Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Movie, Book, and Music Review Victory at Sea

Fifty-four years after we sent the raw footage up to NBC-TV for the sound track in 1952, I'm finally about to see more than the first two finished episodes of our World War Two documentary Victory at Sea � all twenty-six episodes.

When we started working on the project, I had escaped from the accursed Eastman Capstaff machine that developed 35mm footage, so for the next couple of years, as printer I printed miles of work prints, assembled more miles of footage in negative- and positive-assembly, cleaned miles in film-cleaning, and inspected many, many miles as a film-inspector. In one way and others, I worked on far more footage than the finished production comprises.

When NBC-TV finished sound-tracking the first two episodes and sent them back to us (at the Naval Photographic Center, in DC), the skipper screened them for the crew, in shifts, in the CO's screening room (a rather nice theater) next to his office.

My folks didn't have TV while that series was running, so all I saw was an occasional snippet here and there when I happened to be in a friend's house while it was on.

Now I have it on DVD and have ordered a DVD player to pipe it into my TV. Will I get a lump in my throat, watching it?

Probably.

Wish that some of you were here to watch it with me. Very few of life's finest pleasures are best enjoyed alone. In fact, I can't think of even one. I even prefer hunting with partners. I hope that the DVD player and hook-up cables get here before my daughters, son, granddaughter, and grandsons get here Friday. Betcha that I can tolerate having seven-year-old 'Becca watch some of it with me!

Ken, that series is one of the truely greats in modern media history. I remember watching it all the time on A&E.

I even suggested to my CMC and CO that we be forced to watch some of it before EVERY monthy training session. Too many sailors today have no clue as to the history of the Navy in WWII. We hear about the Marines at Okinawa or Iwo Jima, the army on June 6, 44 and rightly so but often some get over looked for their courage. Most understand the Navy was bombed at Pearl and then they rode around the Pacific for some time until we tropped the Bomb. If it wasn't for Robert Shaw and "Jaws" I bet few would know of the Indianapolis, and her story.

I would LOVE to watch it you you to get a behind the scenes view on it.

I've also just added British historian Stephen Howarth's >620-page To Shining Sea � A History of the United States Navy 1775�1991 to the Powley Center library. It promises to be a most enlightening "read."

I will have to look that one up.

CMC � does that mean "Command Master Chief?"

We didn't have those when I wore the little white hat. We had a lot of CPOs � sometimes too many. When one is a PITA, that one is too many. Like the infamous PHC Fawcett ("Never before has one Fawcett been such a drip," one of my shipmates said) and PHC MacIndoe, for example.

Ken,

The Victory at Sea series is great. The only beef I have is that the role of the submarine force was vastly understated. I realize that you were the editor and not the historian and I'm complaining to the wrong guy, but that has always bugged me.

Most folks are surprised to learn that the submariners - less than 2% of the Navy, sunk more than half of the total shipping.

Yep, my Dad is a sub vet - can you tell?

Ken - yes its the Command Master Chief. I hear you on the Chief thing. Most are good - some get a little too full of their khaki and forget that only 3 months before they were a Bluejacket too.

I'm not sure, now that your comment makes me wonder, that submarine crews included either a historian or a photographer's mate. The film history of the Navy, though abundantly rich otherwise, would suffer mightily from the absence of photo mates on sub crews. Also, even if there were a photo mate aboard a sub, what could he photograph? The several photo mates who were normally billeted aboard an Essex-class carrier had (a) all the action and record that they could handle and (b) virtually unlimited opportunity to add to the photo record and history.

The fact that World War Two in the Pacific was predominantly a carrier war and a beach-head war certainly doesn't diminish the roles of the subs and the Seabees.

I'd like to see Oliver North do a War Stories TV segment on subs' contribution to that war, and another segment on combat photographers (apart from the civilian photojournalists)

Ken,
I too would like to see more work on the SeaBees. I mean outside of WWII as in their contributions to the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Iraq would be interesting as well.

I heard it told once that the SeaBees are the most heavily armed unit in the military - can see that as I would take all the arms and ammo my D9 Cat could carry <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> !!!

If I could do it over - I would have been a SeaBee instead of a CTI. My grandfather was a SeaBee in Korea and my father-in-law was one in Vietnam. I should have carried on the tradition.

Not to mention Victory at Seas score is simply the best every to highlight that fine film you're seeing and a generation of brave folks that went and got the job done with tremendous personal sacrifice. It's been a long time since I've seen it. My guess is Frazer Thomas was still hosting "Family Classics" but now that you reminded me I need to put it on my Christmas list. Of course I also need to add "Sink the Bismark" to that list but I'm afraid a brown shoe asking santa for a surface warfare movie would scar me <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

My insufferably egotistical Uncle Clingman was one of the very first SeaBees in World War Two. To hear him talk, you'd get the impression that (a) he'd won the war all by himself while (b) suffering more anguish than anybody else.

(He was a LtCdr supervising the clearing of sunken Japanese ships in captured harbors. He never saw combat. A couple of his younger brothers had, and they shut him up fast whenever he started to brag).

For the kids among us: SeaBee comes from CB for Construction Battalion. The SeaBees often went ashore ahead of the Marines' landings, to build roads, etc. Some SeaBee units left signs on the beach to welcome the Marines. A jingle that I sort of remember from those days was approximately

"When the Marines enter Tokyo with their hats at a jaunty tilt,
"They'll be rolling on roads that the SeaBees built."

A lot of veterans of the war in the Pacific put the SeaBees right up there with guys who'd won the Medal of Honor.

At least three outfits that I know of have it on DVD. Amazon.com is one. A&E probably has it. Maybe also the History Channel. And there's even a Victory at Sea web site.

(Ol' white hats are used-to looking-out for young brown-shoe boys! I hope that you get it for Christmas. I'll be thinking of you when I watch it. Wish you could join me for some of it. I pop goooooooood popcorn � with coconut oil.)

I wasn't there, of course, but IIRC it took a passel of surface guys on a number of surface craft to have that floating postage stamp in the right place and ready for you when the time came for you and your aerial gun platform to come down. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Yea, Pugs - at least you ain't a bubblehead <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

All I know fo my grandfather's service in Korea is he worked with the Marines a bunch, drove a dozer and earned a purple heart. Unfortunately he died when I was young (10 or so) I often wish he had lived to see me serve. I am sure he woulda made sure I was a SeaBee.

My father in law doesn't talk much bout his service either. I know he built fire bases and such. Also said during the monsoon season a 4x8 sheet of plywood would get him all the beer he could handle. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

[quoteI wasn't there, of course, but IIRC it took a passel of surface guys on a number of surface craft to have that floating postage stamp in the right place and ready for you when the time came for you and your aerial gun platform to come down. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> [/quote]

It's just natural for that us vs them thing but all in good fun and we all know it's the big blue team. Deer camp with my family is all Navy, three brown shoes and two black. One Boiler Tech (my brother) and three Cousins a Photo Mate, one Aviation Electronic Tech, one Aviation Bos'n and moi. Lotta flack thrown around the fire <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Man I look forward to it and hoisting a glass to the ABF who got recalled to Active Duty for the sandbox. It's not going that bothers him it's likely missing two deer seasons.

Submarine warfare was so secretive during WWII that most of the history is only in the minds of the few left. That and the war patrol records. Regrettably, a lot of the best subs were lost with no records of how except that they did not return...

Victory at Sea is the prize in my video collection. When the entire series came out on VHS several years ago, I couldn't part with my money fast enough.

Some of the information is dated because it was released long before some of the more interesting things were declassified (like how we got Yamamoto), but for the most part it's top notch. The history is great, the production is great, the narration is great, and of corse, the score is great.

It's the first war video I'd buy and perhaps the last I'd part with.