Marine Corps film of Guadalcanal battefield & invasion force

[Bob Hudson]

I don't know how common this footage is, but so far I can't find it elsewhere on the web. It's official Marine Corps footage of the Guadalcanal campaign beginning with the 1st Marine Division departure from San Francisco. It is narrated by Thayer Soule who was the division's photo officer. This movie was on a DVD in boxes of research material acquired from the estate of an author who wrote about Guadalcanal. Soule was attached to Division intelligence and had film experience before the war. He later wrote the book ""Shooting the Pacific War", Marine Corps Combat Photography in WW II."

 

Because of the length of the film, I have to break it into segments for upload to YouTube. This firt segment begins with the departure from San Francisco and this first part covers the voyage and landing up to the point where secondary command staff go ashore. The Marines did not film the invasion landing itself because officers on the beach ordered cameramen to do something "more useful."

Th original video file is low resolution so this is NOT high-def:

 

 

 

[bobgee]

Great stuff, Bob. I've not seen it before. Bob

[Bob Hudson]

Here's Part 2:

 

[Bob Hudson]

Here's the third and final segment. The DVD also has videos of Soule giving a talk in Arizona and being interviewed for the History Channel years ago. This one starts out with him discussing the Marines dislike for B-17's on Guadalcanal:

 

 

[plick27]

Very cool, thanks Bob!

[m1ashooter]

Outstanding. Thank you

[Bob Hudson]

Great stuff, Bob. I've not seen it before. Bob

 

I have looked around online some more and still can't find any reference to this footage, let alone the footage with his narration. As he explains in the narration, what we see here is the only USMC Guadalcanal movie film that made it back to the states. He and his crew shot it, but it was spliced together in Washington so it is not all in chronological order.

 

Soule made his living doing travelogues, where he'd appear in person to narrate travel film he'd shot around the world. It was something he'd started doing in the 1930's and it explains his informative narration of the Guadalcanal film.

[mes]

Great footage thanks for posting

[Bob Hudson]

Great footage thanks for posting

 

I found some still photos online that were made from the film. It looks like they were digitized direct from the original film. It would be great if the original film could be copied to HD video. The version we put up on YouTube was done with the old Standard Def video, such as is used on VHS tape.

[man860]

Great, thanks for taking the time to post this up!