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S Master 2006 X 1 ™ HISTORY PRESENTS TAKE A VETERAN TO SCHOOL DAY Through 2009 Their Eyes Take a Veteran to School Day It’s not the war you know … links veterans of all ages with kids in our schools and communities. It’s the war they lived. Go to veterans.com to see what’s new By Tim Brady & James M. Tarbox for 2009 including a National Teach-In on Veterans History,History, Thank a Veteran aatt Work DaDay,y, and the Veterans HistorHistoryy ProjecProjectt wiwithth ththee LibraryLibrary of Congress. © 2009 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved. 1184. ust after dawn on Nov. 20, 1943, Robert Sherrod climbed down a rope ladder from a transport ship bobbing off the tiny island of Betio, part of the Tarawa atoll in the South Pacific. He rolled into a waiting Higgins Boat and set out with a com- From the greatest generation to the latest generation, let’s support our vets! pany of U.S. Marines into what instantly became a hellish Jkilling zone. Japanese gunfire gushed from pillboxes facing ROBERT SHERROD Thomas County, Ga. Pacific Theater. Even as a seasoned reporter for Time magazine, he is stunned by the tenacity and ferocity of Japanese forces and fears complacency back home. ter and started wading ashore through the —features a handful of surviving veterans longer operational. But through state-of- chaos and destruction, he realized the source talking about their war experiences and oth- the-science technology allowing these of fire was indeed the Japanese entrench- ers represented by Hollywood “A-listers” “lost” films to be transferred to a digital ments on the island dead ahead. giving voice to hundreds of unpublished di- BERT STILES format, they again present vibrant color, Denver, Colo. European Theater. On the beach, Sherrod—one of the sub- aries and journals. But the highlight of the eye-popping detail, and sound effects that NOLEN MARBREY Self-described “dreamer” and jects whose wartime experiences is fea- Huntsville, Ala. Pacific Theater. series is the color footage gathered from “wistful thinker,” the creative will place the viewer virtually within the tured in the new History series WWII in A hard-livin’ good ole boy, intense among 3,000 hours of “lost” film discovered writer enlisted with misgivings action beside those who lived it. after Pearl Harbor to become —took cover with a group of Marines combat chastens his party-hearty in barns, attics, vaults, museums, and per- HD demeanor. Severely wounded in a bomber and fighter pilot. near a sea wall. From there he moved to a battle, his descriptions of combat sonal collections around the world. Finding the ‘lost’ footage tank-like amphtrack vehicle and, with his are brutal and violent. History, with Reda Productions, has Steve Bergson of Kent, England, is a long- heart racing, began recording in his mind’s been chasing down, uncovering, accumulat- time researcher of archival military footage. eye the horrors around him: a Marine shot tling images they overwhelmed Sherrod’s today, regardless of whether we were alive ing, transferring, and restoring old film. Though not trained in the work—he was an between eyes that bulged instantly from senses. It seems it would have been impos- JACK WERNER in the 1940s, the memories and impres- WWII in HD will feature the color footage English-lit student—an internship working the horrific abuse; a Japanese shell scor- sible for his conscious mind to take it all in. Vienna, Austria. Pacific Theater. sions of World War II are largely etched in from the vast archives of both History and in the BBC archives ignited his interest. ing a direct hit on a landing vehicle and After three hours on the beach and back Jewish émigré from Hitler’s black and white. Most of the moving pic- Reda Productions as well as other films Austria, he joins the Army And he harbored a longtime interest in au- sending parts—vehicular and human—in near the amphtrack, Sherrod was finally determined to fight fascism. tures we’ve seen of the war are grainy, which were sourced from public and dio/visual realms which the internship all directions; waves of immobile fish float- able to pull a soaking wet notebook from He finds fellow GIs’ independent cracked, and fading black-and-white news- private collections held in more than 35 further fueled. ing by a pier, shocked to death by the im- his gear and set it on the hub of the vehicle. streak bewildering, but learns reel images. Few people even realize that countries. And much of that was dis- He says the film research world is rel- to respect it. pact of shells landing in the water. There The pages dried quickly in the tropical sun, color photography and film existed in the covered through old-fashioned dig- atively sparsely populated, and members were so many violent, graphic, and star- and the paper wrinkled in the searing heat. World War II era. Of course, there have ging and—in some cases—luck. of its tight-knit community are in con- Two corpsmen crawled over the seawall been numerous WWII-based Hollywood To find and uncover this rare stant contact sharing info about private to move a wounded Marine out of the line of movies made in color and viewed by mil- footage, the network, again, in caches of vintage film they’ve stum- fire. Watching the three of them, Sherrod lions, but those are not real. Viewed in the partnership with Reda, tapped es- bled upon or heard about. Through shook and forced himself to do what he’d context of factual history for all of us ex- tablished ongoing relationships contacts he made while working eight set out for that morning. “I felt that I should cept those who experienced it first hand, with a variety of private collectors, years ago on a project about the Irish THEY LIVED IT! do some reporting,” he would write later. So World War II seemed destined to remain a museums, and small archival houses diaspora around the world, Bergson even in the midst of the overwhelming ter- “black-and-white” conflict. Until now. around the world, many of which lack the learned of a unique, privately held collec- WWII in HD highlights the stories of a dozen combat veterans who represent a cross- ror and chaos, he was compelled to get the Two years ago, History made the de- resources to properly preserve their col- section of the personnel involved. Their words give voice to the sights and sounds as they name of the Marine being pulled to safety. cision to not only launch a worldwide lections. In some cases, they can’t even experienced them, and as will be revealed in the ground-breaking 10-par t documentar y. “It was a very difficult name,” Sherrod search for original color footage, but to view their collections because would write, “and I know I didn’t get it then restore and ultimately preserve this they lack the right equipment, the sea as the grunts fought to gain the shore. right, even after he had spelled it for me footage. They called upon one of their or what they have is no For two hours before crawling into the twice, but in my notebook it appears as Pfc. longtime production partners Scott Reda, landing boat, Sherrod—a correspondent for N. Laverntine, Jr.” of Lou Reda Productions, who, with His- and magazines who covered the Sherrod, who died in 1994, went on to tory’s Executive Producers David McKil- CHARLES SCHEFFEL (WITH WIFE RUTH) Time Life Enid, Okla. European Theater. Pragmatic and post-war Pacific region before returning write the book Tarawa: The Story of a Bat- lop and Mike Stiller, became one of the hard-working, his naïve illusions are shattered stateside to work as managing editor of tle, published in 1944 and still in print. His driving forces of WWII in HD. The 10- in combat where he learns merely surviving ALL PHOTOS COURTESY LOU REDA PRODUCTIONS ALL PHOTOS COURTESY LOU REDA trumps the ephemeral glory of victory. the Saturday Evening Post—watched from vivid descriptions of that first day and hour series premiering in November will aboard the transport ship that same tiny is- many more in the battle for the island—one feature astonishing, never-before-seen land as those pillboxes were pounded by of the bloodiest of the war—make it clear color—and now high-definition—footage bombs and fire from wave after wave of the sights and sounds he encountered were of the war. The colossal production— American planes. Salvos of thundering shells etched in his memory. The mental pictures which tells the story of the war from the from every big gun in the U.S. Navy rained remained real, sharp, colorful, deep, and viewpoint of those who fought it and lived down on them. That the Japanese not only permanent. And so it is for the soldiers, ARCHIE SWEENEY it—is described as “history at its core.” survived the bombardment but were now Marines, sailors, airmen, nurses, corre- Franklin County, N.Y. European “We were going for a Band of Brothers laying down a withering barrage at first ROCKIE BLUNT spondents, and others who fought and Theater, North Africa. The quiet look,” Reda says, “but this is real footage of Worcester, Mass. European and unassuming young farmer seemed impossible. Sherrod thought the Theater. An aspiring jazz lived the literal hell on earth we know as is the first person in his town real characters. This is immersive, first- hailstorm of bullets ripping the ocean waves drummer with a devil-may-care World War II.
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