Shooting War Page #6

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socially gone out or played around

with some of the German soldiers.

The idea, as I understood it,

was that for months afterwards

everybody would know

who the collaborationists were.

Mostly, they said nothing.

Some smiled

and some just stared straight ahead

and, I guess, tried to make the best

of what they were faced with.

The Allies intended to bypass Paris,

but it was unavoidably in their path.

Most soldiers did not stop.

For them, Paris was just a quickly

glimpsed place on the road to victory.

In a smaller French city,

Fred Bornet found the joy of liberation

more freely expressed

and more directable.

The people were out in the street

and they were just absolutely ecstatic,

hysterical with delight.

They hung bunting

and they'd lift glasses of wine.

What is so great

is that you don't have a script.

You seize those wonderful moments.

And there were lots of girls,

flowers in their hair.

They were waving and greeting.

But they were not doing it...

with enough enthusiasm.

I thought, "This is such a great moment.

"It should be like the big parade."

So I said to the girl, "Look,

"when that stream

of soldiers is walking by,

"run against that stream and kiss them."

And I cried. That was a release.

And then they offered me

soup and fried eggs,

and they were waving flags.

You have a feeling

that you're doing something

that is worthwhile.

In the fall of 1944,

American eyes were fixed on Europe,

where headquarters spoke,

overconfidently as it turned out,

of the war's end being in sight,

almost within reach.

No such claims

were made for the Pacific.

Combat there was as brutal as ever.

Many of its fighting men

felt isolated and ignored.

Navy cameraman Sam Sorenson.

The marines I worked with were happy

to have pictures taken of them.

In the Pacific they were so lonely.

You never saw a woman.

One of the reasons I was happy

to work with the marines

was because we got better pictures

of combat action.

Peleliu, September 1944.

The fury of the naval and air

bombardment was unprecedented.

For three days, we shelled that thing.

When we approached those islands,

it looked like nice, green, rolling hills.

When we got through, it looked like

rugged, jagged mountains.

There were little coral mountains

sticking up all over.

I couldn't believe

anything could live on there.

But the bombing was ineffective.

The enemy remained safe

in their bunkers.

So when the marines started in,

it was not only

that they got hung up on that reef,

they were caught in Japanese crossfire.

A lot of 'em had to unload there

and go on in with

amphibious tractors and guns.

And then when they hit the beach,

they got right on this point, they call it.

Ironically, Peleliu was unnecessary.

MacArthur thought he needed it

to shield his invasion.

Historians now agree that he did not.

The marines took 50% casualties.

They holed up in caves.

They never made charges.

And they had little spider holes

where one sniper would stand.

They finally would close 'em up.

They'd blow 'em up

and close the entrance.

Then the Japanese

would come out of another hole.

It took two months to get 'em out.

They took maybe 100 prisoners

out of this.

In the end, we had lost

something like 1900 marines

and we had to kill

nearly 13,000 Japanese.

Meantime, the war in the

China-Burma-lndia theatre continued.

Dave Quaid soldiered on.

There was a Thanksgiving air drop.

President Roosevelt said, "No matter

where your son or daughter is,

"he's gonna get a turkey dinner."

I said, "That's hogwash.

I'm gonna photograph this drop

"and I'm gonna prove

that it never happened."

Aerial resupply had been taken over

by a new unit fresh from Europe.

Their adjustment to the CBI was poor.

Coming in too fast and low,

drops were often inaccurate

and destroyed their cargo.

The plane now was directly over

the trail we were on.

So I yelled to these guys

to get off the trail.

The skinny, emaciated guy there

with the camera is me.

They scored a direct,

if accidental, hit on Quaid.

The medics assisted me,

as did my buddy Bill.

He is still moved by Bill Brown's

willingness to risk his life for him.

Here was this chute coming down

on me, right on my face.

I said, "Bill, look at that!"

And Bill got up, stepped across me,

said, "I'll get it."

So, there was a puff of wind

and it blew just past my head,

and Bill didn't have to sacrifice himself.

Dave Quaid's war was finished.

He spent the rest of it in hospitals,

having operations on his shattered leg.

Here I am leaving the war,

taken out by a bag of mule feed.

In northern France, the fighting

slowed as the snows came.

The weather masked

a huge German build-up,

24 divisions, near the Ardennes forest.

The Ardennes were cool in the sense

that it was critically cold.

It was very difficult to find

somewhere that you could hide.

The Ardennes did not have big trees.

You had to be very careful

and get down at the base of a tree trunk

and dig as deeply as you could

to protect yourself,

from the standpoint

of getting injured or... finished.

In December, the Americans on this line

were often isolated in small units.

Communications between them

were poor.

They were not expecting the battle

that began on December 16th.

Many Gls fought tenaciously,

though they were often

surrounded by the enemy.

The Bulge, Hitler's

last gamble of the war,

eventually extended 50 miles eastward,

but it did not burst.

It's hard to see from these pictures, but

this engagement involved more soldiers,

600,000 of them,

than any battle in US history.

20,000 Americans died in the Ardennes.

Another 20,000 were wounded.

Among them was a cameraman

named Jim Bates,

who had been in the war since D-Day.

At the Bulge, he did

what a lot of Gls did.

He hitched a ride on a tank.

Their motors provided warmth.

I asked one tank

if I could ride on the back.

The lid flew open.

"Can you fire a machine gun?"

I said, "I had my basics

with 11th Armoured Division."

They picked me up and put me

in the gunner's position.

Bates didn't know he was heading

into battle with German Tiger tanks.

He grabbed shots

of a German ambulance

aiding one of their wounded tank crews.

The number one tank had passed

an open area and was firing uphill.

About that time

I could hear this "kerthunk".

The commander says,

"They're shooting at us."

About that time,

that second boom came along.

It felt like a train hit me in the back.

I didn't know if I was dead,

and he screamed,

"If you're not hit, get up,

because he's gonna run over you."

I looked back and my camera

was under the tank treads.

That's what made me move.

On the radio they said, "Get up here.

"There's hardly enough photographers

left for the rest of the war."

I said, "I'll ride on the hood.

It'll be a warm place to be for a bit."

Ignoring his wounds, Bates kept

shooting as the tank rumbled to the rear.

Arosi saw me, the buddy

I'd normally work with.

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