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HISTORY™ PRESENTS

TAKE A VETERAN TO SCHOOL DAY

2009

on Veterans History, Thank a Veteranat Work Day, and the Veterans HistoryProject with the Library of Congress.

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It’s not the war you know … It’s the war they lived.

B y T i m B r a d y & J a m e s M . Ta r b o x

Just after dawn on Nov. 20, 1943, Robert Sherrod climbeddown a rope ladder from a transport ship bobbing off the tinyisland of Betio, part of the Tarawa atoll in the South Pacific.He rolled into a waiting Higgins Boat and set out with a com-pany of U.S. Marines into what instantly became a hellishkilling zone. Japanese gunfire gushed from pillboxes facing

Through Their Eyes

1

the sea as the grunts fought to gain the shore.For two hours before crawling into the

landing boat, Sherrod—a correspondent forTime and Life magazines who covered thepost-war Pacific region before returningstateside to work as managing editor of the Saturday Evening Post—watched fromaboard the transport ship that same tiny is-land as those pillboxes were pounded bybombs and fire from wave after wave ofAmerican planes. Salvos of thundering shellsfrom every big gun in the U.S. Navy raineddown on them. That the Japanese not onlysurvived the bombardment but were nowlaying down a withering barrage at firstseemed impossible. Sherrod thought thehailstorm of bullets ripping the ocean wavesmust be coming from the Marines them-selves. But as he stepped into chest-deep wa-

ter and started wading ashore through thechaos and destruction, he realized the sourceof fire was indeed the Japanese entrench-ments on the island dead ahead.

On the beach, Sherrod—one of the sub-jects whose wartime experiences is fea-tured in the new History series WWII inHD—took cover with a group of Marinesnear a sea wall. From there he moved to atank-like amphtrack vehicle and, with hisheart racing, began recording in his mind’seye the horrors around him: a Marine shotbetween eyes that bulged instantly fromthe horrific abuse; a Japanese shell scor-ing a direct hit on a landing vehicle andsending parts—vehicular and human—inall directions; waves of immobile fish float-ing by a pier, shocked to death by the im-pact of shells landing in the water. Therewere so many violent, graphic, and star-

ROCKIE BLUNTWorcester, Mass. EuropeanTheater. An aspiring jazzdrummer with a devil-may-careattitude, what he witnesses incombat ignites a newappreciation for humanity.

ROBERT SHERRODThomas County, Ga. Pacific Theater. Even as a seasoned reporterfor Time magazine, he is stunned by the tenacity and ferocity of Japanese forces and fears complacency back home.

THEY LIVED IT!WWII in HD highlights the stories of a dozen combat veterans who represent a cross-

section of the personnel involved. Their words give voice to the sights and sounds as they

experienced them, and as will be revealed in the ground-breaking 10-part documentary.

32 THE HISTORY CHANNEL MAGAZINE NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2009 thehistorychannelclub.com

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tling images they overwhelmed Sherrod’ssenses. It seems it would have been impos-sible for his conscious mind to take it all in.

After three hours on the beach and backnear the amphtrack, Sherrod was finallyable to pull a soaking wet notebook fromhis gear and set it on the hub of the vehicle.The pages dried quickly in the tropical sun,and the paper wrinkled in the searing heat.

Two corpsmen crawled over the seawallto move a wounded Marine out of the line offire. Watching the three of them, Sherrodshook and forced himself to do what he’dset out for that morning. “I felt that I shoulddo some reporting,” he would write later. Soeven in the midst of the overwhelming ter-ror and chaos, he was compelled to get thename of the Marine being pulled to safety.

“It was a very difficult name,” Sherrodwould write, “and I know I didn’t get itright, even after he had spelled it for metwice, but in my notebook it appears as Pfc.N. Laverntine, Jr.”

Sherrod, who died in 1994, went on towrite the book Tarawa: The Story of a Bat-tle, published in 1944 and still in print. Hisvivid descriptions of that first day andmany more in the battle for the island—oneof the bloodiest of the war—make it clearthe sights and sounds he encountered wereetched in his memory. The mental picturesremained real, sharp, colorful, deep, andpermanent. And so it is for the soldiers,Marines, sailors, airmen, nurses, corre-spondents, and others who fought andlived the literal hell on earth we know asWorld War II. For them the memories ofthe war are very “high definition.”

But for the vast majority of Americans

today, regardless of whether we were alivein the 1940s, the memories and impres-sions of World War II are largely etched inblack and white. Most of the moving pic-tures we’ve seen of the war are grainy,cracked, and fading black-and-white news-reel images. Few people even realize thatcolor photography and film existed in theWorld War II era. Of course, there havebeen numerous WWII-based Hollywoodmovies made in color and viewed by mil-lions, but those are not real. Viewed in thecontext of factual history for all of us ex-cept those who experienced it first hand,World War II seemed destined to remain a“black-and-white” conflict. Until now.

Two years ago, History made the de-cision to not only launch a worldwidesearch for original color footage, but tothen restore and ultimately preserve thisfootage. They called upon one of theirlongtime production partners Scott Reda,of Lou Reda Productions, who, with His-tory’s Executive Producers David McKil-lop and Mike Stiller, became one of thedriving forces of WWII in HD. The 10-hour series premiering in November willfeature astonishing, never-before-seencolor—and now high-definition—footageof the war. The colossal production—which tells the story of the war from theviewpoint of those who fought it and livedit—is described as “history at its core.”

“We were going for a Band of Brotherslook,” Reda says, “but this is real footage ofreal characters. This is immersive, first-person stuff; you’ll feel what these guysfelt. The sound design alone is incredible.”

The series—narrated by actor Gary Sinise

NOLEN MARBREYHuntsville, Ala. Pacific Theater.A hard-livin’ good ole boy, intensecombat chastens his party-heartydemeanor. Severely wounded inbattle, his descriptions of combatare brutal and violent.

ARCHIE SWEENEYFranklin County, N.Y. EuropeanTheater, North Africa. The quietand unassuming young farmer is the first person in his town to be drafted. Utterly unprepared, his letters home reveal aninnocence and naïveté about the scope of the war.

JACK WERNERVienna, Austria. Pacific Theater.Jewish émigré from Hitler’sAustria, he joins the Armydetermined to fight fascism. He finds fellow GIs’ independentstreak bewildering, but learns to respect it.

thehistorychannelclub.com

—features a handful of surviving veteranstalking about their war experiences and oth-ers represented by Hollywood “A-listers”giving voice to hundreds of unpublished di-aries and journals. But the highlight of theseries is the color footage gathered fromamong 3,000 hours of “lost” film discoveredin barns, attics, vaults, museums, and per-sonal collections around the world.

History, with Reda Productions, hasbeen chasing down, uncovering, accumulat-ing, transferring, and restoring old film.WWII in HD will feature the color footagefrom the vast archives of both History andReda Productions as well as other filmswhich were sourced from public andprivate collections held in more than 35countries. And much of that was dis-covered through old-fashioned dig-ging and—in some cases—luck.

To find and uncover this rarefootage, the network, again, inpartnership with Reda, tapped es-tablished ongoing relationshipswith a variety of private collectors,museums, and small archival housesaround the world, many of which lack theresources to properly preserve their col-lections. In some cases, they can’t evenview their collections becausethey lack the right equipment,or what they have is no

longer operational. But through state-of-the-science technology allowing these“lost” films to be transferred to a digitalformat, they again present vibrant color,eye-popping detail, and sound effects thatwill place the viewer virtually within theaction beside those who lived it.

Finding the ‘lost’ footageSteve Bergson of Kent, England, is a long-time researcher of archival military footage.Though not trained in the work—he was anEnglish-lit student—an internship workingin the BBC archives ignited his interest.And he harbored a longtime interest in au-dio/visual realms which the internshipfurther fueled.

He says the film research world is rel-atively sparsely populated, and members

of its tight-knit community are in con-stant contact sharing info about privatecaches of vintage film they’ve stum-bled upon or heard about. Through

contacts he made while working eightyears ago on a project about the Irishdiaspora around the world, Bergson

learned of a unique, privately held collec-

BERT STILESDenver, Colo. European Theater.Self-described “dreamer” and“wistful thinker,” the creativewriter enlisted with misgivingsafter Pearl Harbor to become a bomber and fighter pilot.

CHARLES SCHEFFEL (WITH WIFE RUTH)Enid, Okla. European Theater. Pragmatic and hard-working, his naïve illusions are shattered in combat where he learns merely surviving trumps the ephemeral glory of victory.A

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Pearl Harbor

Key Events of WWII

Bond Drives Between November 1942 andDecember 1945 Americans investedapproximately $150 billion in bonds to financeWorld War II. Mass media (radio, newspapers,and magazines)publicized theimportance ofevery citizen’ssupport in thewar effort; thecampaigns werea success.

Women Enter the

WorkforceWith increasing

numbers ofmen sent off to

fight the war,the number of

women hired tofill those

positions andbuild arsenal

to support thewar effort

soared. Some3 million women worked in the war industries

alone, and others found work to supplement home incomes, a trend that

would continue in the post-war years.

On the Homefront

As World War II played out in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and behind-the-scenes meetings among world leaders workedtoward opposing ends, life at home took on new urgency and immediacy, all in support of the war effort.

“GREYHOUNDS OF THE SEA” Increasingly sophisticatedduring the course of the war,U.S. Navy destroyers playedpivotal roles in both theAtlantic and Pacific theaters.

1939 1940

Great Battles of World War IIInvasion ofPoland (Sept. 1-29, 1939) Ill-equipped, thePolish armyoffers no matchfor the Germanand Russianinvading forces.The invasion isgenerallyrecognized asthe beginning of World War II.

Invasion of France (May 10-June 22, 1940) Germany invadesFrance through Belgium and TheNetherlands. Allied armies areoverwhelmed, and the Britishevacuate from Dunkirk. Francedeploys the bulk of its army tothe German border, but is unableto stop the German blitzkrieg.Battle of Britain (July 10-Oct.31, 1940) Germany’s hopes towipe out the Royal Air Forcebefore its planned invasion ofEngland fail.

Victory Gardens As part ofthe war effort, the governmentrationed foods like sugar, butter,milk, cheese, eggs, coffee,meat, and canned goods. Withlabor and transportationshortages frustrating harvestand shipping produce tomarket, the government turnedto its citizens and encouragedthem to plant “VictoryGardens” to provide their ownfruits and vegetables. Nearly20 million Americansanswered the call.

Wash., D.C., March30, 1942. MacArthurappointed SupremeAllied CommanderSouth West Pacific Area.

London

New YorkWashington

Moscow

Tehran

Warsaw

Paris

Berlin

Moscow

Battle of the Bulge

El Alamein

Kasserine Pass

StalingradNormandy

Battle of Britain

Poland,Sept. 1,1939. GermanyinvadesPoland.

Germany, Sept. 3, 1939. Britain and France declarewar on Germany.

France, May 10, 1940. Germany invades France.

London, May 10, 1940.Chamberlain resigns; Churchilltakes over as prime minister.

Berlin, Sept. 27,1940. TripartitePact betweenGermany, Italy, andJapan signed.

Tehran, Nov. 28,1943. Conference ofAllied leaders opens; ends Dec. 1.

Berlin, April 30, 1945. Hitlercommits suicide.

LOOKOUTAn Aliedsoldier keeps an eye out forenemy planes.

ISLANDSUPPLIES American troops carrypallets and suppliesfrom landing craft onto the beach atGuadalcanal Island in 1943.

1941 1942

Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941) Japan’ssurprise attack on the U.S. fleet inHawaii instigates America’s long-awaited entry into the war.Wake Island (Dec. 7-24, 1941)Concurrent with the attack on PearlHarbor, the Japanese invade on Dec.24 and take the site of a half-completed U.S. air and submarinebase. U.S. troops are captured andsent to China and Japan. Moscow (November 1941-January1942) German attempt to capture thecity fails in the face of Russiancounter-offensives and severe winterstorms that paralyze the German Armyin the field.

Midway (June 4-7, 1942) DisastrousJapanese attempt to threaten Hawaiiby invading the island of Midway; theylose four aircraft carriers while the U.S.loses one. It would be Japan’s finaloffensive in the Pacific. Guadalcanal (Aug. 7, 1942-Feb. 9,1943) One of the largest and longestmulti-force engagements in the Pacific.The Japanese defeat at Guadalcanalends the Japanese dominance in theSouth Pacific.El Alamein (Oct. 23-Nov. 4, 1942)Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’sdefeat of the Germans in Egypt is hisgreatest achievement.

Berlin, May 7, 1945.German High Commandrepresentatives signunconditional surrender.

Manila

Tokyo

Wake Island

Tarawa

Guadalcanal

Leyte Gulf

Iwo JimaOkinawaMidway

Tokyo, Aug. 14, 1945.Emperor Hirohito announcesJapan’s unconditional surrender.

Tokyo, July 18,1944. Tojo falls frompower as Japaneseprime minister.

AT EASE An American soldier, with a rifle poised on his lap, grabs a nap on a pile of rocks in Italy in May 1944.

BUILDING MORALE An unidentified USO performer sings for Americansoldiers aboard a troop transport ship in May 1944.

1943 1944 1945

Stalingrad (July 17, 1942-Feb. 2,1943) The bloodiest battle everfought and the worst German defeatsince the war began.Kasserine Pass (Feb. 19-25, 1943)German and Italian forces in Tunisialaunch a final attack against theAmericans; though suffering earlysetbacks, U.S. forces recover andinstigate a retreat of German forces.Tarawa (Nov. 20-23, 1943) InvadingAmericans engage Japanese forces in one of the fiercest and bloodiestbattles in the history of the U.S.Marine Corps.

Anzio (Jan. 22-May 25, 1944)American forces are trappedfor four months until troopsbreak through the Germandefenses in Italy. Anzio wasperhaps one of the the Allies’biggest blunders.Normandy (June 6, 1944)Invasion of Western Europe bythe Allied forces, also knownas D-Day. The invasion, knownas Operation Overlord, is theturning point in the war.

Battle of the Bulge (Dec. 16, 1944-January 1945) This is the lastsignificant German counter attack ofthe war. Though the German effortfails, it keeps Allied troops andsupplies stymied for weeks. It alsolikely hastened Germany’s surrender.Okinawa (April 1-June 21, 1945)Largest amphibious assault in thePacific Theater, and one of the bloodiestbattles of the war. Iwo Jima (Feb. 19-March 26, 1945)The most intense, bloody, andcompact battle in the Pacific.

GREAT BATTLES: COURTESY LOU REDA PRODUCTIONS; GETTY IMAGES (4); NATIONALARCHIVES (2). KEY EVENTS: NORMAN ROCKWELL / CORBIS; MINNESOTA HISTORICALSOCIETY / CORBIS; BETTMANN / CORBIS; COURTESY LOU REDA PRODUCTIONS (2);GETTY IMAGES (3). SOURCES: STRATEGYPAGE.COM; MEMORY.LOC.GOV;DEFENSELINK.MIL; OKSTATE.EDU; LIVINGHISTORYFARM.ORG; DK; NPS.GOV

38 THE HISTORY CHANNEL MAGAZINE NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2009 thehistorychannelclub.com

tion in Dublin. As he began research forWWII in HD, a contact at the Irish Film In-stitute told him about a lot of interestingfootage emerging from private sources.

Bergson undertook the detective workat which he is so adept, and as a resultDubliner Ian Spring’s attic belched forthprivate 8mm film shot by a German soldierin Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps, footageof Japanese “war brides” celebrating theirweddings to American GIs shortly after theend of hostilities, and footage of Germaninfantrymen training on bicycles.

Like much of the other source footageused in WWII in HD, Spring’s stock was ina sad state of deterioration, but the techni-cians at Reda Productions successfully re-stored and transferred the film.

The 3,000 hours of source footage forWWII in HD comes from widely variedsources around the globe, including cachesfound in Holland, Norway, the Baltic states,Hungary, Poland, and Russia among manyother places. Bergson notes that somefootage returned to the home country ofthe photographer, and either kept person-ally or contributed to its national archive(though some of the film discovered inRussia was simply pilfered by Russiantroops before they left Germany for home).He also recalls a cache that belonged to aRussian movie-house projectionist whosimply retained possession of footage thestate had declared “off limits” because theofficial propaganda line had changed.

The 8th Air Force Museum in Savannah,Ga., houses more than 300 reels of film withno equipment to view it. This film includespristine footage of aerial combat as the 8thAir Force gained dominance in the skiesover Europe, as well as domestic scenes likeairmen writing home, crewmembers play-ing with English children, and off-duty fly-ers riding bicycles through villages.

Film held by the Army Heritage Centerin Carlisle, Pa., included some 400 reels fea-turing gunnery footage taken aboard Alliedaircraft in the Pacific, training films show-casing German weaponry, and footage ofRemagan, Germany’s, Ludendorff Bridge

over the Rhine, captured in March 1945.Footage also was found at the Marine

Historical Center at Quantico, Va., and theNational WWII Museum in New Orleans.Not only were these treasures in danger ofbeing lost forever because of their deterio-rating condition, but even film discoveredin relatively pristine condition could not beviewed because equipment to view it withno longer existed. It was not unusual forReda technicians to have highly fragile, ir-replaceable film break during restoration.

Still more WWII in HD sources featureintense combat footage—such as that takenby Norman Hatch and reported by Lifemag-azine’s Sherrod—depicting “as the soldierslived it” warfare including tank battles, navalexchanges at sea, and Kamikaze attacks.

An extensive private collection ownedby Mike Lanier of Clarksville, Ga., featuresscenes of everyday life in the United Statesduring the war years.

As Bergson notes, while some of thesources for WWII in HD were “official” gov-ernmental and military film, others wereprivately filmed and in some cases, handeddown among generations of families. Theseprivate owners often proved reluctant toturn over evidence of their ancestors’ war-time activities until they were impressed bythe historical importance of the project.

In addition to salvaging the priceless,imperiled combat footage, Reda also calledon digital sound experts to enhance the au-dio experience for the series.

Sight and sound in HDFrederic Lumiere of Lumiere Media, in sub-urban Philadelphia, worked with Historyto convert the “lost” footage into high-defin-

RICHARD TREGASKISElizabeth, N.J. European & PacificTheaters. Draft-ineligible, his newsreporting job gains him access tothe front line. His GuadalcanalDiary opens the public’s eyes tothe harsh realities of combat.

SHELBY WESTBROOKMarked Tree, Ark. EuropeanTheater. He finds relative opennessgrowing up, but military life openshis eyes to true racial injustice.He distinguishes himself as amember of the Tuskegee Airmen.

JACK YUSENNew York, N.Y. Pacific Theater.Brooklyn-raised, he couldn’t bemore out of place than in theNavy, where his seemingly “happy-go-lucky” outlook proves to be hisgreatest asset.

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ition quality. He says that, ironically, whatmade the process possible was that the orig-inal photography was done on film. “If thiswere shot on 1980s-era video tape, it wouldhave been impossible to convert to HD,” hesaid. Nearly everything he had to work withwas shot on 16mm or 35mm film—and asmall percentage on 8mm—which was treat-ed similarly to the way photo shops convert35mm color slides to digital.

“HD is all about picture resolution,” Lu-miere (no relation to the famous film-pio-neering Lumiere Brothers) said, definingthe minimums as 1080 pixels horizontallyand 720 vertically. “And with this film, we’realready at resolution above even the mini-mum requirements for HD.” In fact, he said,HD is arguably of lower resolution “quali-ty” than the best 35mm film footage. “Wetake the film and scan it frame by frame. Wecan get really high resolution, and it’s now‘digital’ quality. Then we apply scratch re-moval and color correction and other fancyprocesses that essentially just clean up thefilm and make it a lot more appealing.”

As to the re-creation of the sounds ofwar, Lumiere noted that some 90 percentof the film he worked with had no originalsound at all, and the remainder was notvery good; “certainly not high-fidelitysound.” So he and his technicians tappedinto their vast library of authentic soundeffects to match the images on the screen.

“We have some of the best sound de-signers in the business who create theseamazing soundscapes,” he said. “Although

the technology has changed since the ’40s,the human ear has not. We can record amachine gun today, or a plane flying over,and it will sound the same as it did then. Itreally adds to the experience” of watchingthe footage. “Producers had not previouslyput in this kind of effort.”

“We do have all of the weapons and ma-chinery categorized by model, etc.,” Lu-miere explained, “and often we stick to theauthentic sound. But we also take creativeliberties for maximum impact. Ask anylarge Hollywood-budget film sound de-signers; you’ll learn they use anything andeverything to generate the emotional im-pact desired. Breaking glass, sucking soundfrom fire, etc. That’s how you win Emmys!

“The interesting thing is that when weshow cuts to our veterans, their first re-sponse is ‘Wow! That’s exactly how itsounded!’ even though we enhanced thesounds tremendously.”

Real stories of the real charactersThe broad story of History’s WWII in HDis told through the experiences of 12 maincharacters who served during the war. Allmade a record of their duty in a variety ofwritten media from diaries, to memoirs, tojournalistic entries. Along with Sherrod’sstories for Time and Life are narratives de-tailing the lives of Army nurse June Wan-drey, who served from the beginnings ofthe war in North Africa to the liberation ofthe prison camps in Germany; Shelby West-brook, a young African American from

JUNE WANDREYWautoma, Wis. European Theater.The fun-loving nurse from theMidwest confronts hunger,exhaustion, weather, and sicknessduring continuous weeks of 18-hour days. Endless misery is no match, however, for her life-saving good nature.

JIMMIE KANAYAPortland, Ore. European Theater.The son of interned Japaneseimmigrants, mistrusted by hisfellow troops, and captured by the Germans, his many escapeattempts fail until he is liberatedat war’s end.

Marked Tree, Ark., who became a memberof the famed Tuskegee Airmen; JimmieKanaya, the son of Japanese immigrants,who served in the U.S. Army and was im-prisoned in Europe; and Jack Werner, aJewish émigré who escaped from Austriabefore the war and wound up fighting inthe Pacific Theater rather than againstHitler and the Nazis—the man and peoplehe most despised.

WWII in HD is narrated by Gary Sinise,while stories of the 12 people profiled will bevoiced by Hollywood talent, including:Justin Bartha as Jack Werner; Rob Corddryas Rockie Blunt; Tim DeKay as Richard Tre-gaskis; Mark Hefti as Archie Sweeney; JamesKyson Lee as Jimmie Kanaya; Ron Liv-ingston as Charles Scheffel; LL Cool J asShelby F. Westbrook; Rob Lowe as RobertSherrod; Josh Lucas as Bert Stiles; AmySmart as June Wandrey; Steve Zahn as NolenMarbrey; and Jason Ritter as Jack Yusen.

WWII in HD is executive produced byLou and Scott Reda and Liz Reph of LouReda Productions, with executive producer TH

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That so much color footage of World War II combat

even exists might surprise some viewers, but color

technology has been used in filmmaking since the

earliest days of the medium. In its first incarnations,

color film was manipulated through “additive”

processes, principally through tinting, shading, and hand-coloring.

These were laborious and expensive techniques, which meant that

most Hollywood films and virtually all amateur reels were left in

the original black-and-white.

By the 1930s, the Technicolor Corporation had created a “sub-

tractive” process of coloring film. This technique used color filters

and three strips of film rolling within the camera to sort out and im-

print a full pallet of colors. The rich shades of film produced by the

Technicolor process are evident in numerous Hollywood films of

the era, including Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, the lat-

ter so notable because of the mid-film switch from black-and-

white Kansas to vibrantly colored Oz.

At about the same time, Eastman Kodak in the United States

and the Agfa company in Germany were creating 8mm and 16mm

one-strip color film for amateur users. While the quality of this

footage was not as rich as the 35mm film using Technicolor, by

whittling the coloring process down to a single strip, the film elim-

inated the chief stumbling block to shooting color film: the bulky,

cumbersome, and expensive cameras required for creating Tech-

nicolor footage. Home movie-making became commonplace with

the development and increasing affordability of these films.

A variety of 35mm Technicolor and 8mm and 16mm single-

strip films were used extensively by amateurs and professionals

during World War II to record the earth-shattering events of those

years as well as life on the home front. Even so, it’s reported that by

1947 only 12 percent of American films were produced in color.

The advent and later explosion of television drove that number to

more than 50 percent by 1954.

HISTORY, working with Reda Productions, has collected, restored,

and digitized many thousands of hours of these films over the

past three decades. Aside from the many U.S. sources tapped for

footage, the archives of 36 different nations were scoured and

provided source footage for HISTORY’s WWII in HD.—TB

A BRIEF HISTORY OF COLOR FILM

NORMAN HATCHMarine Corps photographer Norman Hatch led a group ofphotographers who capturedimages of the Battle of Tarawa.Some of the most spectacularcombat footage ever shot, it wasused in the film With the Marineson Tarawa, which won the 1944Academy Award for OutstandingDocumentary Short Subject (see it on YouTube.com).

Matthew Ginsburg and historical consult-ant Dr. Don Miller. The series is executiveproduced for History by David McKillopand Michael Stiller.

For the filmmakers, making WWII inHD has been painstaking yet exciting work.“Some of this material hadn’t been lookedat since soon after the war,” says producerLiz Reph. “There were times when we’d sitdown to view some film and have no ideawhat we were about to see.”

“Whose words could be more powerfulthan those who were there?” says historianMiller, a consultant on the project.

After more than 65 years, Robert Sher-rod and Norman Hatch are once more unit-ed on the beach at Tarawa. The intentionswith which they set out that November dayin 1943—to faithfully record the events onthat small island in order to honor all thosewho served their country that day—havebeen realized for a new generation in a waythey likely could never have imagined. His-tory ’s WWII in HD will virtually put us onthe beaches of Tarawa at their side.

40 THE HISTORY CHANNEL MAGAZINE NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2009 thehistorychannelclub.com

THROUGH THEIR EYES From the attack on Pearl Harbor (above), which drew the United States intoWorld War II, to the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri (right), World War II in HD presents the sightsand sounds of the global conflict—and life on the home front—as they’ve never been seen before.