LIEUTENANT – I QUIT – NO MORE MISSIONS

From the memory and papers of 81 year old Lt. Col. Vic. Clark USAF (Ret)

Jerry Joswick, the only combat cameraman on that terrible fiasco – the first Ploesti Oilfield raid, came to me in the 9th Combat Camera Unit Headquarters in Cairo, Egypt and declared, “Lieutenant, I quit, no more missions!” Jerry had completed most of the required 25 missions as a combat cameraman. I asked Jerry what he wanted to do. He said that he would like to go home. So I had orders cut sending Jerry back to the Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit, (FMPU) Hal Roach Studio’s in Culver City, CA.

The code name given to the first Ploesti raid, which took place on 1 Aug 1943, was “tidal Wave.” Here are the horrible statistics of that mission: 178 aircraft started from North Africa on the mission, 58 aircraft damaged, 54 aircraft lost, 185 men made prisoners of war, 150 men were wounded, and 310 were killed in action. Other raids on Ploesti later had many losses.

Jerry was from Chicago, IL, where he had operated J’s Photo Shop on the loop. After a couple of months I learned that Jerry was flying combat camera missions up in England. I often wondered how Jerry faired in that part of the conflict where they required 50 missions.

What was the Air Force First Motion Picture Unit? General Hap Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Corps, who had been stationed on the West Coast before WWII knew his way around the picture business. He decided that the Air Corp needed a Motion Picture Unit and Combat Camera Units. He called his friend Jack Warner to Washington and gave him a commission as a Colonel. Arnold gave Warner the personnel of the Bolling Field Photo Lab., which was famous for its photo mapping of the North and South America continents. Sergeant ‘Stinky’ Staunch who headed the Lab. Was elevated to Warrant Officer and placed in charge of the men.

It wasn’t long until Warner became bored with FMPU and had it relocated from his studio over to the old Vitagraph Picture lot. General Arnold’s friend Hal Roach was in deep trouble and on the brink of losing his studio. He was called in to Washington and commissioned as a Major. This placed him under the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act, which in effect postponed any action against him until after the war. The Air Corps rented the Roach facility and Roach personnel who signed over to work for the military insured that there was much expensive Air Corps equipment that became “fixed” property. It was decided to move the Unit to the Roach facility, which was in much better condition that Vitagraph. After WWII the studio was the ‘Lucy Ball Studio.”

How did I get into the picture business? As a washout Flying Cadet going to Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Miami, my old Commander from the Cadet days put me to work as a ‘third lieutenant’ troubleshooter. One day he called me in and gave me the job of helping Clark Gable and his cameraman Andy McIntyre through their first 6 weeks of

OCS. This is another very interesting story. No one wanted to be a gunner on a bomber. It was an occupation with very little future.

Vic Clark, center teaching Gable and McIntyre how to make a GI bed.

A special Personnel-public relation’s project was established with much publicity. Gable and McIntyre were brought into the Air Corps, went through OCS and then to gunnery school where they were trained to become gunnery officers. They completed their missions as gunner/cameramen flying from England. From the on there were many volunteers for gunnery training.

A lot of film was shot on Gable’s days in England. It was sent back to MGM studios where Blanche Sewell cut it into a story. The product was called, ‘Blanche tried.’

About the only thing that I can remember from the little OCS training that I did get was that when ordering supplies one must request 21 sheets of toilet paper per day, per man.

On Saturday night, a week before I was to Graduate from OCS, while we were getting on the outside of a fifth of Scotch, Gable told me that he appreciated all that I had done for him and asked if there was anything that he could do for me. I didn’t think that he could help but just for the heck of it said – “get me into that Motion Picture outfit in Hollywood.” I was very surprised when that was my assignment.

In September 1942, I, a brand new Second Lieutenant reported in to First Lieutenant Bynum, an old horse soldier, who was sitting at a desk under a pepper tree at the Vitagraph Studio. He told me that the outfit was in the process of relocating to Hal Roach Studios. Bynum advised me that he, a Quartermaster Major Hyde, and I were the only officers from the military – that the balance were second stringers from various Studios. At Bynum’s suggestion, I got lost until after the move and reported over at Roach.

At Roach I was assigned duties as Headquarters Squadron Commander, Chief of Personnel, Food Service Officer, Transportation Officer, Commissary Officer etc. Bynum and Major Hyde also had many duties. We were very busy people but had a few perks. As transportation Officer I was chauffeured in the Roach limo to and from where I was living.

I told the Personnel Sgt. That I thought we should put together a musical unit. He sent a small airman in to root in the files for musicians. This airman reported back through the Sgt. that we had no talented musicians. I learned later that the small airman was David Rose, the famous composer – orchestra leader. While he thought of highly trained musicians, I was thinking of down home musicians – fiddlers and guitar pickers etc. – that we probably had plenty of.

As fate would have it, we had an airman commit a minor crime. We tried him and gave him time in jail. We had no jail. So we went to the property department and got a jail house door, which we hung in place of the door of the dressing room of Hardy of the Laurel and Hardy, comedy team. Over the next weekend a Hollywood Writer was Officer of the Day. He visited the prisoner to check on his wellbeing. The prisoner gave him a real hard luck story about his dying mother needing him. The Writer gave the prisoner a three-day pass from the guardhouse. Only pass from jail that I ever heard of. I don’t think the prisoner ever returned.

Lt. Vic Clark Ringing the bell at Pilots Heaven Pearly Gates, Hal Roach Studios

In about November 42 Paul Mantz, who owned and rented to the studios all the airplanes used in the old prewar movies, came in as Commander of the First Motion Picture Unit. Mantz rented his planes to the Air Force. I shall jump to December 1942. The powers that were, decided that we needed a Combat Camera Unit with the Ninth Air Force in

Egypt. After several people found reasons not to be the Adjutant, Director, and Contact man of the unit. I volunteered for the job.

Several officers from the studios took over the various jobs that I had held at FMPU. Ronald Reagan took on the Personnel Officer job. By now we had a Sgt. Hank Yeske as Personnel Sgt. When I left for overseas in 1942 Reagan and Yeske were busy playing gin rummy on my old metal desk. They were still at it when I returned to FMPU in 1944.

FMPU was beginning to make training films. The first were a series of “land and live in The _. (Jungle, Desert, Ocean, etc.)

Here is a synopsis of the orders sending the 9th Combat Camera Unit overseas:

FIRST MOTION PICTURE UNIT SPECIAL ORDERS NUMBER 133, 12 Dec 1942

The following Officers and Enlisted men are transferred from the 1st Motion Picture Unit AAF, Culver City, Calif. To the 9th AAF Combat Camera Unit, are directed to proceed by commercial air to CO Camp Patrick Henry at Newport News VA no later than 14 Dec 1941 for permanent change of station.

Capt. John D. Craig, lst Lt. Roy Clark, 2nd Lt. Victor E. Clark, Jr.

T/St Arthur Daniel
S/Sgt Kenneth M. Chaney S/Sgt Emory G Simmons Sgt Wilbur F. Murphy Sgt Alexander S Torf
Cpl Carl F. Zangardi
Cpl Grant M. Nelson
Pfc James T. Barnes
Pfc Munroe W. Oettinger Pvt Whitfield P. Davis Pvt Alex Kushner

S/Sgt Dana Deshler S/Sgt Ralph Davis Jr. Sgt Robert G. Morry
Sgt Milton Rosenblatt Sgt Sylvester E Zell
Cpl Amos T. Baron
Cpl Benjamin Saeta
Pfc William R. Cogswell Pvt Frank W Goetz

Ppvt Edward L. Hittle

Although our number was nine, we were the first of the combat camera units. We served in the 9th, 12th, and 15th Air Forces.

Capt. Craig was the author of DANGER IS MY BUSINESS. His business was that of a deep-sea diver cameraman. Roy Clark was from Australia. He had changed his name to Clark from Craig.

At Camp Patrick Henry since we, fresh off the drawing board, had no basis of issue for hardly anything, I begged, borrowed and stole basic equipment for our men. Someone

from Headquarters Air Corps in Washington went to New York and bought up a bunch of film and used still and motion picture cameras and equipment and hurried them to us shortly before we shipped out. Our still cameras were Bell and Howell Eyemos and the motion picture cameras were all Bell and Howell.

We sailed on the Matson Liner Maripose, (one of the ships that had plied from Frisco to Australia.) Part of the British civilian crew stayed with it. I wound up with 8 other lieutenants in a small room with just space in the middle for a card table. We had a poker game that lasted the 43 days of our ‘cruise.’ We went by Rio and Capetown over to the Indian Ocean and up through the Red Sea where we disembarked at Suez.

On reporting to the 9th AF Hg. In Cairo we found that a Major Felton had already set up a Ninth Combat Camera Unit and had a few men with camera experience. Felton had been crew chief on General Brereton’s aircraft in the pacific area before the war. After Pearl Harbor they had relocated to Australia and were now in Egypt where Brereton was Commander of the 9th Air Force and Jack Felton was his Aide and a very powerful individual. Felton had Craig assigned as Photo Officer to a Bomb Group out in the Libyan Desert. We had our cameramen sent on temporary duty with the various Ninth Air Force Units. After WWII it was rumored that Felton had found a job in Hollywood.

We were to record on still and motion picture film the war for history, intelligence and public relations. We had no way of processing the film and never got to see what had been shot. Our film was sent to No. 1 Park Ave. New York City, where it was processed and distributed to Headquarters Air Force, FMPU etc. Occasionally we would get word to clean the lens on camera so and so. We had to degrease cameras to keep them from freezing at the high altitudes.

One of our jobs became THE MIDDLE EAST FILM EXCHANGE. We were beginning to get a few old movies sent over and Felton decided that he wanted first pick of them. We too were able to review a few. As time went by we were able to pass this job to Special Services where it should have been to start with.

Another job that we fell into later was that of installing Gunsight Aiming Point Cameras on fighters. We had no training for this job. The first of these caused the fighters guns to malfunction. The Fighter pilots pulled the cameras out by the roots and threw them just as far as they could. Soon we had people trained to work with these cameras assigned to the fighter squadrons. The pilots fell in love with the cameras for now they had a proof of their kills.

At Easter time in 1943 I took a team of cameramen over to Jerusalem to cover a special story. The Catholic bishop from New York had been made Armed Forces Bishop. He made a trip to the Middle East to visit the troops but mostly to visit the Holy Land. On Easter morning we filmed the procession of the Bishop and his many followers to the church where he was to hold a service. As they were set to turn into the church, a man came out and waved them off. Many facilities in Jerusalem are claimed and used by

several denominations. Another group was still holding service in the church. The Bishops procession went around several blocks and returned. We filmed his day twice.

We of the unit in Cairo took advantage of our situation – visited the pyramids and museums a few times. Took lots of photos on horses and camels. I wound up in a nice Officers Quarters with outstanding food in an apartment over behind the famous Shepherd Hotel. One Sunday afternoon at the Country Club we met Ernest Hemingway who was on his way to the States from a visit to Moscow.

In August of 1943 we were asked if we preferred rice or spaghetti. This was a joke. The rice lovers went out to the China Burma Theater while the spaghetti lovers were sent to Italy. The Ninth Air Force for some strange reason was relocated to England.

As one of the men described it, we ‘motored’ across North Africa to Tunis, Tunisia. We became part of the 12th Air Force that to our surprise already had a Combat Camera Unit. I started agitating, trying to get our outfit shipped home, but was told to take it easy, as we were to be General Jimmy Doolittle’s Combat Camera Unit in the 15th Air Force.

John Craig, now a Major, rejoined us as Commander. We waited around Tunis for our move to Italy. We took over the home of the Chief of Police in Tunis as our quarters.

A “Care of the Flyer” team consisting of doctors, food service and supply people came over from the states to see what could be done to prevent the horrible gas pains suffered by crews at higher altitudes in the bombers that were not pressurized. They quickly recommended that flyers not be fed gassy foods such as beans and eggs etc. One of this team was a friend of Craig’s, Don Beachcomber, who at that time, owned Beachcomber restaurants in LA, Chicago and Miami. We invited him to move into our quarters. As a result we had some fabulous meals. Don would go aboard ships from the States and tell them horror stories about food for the aircrews. Those ships always had the best of foods, which we enjoyed much.

Capt. Craig?, Don Beachcomber, Vic Clark

On Thanksgiving Day of 1943 after having spent a week in tents in the mud at a staging area, we boarded a landing Ship Tank, which was crewed by British. They had been

given our special Thanksgiving meal. The only things that they fed us were beans. We sailed overnight and landed in Naples. We had all the vehicles and office equipment for the Headquarters of the 15th Air Force. After a day or two around Naples we ‘motored’over the mountains to Bari Italy where the 15th had taken over the Headquarters Building of the Italian Air Force. Again our Cameramen were sent temporary duty out to fly with the various Bomb Groups.

On 5 December the German Air Force bombed the harbor at Bari where we had more shipping than that at Pearl Harbor. Most of the ships were full of ammunition that kept

exploding for two days. I have had tinnitus ever since. (My father, never mentioned it to me, but I am sure he must have been aware of the fact that a Liberty Ship, the John Harvey bombed at Bari was carrying mustard gas. It was kept quiet at the time though some allied soldiers were stricken with the effects. There is more info on this on Wikipedia Joe Clark)

Cameraman Ken Chaney was shot down on a mission over Greece. We learned that he had broken a leg but had recovered and joined the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) and wanted his personal camera equipment. I was to take the equipment down and turn it over to the OSS in Cairo. When the word went out that I was going on this trip, it was requested that I contact certain people in Cairo and bring back booze, sheets and pillow cases etc that had been left over from the meeting of Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt. I got back to Bari with all of this loot on Christmas Eve. That night General Doolittle pinned on my Captain bars.

Don Beachcomber was given the job of setting up a rest camp for combat crews on the Isle of Capri. He recruited a lot of girls from Naples to work in the camp. I wound up as a member of the 15th Air Force Venereal Disease Control Committee. We had to close Don’s operation and have him go back to Naples and with medics giving physicals, hire a new set of workers.

The British under a Brigadier Fitzhugh McLean, (a Scot) were running a mission to return our air crews that were shot down over Yugoslavia which was just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. Major Craig volunteered himself and me to parachute into Yugoslavia and film this project. Neither one of us had been near a jump school. We were very lucky – our orders to return to FMPU came through. Thank goodness, Craig agreed with me that FMPU sounded better than Yugoslavia.

In February 1942 we received the following orders: HEADQUARTERS FIFTEENTH AIR FORCE

The following personnel are assigned to the Combat Replacement Pool of the First Motion Picture Unit. All were given three weeks to leave en route.

Major Jon D. C raig Capt. Victor E. Clark T/Sgt Henry J Ludwin T/Sgt Emory G. Simmons

S/Sgt Gene L. Davis S/Sgt Alex (NMI) Kushner S/Sgt Joseph C. Nagy S/Sgt Milton (NMI) Rosenblatt S/Sgt Frank W. Goetz
Sgt Whitfield P. Davis

As time when by we dropped men and picked up others. There was so much of this that I no longer remember the details. As you can see we didn’t return with as many men as we took over.

When we got back to FMPU the rumor was that Paul Mantz was being tried by Court Marshal or in a Federal Court. Seems that he had sold his airplanes to the Air Corps and continued to collect rent on them. The Commander of FMPU was a Col. Jones who had the distinction of having been a balloon pilot.

When the Air Corps was selling off planes after WWII the word went out that Mantz had bought so many that he was classed ‘Worlds 7th Airpowers.’

I have not repeated the often-told tale of “the flak was so thick that you could have walked on it.” That has been much overdone. A young lady who helped prove this wanted to know what ‘flak’ was. It was antiaircraft shells that exploded in the air after having been fired from the ground.

During WW II there were 15 million of us in the various services – and as a result there are 15 million different stories about “how I won WWII.”

I stayed with the Air Corps, which became the Air Force for thirty-three years. I am a 100% disabled veteran of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. I served for many years in the intelligence and the Office of Special Investigations .I hope that some former member of the 9th Combat Camera Unit will fill me in on items that I have not covered. At this time Gene Davis of Rochester, NY is the only survivor besides me, that I know of.

Transfer orders signed by Ronal Reagan

Lt. Col. Victor E Clark jr. passed away at the age of 82 in 2001.