and get your breath back and everything else. all of a sudden there's an explosion beside you, a real big

explosion. what had happened was a submarine torpedo which had been up on the -- part of a storage thing, had been hit and the torpedo had taken off and come down right to the beach and lay down beside us. i thought that was going to be the end. there was an explosion over here. but that didn't explode. so you know you just can't plan anything. you have to go by what you've been trained to do. and that's the biggest thing in the event. and -- >> can i stop you there, we're running a little bit short on time. but -- >> i was just going to say -- >> go ahead. >> the film that we shot there became an academy award winner for 1944 and it was the first time of course that the marine corps had ever won such a thing, never did again. film that i shot and was involved in for iwo jima that was nominated for an academy

award also. >> well, we're going to show some of that film right now. >> oh, good, good, good. >> can we do that? hit it. >> at night, the japs would swim up to our amphibians and set up machine guns. they got up to us before we got them. commanding officer of the assault troops confers. one of our tanks remains in operation. although at the end of the second day, we breathe a little

easier, mortar continues at enemy points of resistance. by this time, we know the japs are licked. they must know it too. >> there you go. >> that look familiar, norm? [ applause ] do we have time for questions? >> can i tell one funny story. very short funny story. this is along the line of things as the general said too. the third morning, the executive officer of the battalion in the briefing said he was going to take the ethatas in front of us through the three days of fighting. he asked me if i wanted to come

along and photograph it. of course majors don't argue with lieutenant colonels. i said yes sir. we went up. we sat in the -- like world war i pictures you see or we had seen in those days at 0900 everybody checked their watches. this was going to be the time for jump off. they were going to go up the side of this thing and put flame throwers down the vents and drop explosive down the vents as well. and get over the whole top of the thing. so at 0900 everybody was back at their command setup. at 0900 it was very quiet. no firing. the colonel look, at his watch and says, are you ready? i said, i'm ready. and so he gets up and says, follow me. we get up and turn to run up a sand block house is kind of hard because one foot up and you slide back two feet, one foot two feet, all your gear on you, everything else. so we get up, we run right across the top of the thing.

we look over and we see a bunch of japanese soldiers down there looking up at us, wondering what we're doing on their command post. and i turned around and looked at him. he doesn't have a weapon. i said, major, where's your weapon? and he said, i gave it to somebody that wanted -- that lost theirs in the landing. i said, where's your pistol? he said, it doesn't work. i said, we better get the hell out of here right now. and so we were on top of the highest thing on the island. we could see all over the island. there wasn't a marine in sight. we were the only two there. we run back and we run down and we get another fox hole and you can understand that his conversation with all the people that he had had before was a little rough. anyway, then after that, the battle started. i photographed it again. but the intended things never happen. and that's why you've got to be ready and leadership quality and have leadership to know what to do when something like that goes on