Three of these Marine cinematographers were killed in action.Įven before the battle began, Marine Corps leaders knew they wanted a comprehensive visual account of the battle. Many shot still images, but at least 26 shot motion pictures. More than 50 Marine combat cameramen operated across the eight square miles of Iwo Jima during the battle, which stretched from Feb. More than 6,800 Americans were killed on the island and on ships and landing craft aiding in the attack more than 19,200 were wounded. That included combat soldiers, but also medical corpsmen, chaplains, service and supply soldiers and others. Iwo Jima, an island in the western Pacific less than 1,000 miles south of Tokyo, was considered a key potential stepping stone toward an invasion of Japan itself.ĭuring the battle to take the island from the Japanese, more than 70,000 Marines and attached Army and Navy personnel set foot on Iwo Jima. Over the past two years of scanning, I have come to realize that our work also enables a more powerful relationship with the past by fostering individual connections with videos, something that the digitizing of the large quantity of footage makes possible. In a partnership between the History Division of the Marine Corps and the University of South Carolina, where I work, we are digitizing these films, seeking to provide direct public access to the video and expand historical understanding of the Marine Corps' role in society. I came across this film clip in my work as a curator of a collection of motion picture films shot by Marine Corps photographers from World War II through the 1970s. Marine Corps Film Repository, USMC 101863 Two Marines in the Marine Corps' 5th Division cemetery on Iwo Jima pay their respects to a fallen comrade, seen in a 16mm film frame from the United States Marine Corps Film Repository. The sequence is intentionally framed by the cinematographer, who was clearly looking for the right image to end the roll of film in his camera. Those two Marines are among hundreds present to remember the more than 6,000 Americans killed on the island in over a month of fighting. It is in the final frames of a film documenting the dedication of one of the three cemeteries on the island. Take for instance, just one scene: Two Marines kneel with a dog before a grave marker. It can even bring Americans alive today closer to a war that ended in the middle of the last century. A larger library of film, and the men captured on them, is similarly emotionally affecting. Edited by Paul Detrick.But these pictures are far from the only images of the bloodiest fight in the Marines' history. After his deployment in 2011, Lagoze went rogue, capturing footage that undermined official messaging, including scenes of Marines smoking hash and joking about death.Īfter discharging from the Marines, Lagoze compiled that footage into Combat Obscura, a new feature-length documentary that aims to show the real story of what's happening on the ground in Afghanistan. In 2008, an 18-year-old recent high school graduate named Miles Lagoze signed up for the Marines and became a Combat Camera videographer for his unit in Afghanistan. The Pentagon was later accused of dramatizing details of the rescue to lift waning public support for the war. In 2003, for example, when army soldier Jessica Lynch was captured by Iraqi forces, it was a Combat Camera team that captured her rescue by U.S. They've been called propagandists, guilty of sanitizing the realities on the ground. These so-called Combat Camera teams often capture the only depictions of major military operations, and their work helps shape public perceptions. military has been sending teams of soldiers onto the battlefield with film and photography gear to document the action.
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