This auction is for the following RARE Major Norman Hatch (Deceased) WWII USMC daring photographer who filmed much of the combat footage autographed cut that has been mated with an unsigned 4x6 inch photograph the black mat is 8x10 inches.

This Major Norman Hatch (Deceased) cut autograph has been authenticated by the most prestigious and respected authentication company in the hobby JSA #AG75896. Autographed items that have been authenticated by JSA adds an additional value to all signed items that bare the JSA authentication process. This item would make a great gift or investment.

BIO: Major Norman Hatch (Deceased) WWII USMC daring photographer who filmed much of the combat footage during the Battle of Guadalcanal, Battle of Iwo Jima and Battle of Tarawa. His footage was later used in the Academy Award winning documentary film “With the Marines at Tarawa”. Major Hatch Hatch used a Bell & Howell Eyemo to film the invasion and the ensuing combat. Mr. Hatch assigned his colleague Bill Genaust to film the Marines’ flag-raising atop Mount Suribachi. A small flag had been installed, but a larger one was ordered to be placed on the island’s highest point. Mr. Genaust’s footage was used to confirm that the historic photograph of the flag-raising, by Joe Rosenthal of The Associated Press, had not been staged. Mr. Genaust was killed in action a week later.

Major Hatch’s cinematographer whose footage of a punishing American victory in the Pacific during World War II was so grisly that it had required White House approval before it could be released.

Armed with a .45 caliber pistol, Staff Sergeant Hatch, 22 years old at the time, waded ashore on tiny Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands in November 1943 at the beginning of a 76-hour battle that would claim the lives of an estimated 1,000 Marines and sailors and more than 4,000 Japanese soldiers. When the fighting ended, the United States had claimed one of its first victories in the Pacific. Standing up to keep his hand-cranked 35-milimeter Bell & Howell Eyemo camera dry, and filming through thick black smoke, Sergeant Hatch thrust himself so deeply into the combat that he captured vivid close-ups of Marines firing at enemy troops only 15 yards away.

“That’s the only time, to the best of my knowledge, in the Pacific War that the enemy was in the same frame as us in a fighting stance,” he said in an interview with the Naval Institute. “The film shot on Tarawa was a first because it showed what combat was really like. It showed it up close and dirty.” Somehow, he escaped the war unscathed, having fired his pistol only once. “When I was looking through the viewfinder, I was living in the movie,” he said. “I was disassociated with what was going on around me.”

Years later, after he had long left the service, Mr. Hatch recalled that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had been reluctant to release gruesome images of dead Marines floating in the waters off Tarawa, but that the journalist Robert Sherrod had convinced him that bringing the grim battle home would rally Americans behind the war. It had been Mr. Hatch’s choice to risk his life to get those images. “I was told by guys on the front line that I didn’t have to be there, and I would quietly tell them that I did,” Mr. Hatch told NPR in 2010. “The public had to know what we were doing, and this was the only way they would find out.” A month before the Oscars, which Mr. Hatch did not attend, he had landed with fellow Marines on Iwo Jima; his footage there was incorporated in another documentary, “To the Shores of Iwo Jima.”

THIS IS AN AUTHENTIC HAND AUTOGRAPHED CUT that was been mated with an unsigned 5x7 inch photograph perfect for framing. The black mat measures 8x10 inches. I ONLY SELL AUTHENTIC HAND AUTOGRAPHED MEMORABILIA. I do not sell reprints or facsimile autographs. When you bid on my items you get the real deal authentic hand autographed items. You will receive the same item that is pictured in the scan. If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me. I combine S&H when multiple items are purchased. I ship items internationally the price for international S&H varies by country. I currently have other rare autographed military and historical signed items available. Please take a look at my other auctions of rare military and historical autographed items.