D-Day and the Combat CameramanThis week marks the 80th Anniversary of the D-Day Operation. Starting on June 6, 1944, about 175,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, supported by 5,000 naval craft and more than 11,500 aircraft. By June 30, over 850,000 men, 148,000 vehicles, and 570,000 tons of supplies had landed … Continue reading How To Locate D-Day Footage in NARA’s Moving Image Holdings
This post was compiled by Harry Kidd. Harry is a volunteer at the National Archives working on textual and photographic digitization projects. Harry is a former Navy photographer and came across this story while researching military photographers. On June 6, 1944 tens of thousands of American servicemen landed on the Normandy Beaches. The National Archives’ … Continue reading 75th Anniversary of D-Day
This post was written by Steve Greene. Steve is the Special Media Holdings Coordinator for the Presidential Libraries System. Previously, he was the audiovisual archivist for the Nixon Presidential Materials. Despite being cataloged, described, and housed at the National Archives for decades, the films created by the U.S. Military during World War II still hold … Continue reading The First D-Day Documentary
This week I’m highlighting color photographs taken as the Western Allies prepared for the invasion of Normandy (D-Day). The overwhelming majority of D-Day related color still film found in the National Archives document the pre-assault phase and not of the invasion area. Black-and-White photographs and other D-Day related documents from the National Archives can be … Continue reading Images of the Week: D-Day in Color
Jack Lieb went to Europe in 1943 with two movie cameras: He brought his 35mm black and white camera to film war coverage for Hearst’s News of the Day newsreels and his 16mm home movie camera to shoot color film to show to his family back home. After the war, Lieb edited the color footage … Continue reading A Newsreel Cameraman’s View of D-Day
World War II set the stage for the union of American and Canadian commandos into an elite military unit – the First Special Service Force. “The Devil’s Brigade,” as they soon came to be called, was created by Major Robert T. Frederick and activated on July 9, 1942. The unit’s supplies – including uniforms, food, … Continue reading The Devil’s Brigade: The First Special Service Force
The National Archives’ extensive holdings of World War II-era radio broadcasts have long been overshadowed by our flashier newsreel holdings. Nonetheless, a long tradition of collecting, preserving, and describing radio programs at the National Archives has made available a wide array of recordings related to all aspects of the war, American and otherwise. The paper … Continue reading A User’s Guide to World War II-Era Radio in the National Archives
I’m back again with another update regarding the progress of the Subject Finding Aid Project in the Still Picture Branch. Harnessing the momentum gained with Batches 2 and 3, I’m happy to announce that roughly 3500 descriptions for Batches 4 and 5 are LIVE in the NARA Catalog! The Finding Aids in these batches cover … Continue reading Subject Finding Aid Project (Update 2)
Though our research rooms remain closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, National Archives staff have been diligently working from home to make records more accessible to the public. In this vein, Still Picture staff have been converting finding aids into online catalog descriptions. Making descriptions searchable via the catalog will ultimately help researchers locate and … Continue reading An Update on Still Picture Catalog Additions
On April 18th, 1945, war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed by enemy fire on Iejima* during the Battle of Okinawa. At the time of his death, Pyle, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, was well-known for his intimate and personal storytelling that highlighted the experiences of the “average” soldier. Pyle was able to tell the stories … Continue reading Spotlight: Remembering Ernie Pyle
