Norman Hatch in his office today. (photo by Bob Tagert)

Circa 1940

    When I went for my interview with World War II Marine photographer Norman Hatch, I was well prepared.  I had gotten some preliminary information from Google, but what I didn’t know, was how much I would learn about the Pacific Campaign in World War II.  At 89 years old, Major Hatch, retired, can recount his days on Tarawa and Iwo Jima as clearly as the day he filmed these invasions.  If you Google Norman Hatch, you can find out a wealth of information on his pioneering of combat cinematography, but I went a little bit farther back to his early days in Gloucester, Massachusetts.  When I asked him about a number of sailboat pictures hanging on the wall in his home office, he responded, “I’m a Gloucester boy and that’s a Friendship Sloop, from Friendship, Maine.”  “You know the actor, Sterling Hayden, well he bought one up in Maine and sailed it to Gloucester…he was a good sailor, you know.”  “It was a beautiful boat, so I went over and introduced myself and soon we became good friends.”  

    Thus was the life of a small town boy who one day brought the images of war to every American.  Hayden and Hatch sailed that sloop for a couple of summers. “Here was this 6-foot handsome guy who the girls just loved, and he was terribly shy around women.”  I told him, “Sterling, you just try and bear with it, and I will take any that fall by the wayside.”  I think that, at a young age, Norman Hatch had that twinkle in his eye that I see as he remembers days gone by.  Hatch wasn’t a bad sailor himself.  “At the age of 17, I was the youngest person to take a large boat out of Gloucester Harbor in a hundred years,” he tells me.  That is no small feat when the boat is 123 feet long, the helmsman is at the stern, and you can’t see past the bow.

    When it came time for Hatch to seek gainful employment, his father advised him to join the Navy.  Here you could learn a trade, and when you got out in four years, you would have a marketable skill.  “Well, I went down to the Navy recruiting office and signed up.  They told me that there was about a three-month wait, as the quota had been reduced.  I went back in one month and they said the quota had been reduced again and they were only taking 8 recruits a month.”  This went on for a year and nothing had happened, so the last time he went to the recruiting office he had to walk by the Marine recruiting office.  “Well, I walked in there and said, Sergeant, if I said that I wanted to join the Marine Corps today, when could you take me?”  “The Sergeant said, “ do you want to leave tomorrow or two weeks from tomorrow?”

    In 1939, at the age of 18, Norm Hatch went to Paris Island for his initial Marine training.  After which he was accepted as an English instructor for the Marine Corps Institute in Washington where he remained for 6 months.  He then joined the staff of Leatherneck Magazine, the USMC journal.  From here he traded positions with a fellow at the Navy Public Affairs office.  It was while at the Public Affairs Office that Hatch realized that he wanted to be a cameraman.  After being rejected three times, he was finally selected (with the help of a few key contacts) and went to New York to begin his training.

    At the battle of Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands, Norm Hatch was the first cameraman to hit the beach and therefore filmed most of the first hand action.  Tarawa was one of America’s first victories in a long march up the Pacific chain.  It was also one of the war’s fiercest and bloodiest battles.  More that 1,000 Marines would die in the 76-hour battle.  The Japanese would lose almost 4,000.  “The film shot on Tarawa was a first because it showed what combat was really like,” Hatch tells me.  “When looking through the viewfinder, I was living in the movie,” he said.  “I was disassociated from what was going on around me.”  “You can’t take pictures laying down.  Being a cameraman was like having a target on your back,” Hatch said.  “We were walking upright shooting film, while everyone else was down at helmet level in the water.”  “There was one moment when someone shouted, ‘here come the Japs.” “ I turned slightly and kept shooting.  It was the first time that both fighting sides were caught in the same frame of film.”

    After Tarawa had been taken, Hatch’s film was transported to San Francisco and developed for newsreels.  It was picked up by all five of the US newsreel companies, being accredited to Hatch.  This had never been done before.  The footage was subsequently edited by Warner Brothers studios in Hollywood into the short movie “With the Marines at Tarawa”, a documentary that showed audiences the true horror and intensity of the fighting in the Pacific.”  Today we see images and movies of war and the horrors.  In 1943, this type of action was unknown, except to the participants.  The documentary went on to win the Academy Award in 1944.  Even though Hatch filmed at least 1/3 of the footage used and his named was linked to the film, he is quick to point out that it is not his award, but it belongs to the Marines that fought at Tarawa.  Hatch went on to film the fighting at Iwo Jima, and had a long career as a cameraman.

    As you will notice by one of the photos that accompany this article, Norman Hatch looks a bit like Errol Flynn.  “Let me tell you about that,” he said.  “When I was out in Hollywood at the Warner Brothers lot, I was having lunch in the cafeteria and Errol Flynn walked in. He wanted to meet me and I asked him why, and he said, ‘I have all of these action roles and I would like to pick your brain to find out what war is really like’.”  For the next week they met every day and talked.

    Norman Hatch retired from active duty in 1946.  He finally retired from the Marine Corps as a Major in 1981.  Retired? I don’t think so.  Hatch is alive and animated as he recounts of times long ago.  He lives with his wife on Mt. Ida Street in Del Ray and is surrounded by 60 years of history among the many books and files in his office.  And he is still not done.  For the past year and a half Hatch has come up with a manuscript about his life.  He is hoping to have it published in April of next year.  He is leaning toward War Shot as the title, but I don’t think he is 100% settled on it.  After all, there is plenty of time and I think his keen mind will not stand still until he is positive of the title, and maybe the “last Marine standing”.

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