During World War Two, many newsreelers joined the Signal Corps. Others, however, willingly served as civilian combat newsreel cameramen in both the Pacific and European theaters.

Marty Barnett of Paramount News was one of the civilian shooters who embedded themselves as pool newsreel photogs to cover the war. When Barnett was in the Papua New Guinea, he mentioned that troops were amazed that he, a civilian, was obliged to suffer the trials of combat in the tropics. Barnett always answered, “It’s my job – I asked for it.” And he stayed at it instead of going home, even though in Burma his quarters were bombed for twelve days straight.

Frank Prist, a still photographer who was with Barnett in the Buna area of Papua New Guinea mentioned an incident with he, Barnett and General McNider:

“One time, exploring below Buna with General Hanford MacNider and newsreel cameraman Martin Barnett, I ran into misfortune. The general in front, stepped off a ledge and sank as we waded through dense mangrove beds in sea water at the mouth of a river. Barnett, second in line and carrying my camera, also went down. When we surfaced, my camera was also missing. While the general and I waded back to safety, Barnett clung to an adjacent tree, finally climbed it and swung through the branches to dry land.”

Barnett was finally forced to head back to the states after he was injured covering a troop landing in Lae. He was in the conning tower of a landing craft with the first wave of Australian troops when a group of Japanese planes dropped bombs near the boat he was on. The concussion flung Barnett to the deck of the vessel and injured his spine. In his dope sheet describing the landing, Barnett wrote:

“General scenes of convoy at sea, as we approached Red Beach just east of Lae. Destroyers start shelling beach just before landing, general scenes of. As we more into landing. At this point just before landing about 100′ from shore were were attaked by three Zero fighters & three twin engine bomber, who made a tree top single pass at our landing craft. Minor damage was done. I was knocked down from bridge of ship. The landing was carried out successfully otherwise and our troops began their advance against Lae.”

Dave Oliver of Pathe News was another civilian pool photog who spent nine months embedded with US and British troops in Europe during 1943-1944.

During that time, Oliver had a couple narrow escapes from death during his tour of duty in the pool.

The first time was in a bomber run over Germany:

“We were attacked by German fighters before reaching the target. Over the target – Hamburg – we were at 27,000 feet and it was 42 degrees below zero. I couldn’t keep warm although I had an electric suit and had the camera in an electric bag.

German fighters will go along with you for a while and then one by one peel off and go right for you. I was up in the nose and before he turned over and went under us, it looked as though he were going to hit us. We could see the smoke from the raid of the night before, so we dropped our bombs right into the smoke. Only over the target for about 20 second but then you hit the flak. One big explosion right under the ship gave us all a good shaking.”

After the bombing runs, Oliver spent three weeks embedded with RAF torpedo boats:

“They could go out and try to coax a fight with German torpedo boats about five miles off the coast of Holland. You have all you can do just to stand up in these boats. The Germans saw us one day and came out. We had a running fight for over two hours. Sometimes the combat teams were only three miles apart.”

After the tour with the RAF torpedo boats, Oliver headed for Naples to join up with the Fifth Army. There he had one of the narrowest escapes of death since covering the 1933 Cuban Revolution. He was in a foxhole near Lagone, Italy where he decided to leave the foxhole to go shoot something. A few seconds later a shell landed in it, killing the seven infantrymen Oliver left behind. Then he went into Lagone itself to witness its capture by Allied troops:

“There were a lot of snipers around Lagone. I ran into a doorway where I fell over two dead Germans and a dead donkey, all lying in the middle of a room from which the roof had been blown off. At Filignano, while at an observation post, a sniper saw and started shooting at me. A lieutenant with me got up to look for the sniper and he got hit in the shoulder. I got sprayed with mud. That was my third narrow escape.”

Oliver’s dope sheet of the Lagone capture can be seen here. His footage starts at 2:16 in the newsreel itself and a shot of Oliver himself in Lagone with his Eyemo made by an unnamed British photog is at 2:41.