Edwin Fitchett’s WWII Home Movies

The Wall Street Journal has an article about the World War II home movies of Edwin Fitchett of Poughkeepsie, New York.

Fitchett got his first movie camera at 15 and recorded family trips and holiday gatherings. He continued his hobby when he entered Cornell University in 1940, filming college and fraternity life on the Ivy League campus in Ithaca, N.Y. He enlisted in the Army in September 1942 but remained stateside until July 1945, when his artillery battalion was shipped to the Pacific. His unit was training for the pending invasion of Japan when the war ended just weeks after they arrived in the Philippines.

With U.S. military censorship restrictions lifted, Fitchett had his camera sent from home, along with any rolls of Kodak color film his parents could find. Soon he was taking the camera along on sightseeing trips to Manila and the Philippines countryside, often in the battalion’s flimsy two-seater planes used as aerial spotters.

The 71 minute DVD of Fitchett’s home movies is available for sale at www.fitchettfilm.com

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