To honor the 249th birthday of our country, we hearken back to a time when we fought the rise of fascism rather than welcomed it in. One of the ways in which the United States pursued this fight during World War II was with the Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit, also known as the 18th Army Air Forces Base Unit. Commissioned in 1942 by AAF Commanding General H. H. Arnold, the First Motion Picture Unit was the first of its kind, composed of experienced motion picture professionals tasked with producing training films, recruitment films, and propaganda films, as well as training combat camera units to deploy overseas. One of the many fascinating cameras in our inventory is this Mitchell NC, serial number 239, which was purchased by the US Army Air Corps in 1944. The camera arrived with its original Mitchell factory case which is stenciled with the camera’s serial number as well its assignment to the Camera Department of the 18th AAF BU in Culver City, California. We are pleased to offer this working piece of history to collectors and cameramen alike so it may continue to be preserved for generations to come, and to honor the history of the First Motion Picture Unit.
The First Motion Picture Unit took up residence at the Hal Roach Studio in Culver City, California, and there used “the camera as a war weapon. Here, with a minimum of publicity, a maximum of perspiration, they scientifically put the camera into the fight.” Combat camera units, composed of 20 to 25 men, underwent intense training not only in the use and maintenance of their cameras, but also physical training as soldiers. At the beginning of the US involvement in the war, there was a critical shortage of pilots. General Arnold commissioned the head of Warner Brothers, Jack Warner, along with screenwriter Owen Crump and producer Hal Wallace, to make “Winning Your Wings”, a pilot recruitment film directed by John Huston and starring Lieutenant James Stewart. General Arnold credited “Winning Your Wings” with recruiting 100,000 pilots for the war effort. Despite early skepticism from military leadership, the FMPU proved its value from the very beginning. Their training films were praised for being not only instructive, but entertaining and engaging to their audience, proving to train soldiers up to 60% faster and more effectively than old methods.
The FMPU facility at Fort Roach, as it came to be called, was a full-service production facility and military training camp. There, they lived, researched, wrote, scored, made props, built sets, created special effects, animations, shot, edited and released their many films. Most of the members of the First Motion Picture Unit were highly experienced technicians and artists from across the motion picture spectrum. Hollywood stars such as Clarke Gable, Ronald Regan, James Stewart, Alan Ladd, George Montgomery, and DeForest Kelley all served in the FMPU during the war. In all, the First Motion Picture Unit provided not only training films, but also footage used in newsreels, vital aerial reconnaissance footage, as well as on the ground combat footage from all theaters of the war.
Among the output of this amazing Unit were such films as “The Memphis Belle, A Story of a Flying Fortress”, a 16mm color film showing the crew a B-17 Flying Fortress on its final mission, and “Wings for This Man”, a short film that tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen. Sgt. Charles T. Mertz wrote of the First Motion Picture Unit in the November 1943 issue of “Popular Photography”, “Today, on a small lot in Culver City, California, cameras of the Army Air Forces grind daily, turning out films for our pilots, for our bombardier-navigators. Films are instructing our ground crews, teaching our cadets, and doing a hundred other jobs that save thousands of valuable war-time hours.” Thus was the work of the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Forces, the first unit of its kind in the US military.
