Pat-inCO said:
Granted, there is no "new" video available, but WHY the same clip over,
and over, and over, and over?
Hi,
Maybe a little back story will shed some light for you, Pat. This came from a friend, whom I know as Brad, but posts as Hurtgenwald, who's involved with a WWII reenactment group called CHG, or California Historical Group. They have a few photos on their website: http://www.chgww2.net/ Brad's posted many more on another site: http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/193540-t4-walter-e-cummings-166th-signal-photo-corps/ It takes a while to get thru all of them, plus visiting all the links, but it's time well spent for anyone with an interest in this subject.
CHG's pictures come from many sources, while those on usmilitariaforum come from the 166th Signal Photo Company, the official unit of Patton's 3rd Army, 89th Div, which was with him from the beach at Normandy, to Berlin, with various stops, most notably at Ohrdruf, one of the first Nazi concentration camps that was liberated. When Ike first got to that camp, he ordered the photographers to shoot as much as they could of it, lest somebody should come back years later and and try to deny it ever happened! Was the General prescient or what? Anyway, somewhere in those pictures is one the photographer made a note on the back of, which in his own hand says something like "How can anyone deny now?" At least a couple of the unit's members went back home to Hollywood, where some had worked before the war, and earned a bit of fame and fortune. One was director Stanley Kramer, another was Russ Meyer, who is perhaps best known for putting the adult film industry on the big screen. Some of you may remember The Pussycat Theaters of the early '70s. Those were Russ' idea. Walter "Bill" Cummings, who's pictured in some of the pictures Brad posted, and shot many more of them, was a personal friend of both my friend and his Dad, and provided a lot of background stories for the photos when he was alive.
Among them is an explanation of the dearth of D-Day photos. As Bill told the story to Brad and his Dad, nobody upstairs realized how big a deal D-Day would be, how ferocious the fighting and how incredible the loss of personnel and equipment would prove to be, so the combat photographers actually involved in the first day's invasion weren't issued enough film to begin with. Many then ran out of film, and obtained more from captured Germans or their positions. As you look thru those pictures on the Forum, you'll notice some have a black border instead of the normal white one. These are photos taken on German film, which used a slightly different developing process from ours that yielded the black border.
A second bit of bad luck explains even more about the lack of photos. Apparently most of the film shot on June 6 was supposed to be transferred from land to a ship going back across the Channel to England. 100s of rolls of film were put in a duffel or other bag, sent out on a smaller craft, and were to go to the larger vessel. Somehow, that bag broke loose as it was being hauled up and went straight to the bottom of Channel, with the ensuing loss of most of our combat picture documentation of that day.
So, very little of the film and video footage actually shot on June 6 survives, including this famous scene we've all seen untold numbers of times. I understand most of the surviving video of that day, including that particular scene, was shot by Russ Meyer himself. He's also credited with much of the authentic footage used in the movie "Patton." We should be thankful even that little bit is still with us to help remind us of what happened that day. I know I am, as I've had the privilege of seeing those photos in person, and holding many in my own hands! It's hard to describe that feeling...
Rick C
