On
April 18, 1944, Ford was off again - Newfoundland, Scotland, London, mostly
preparing to cover the coming invasion. Ford asked his men who among them had
small-boat experience, and Robert Moreno raised his hand. "I told him I
had, and that was about it. He didn't tell us how to cover it or
anything."
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Mark
Armistead had become friendly with John Bulkeley, the hero of They Were
Expendable, and brought him by to meet Ford at Claridge's. Ford was lying in
bed naked, but he insisted on getting up and saluting Bulkeley, a winner of the
Medal of Honor. Bulkeley was assigned command of a squad of PT boats working
the English Channel during D-Day.
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Ford's
unit was in charge of documenting Operation Overlord, 176,000 Allied soldiers
invading the beaches of France. Since photographing any battle is always an
exercise in improvisation, Ford's job was to make sure that everyone who should
have a camera had one. He assigned Brick Marquard and Junius Stout to be lead
cameramen in the first wave, and supervised fitting some of the landing craft
with automatic cameras that would start filming as soon as the ramps lowered.
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Since
George Hjorth had already made some nine drops behind enemy lines, he was
assigned to go in before the invasion, find a spot on the beach, and photograph
the incoming troops. "All Ford told me was, 'Photograph what you see. If
you can see it, shoot it.' "
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The
invasion was originally planned for June 5, so Hjorth went in on the 3rd, when
some Free French picked him up and hid him in a farmhouse. On the morning of
the 6th, about two in the morning, he was taken down to the beach. Hjorth had
an Eyemo and about twenty rolls of black and white film. He was about fifty
yards from the water, behind a tuft of bushes.
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"I
could hear motors. It was the minesweepers cleaning out the area. They had a
big, wide strip they cleaned out, then two Y shapes on either side of the main
strip, one for coming in, one for going out. When it started getting light, I
looked out, and it seemed there were islands out there in the channel. But I
remembered that the only islands in the channel were Jersey and Guernsey, and
those couldn't be seen from the shore of France. And then I realized those
weren't islands, those were ships, dozens of them, hundreds of them. That's
when I realized it was the invasion.
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"It
was pretty light when the invasion started, maybe seven o'clock. And I started
cranking away. All I was thinking was 'Am I in focus? Is the camera too high or
too low?' The fact that I was photographing guys getting killed didn't hit me
until I got onto a destroyer later that day, around noon. Then it hit me hard.
That was the day I started smoking."
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Ford
was on board the battleship Augusta, which was serving as invasion
headquarters. But as the barges disgorged their men to the slaughter that
awaited the first wave, as the battle wore on, Ford grew restless. He radioed
Armistead, on board Bulkeley's PT boat, to come and get him. The last thing
Bulkeley wanted was a Hollywood director as his responsibility in the middle of
the most important battle of the twentieth century, but Armistead vouched for
him.
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Bulkeley
was surprised at how quickly Ford absorbed the requisite information. Armistead
thought Ford seemed unusually happy, even when the PT boat fought a machine-gun
duel with German E-boats off Cherbourg. Ford genially accused Bulkeley of
planning to take the first picture of the dead body of a famous director. The
two men became friends, and Ford realized that Bulkeley would indeed be a great
subject for a movie.
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Although
Ford would later imply that he was dodging bullets on Omaha Beach ("My
memories of D-Day come in disconnected takes like unassembled shots to be
spliced together afterward." he said at one point), he seems not to have
actually landed for several days. Certainly, his grandson Dan, who would be
decorated for his own service in Vietnam, never heard my stories about Ford's
exploits on D-Day, which he is certain he would have had Ford been in the first
or second waves.
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Two
days after D-Day, Ford wrote Mary in veiled terms: "Been up country for a
coupla days - lovely weather - enjoyed the English summer. Feel wonderfully
well + rested - lots of milk + eggs etc. - put on weight... - well my darling I
miss you terribly + our home + our family, but I guess
that's
what we're fighting for. Carry on my sweet. I hope to be with you all again
before many weeks. This thing is going great. Jerry is bound to crack up any
day. I love you."
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Ford
began moving inland with the American troops. The other directors serving in
the same theater were astounded at Ford's bravado. George Stevens remembered
sheltering himself under a hedge in Normandy when he looked up and saw Ford
standing full-height, calmly observing some fighting.
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Scott Eyman "Print the
Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford" (1999)
