[LargeFormat] WWII signal Corp newsgroups

[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Atherton" <tim@KairosPhoto.com>
To: <largeformat@f32.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 11:09 AM
Subject: RE: [LargeFormat] WWII signal Corp newsgroups


> >   One thing which is not generally known is that a lot
of
> > color motion picture film was shot by both the American
and
> > German forces. Much of the American combat footage seen
in
> > black and white is actually on either Kodachrome or
early
> > Ektachrome.
>
> I remember reading an intriguing article in the N Yorker
about the hunt for
> some of the motion picture colour film (I think it was
tied into the
> Spielberg D_Day movie at the time...).
>
> It had gone from navy warehouse to navy warehouse and
thought destroyed, but
> eventually turned up thanks to a couple of historians, in
a facility in
> Omaha or somewhere. The article talked about how John Ford
basically
> "directed" the D Day landings and how much was shot in
colour - with
> "remote" cameras on landing craft etc, and also how many
of the Coast Guard
> camera men were killed.
>
> There was also something about the reasons a lot of the
colour stuff was
> never released at the time - lots for political reasons,
as well as
> technical.
>
> tim
>
>
  There was a great deal of censorship during WW-2.
Photographs of Pearl Harbor were not released to the public
until it was pretty clear the Japanese were losing.
  WW-1 was even less photographed, the governments involved
didn't want anyone back home (where evern that was) to have
any idea how bad things really were. All news reports were
very heavily censored. Some pictures exist but most of the
movie footage one sees are from Hollywood movies made after
the war.
  I mentioned but should have stressed more that the Germans
evidently also used a lot of color film. It is also now
showing up on historical programs. Agfa beat Kodak to the
punch with color. Kodachrome and Agfacolor were both
released in 1935. Kodachrome gave better results but the
Agfa film was "modern" in the sense that it had incorporated
couplers. It took Kodak some time to find an alternative
method of anchoring the couplers. Kodak's first color film
with incorporated couplers was Kodacolor, released
commercially about 1941 (don't hold me to this date).
Kodak's method was to encapsulate the couplers in resin. The
resin structure was such that while it was permeable to the
developer reaction products necessary to convert the coupler
to dye, neither the coupler or resulting dye could leave,
thus preventing wandering of either coupler or dye. The Agfa
method was to fasten the coupler and resulting dye molecules
to long chain polymers. I believe this method is the one
used in all modern color films.
  Agfa/Ansco, in the USA, evidently had the formulas and
methods for making Agfa color film. All Agfa property was
siezed by the US government at the entry of this country
into the war. Reportedly, Kodak was able to use the Agfa
patents in making early color aerial film. However,
Kodacolor and early Ektachrome/Ektacolor, used the Kodak
method of anchoring couplers.
  The advantage of the incorporated coupler method of making
color film is that it is relatively simple to process.
Kodachrome requires a very elaborate system which also
requires a very high degree of control over the entire
process.