67 years ago today

My father was a combat photographer in the South Pacific and did 5 (or there abouts, I'm not exactly sure) beach landings. He was one of the hardly-ever-talked-about-it guys, but once when we were whale watching off Dana Point about 5 years ago, he started to tear up and when I asked him why, he said, "the last time I was on a boat this size, we were at Luzon and the guy next to me was begging me to shoot him in the head because he was so terrified."

The only other really scary thing he ever said was when I asked him if he planned on seeing Saving Pvt. Ryan, because the landing scene was supposed to be so real, and he said, "it can't ever be real -- because it's the smell you remember the most."

 

Pardon my ignorance, but did the photographers hit the beach right away, or did they wait until it was secured?

Doing it once sounds scary as hell. Doing it five times? Holy shit.

 

My parents were children in Holland. My entire family is entirely grateful to all who served but particularly the Canadian soldiers who were the first in to liberate Holland. It's why I'm a Canadian.

 

I can't imagine being an army photog, especially in one of those combat situations. Everyone else has guns and is shooting, and the photog is sitting there in the line of fire, armed only with a camera.

And something that MrCreosote said that's also pretty fasciniating is his grandparents met while in the military. How many couples met during WWII due to the war? I'm guessing a pretty significant amount. It wasn't just for cliched war movies. That war had a pretty significant impact on a lot of people's futures.

That, plus my cousins' grandparents had an interesting war romance. They had never met until he came home after the war. I'm not sure of the total story, but they had mutual friends, or something like that, who got them to write each other while he was overseas. They wrote to each other constantly for several years, but didn't meet until after the war. They got married within a few weeks after meeting.

 

Service photogs in the war zone are armed, I'm pretty sure. But definitely overpowered in most situations.

My grandparents met thanks to WWII; my grandfather was in one of the services (I forget which) and my grandmother was a nurse.

 

Medal of Honor winner John Basilone met his wife during his time as a drill instructor (she was in charge of the mess hall) after returning from Guadalcanal. Soon after they were married, he volunteered to be re-deployed and was killed on Okinawa.

He's one of the guys who was featured in the HBO miniseries "The Pacific."

As for combat photographers and other World War II journalists, the difference in then and now is that most of them then were active duty and military-trained, rather than civilian journalists embedded with troops as you find today.

 

Another story about my grandfather ...

He got frostbite on his feet at Bastogne in the winter of 1944 and snuck out of a field hospital in the middle of the night and went back to his unit because he was afraid they were going to amputate his feet. He was cold-natured the rest of his life, and also refused to go camping with us down at the river as we often did when we were kids. He'd sit with us until bed time, but then would always go home.

His explanation?

"I slept on the ground for two years during the war, and I promised myself if I ever got out of there, I'd never do it again."

 

That's an awesome line.

If you'll forgive the irreverence, I almost immediately thought of Gene Wilder's line in Blazing Saddles, talking about life as the Waco Kid: "I must have killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille."

 

John Ford was made a naval officer specifically to make combat films for the Navy. Did the Battle of Midway among others.

 

It was actually Iwo Jima where Basilone was killed, SS. The road off the 5 Freeway at the northern tip of San Diego County in San Onofre is named after him.

 

Damn, you're right. Always get those two mixed up.

 

Just FYI, WWI began on July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia. The Russians mobilized in support of their ally, Serbia, Germany put its war plan into motion in response and all the dominoes quickly fell into place. By September 1, the Germans had already overrun Belgium and a large part of northern France.

As to the other bone of contention – which was worse, Stalingrad or the Normandy landing – they were both very different versions of hell.

The nature of the fighting in Stalingrad – building-by-building, house-to-house with the Russian winter deepening – was a horror of a kind we in the West can't begin to imagine. But there is also a special terror in being dropped into the open surf, with absolutely no cover, to wade on shore and attack a well-embedded enemy.

In terms of the outcome of the war itself, Stalingrad was undoubtedly the more decisive battle. But I shudder to think of the consequences if the Normandy Landing had failed. At any rate, D-Day is a day well-worth remembering.