The Sounds of War

Marine Corps combat correspondents brought the sounds of World War II into living rooms throughout the country.

 By: Julia LeDoux

QUANTICO, Va. – Historians at the United States Marine Corps History Division at Quantico have ringside seats as they continue their efforts to digitize thousands of recordings made by Marine combat correspondents during World War II.

The combat correspondents – newspapermen, radiomen, artists, photographers and videographers who were called Dening’s Demons — made about 1,600 recordings during the war, said Rob Taglianetti, an oral historian with the United States Marine Corps’ History Division.

“It’s live combat,” he said of what can be heard on some of the tapes. “It’s while it’s happening, and you hear bullets in the background.”

The recordings also feature short interviews with Marines whose stories wouldn’t be known without the tapes. Combat correspondents would ask them a series of short questions such as, “where are you from,” “anything interesting happen while you’ve been here,” and “want to tell anybody back home hi?”

The live action recordings were immediately transferred onto vinyl records, which were sent out to radio stations across the country for broadcast. Written stories and photographs were sent local newspapers and even high school newspapers.

Oral historian Dr. Fred Allison was doing research for his doctoral dissertation at the Library of Congress in the late 1990s when he learned about a recording of famed Marine “Pappy” Boyington made during World War II. That sparked his interest, and Allison soon learned about the large cache of recordings that was then housed in Washington, D.C.  “There’s hundreds of these recordings,” Allison said. “They’re done at these places you read about in history books all the time, Guam, Iwo Jima. They’re not traditional oral histories. They were done more with an approach to public affairs.”

When Allison began work at the History Division in 2001, he drew up a Memorandum of Understanding with the Library of Congress concerning the digitization of the recordings. The effort didn’t gain any traction for several years, since the collection was in the process of being relocated to Culpeper.

When Taglianetti joined the History Division in 2006, Allison charged him with getting the recordings digitized. Taglianetti had the idea of using interns paid for by the Marine Corps Historical Foundation in the effort. Last summer, 500 recordings were digitized, and Taglianetti hopes that at least number will be digitized this summer.

“The Marine Corps is all about tradition, about where we’ve been,” said 2nd Lt. Bryan Bergman, who is working on the digitization effort now. “These are real people. They’re like you and me. Just as you want to hear stories about what Marines are doing nowadays in Afghanistan and Iraq, you want to hear stories about Marines in the past to keep that tradition alive.”

The great-grandson of one of the World War II combat correspondents worked on the project as an intern last summer, Taglianetti said. “He got to hear his great-grandfather’s voice,” he said with a smile and a shake of his head.

The collection also includes recordings made by combat correspondents of South Pacific island natives singing in their language. The Marine Corps was the only branch of the service during World War II to take the Library of Congress’ offer for training and equipment to record indigenous peoples, said Taglianetti.

There were approximately 200 Marine combat correspondents during the war, according to Taglianetti. The college-educated men left their jobs and volunteered not only to become Marines, but to tell the stories of Devil Dogs who were fighting on the front lines. “These were talented guys who left their jobs and could comment on what they were seeing,” he explained. “They could paint a picture.”

Taglianetti said the History Division sent a staff sergeant to the Library of Congress to survey the recordings, then on vinyl records, back in 1953.  “We have the original document where he documented his survey,” he explained. “He listened to a lot of the recordings and those notes are on the Library of Congress database.”

As time passed, the recordings were put on the shelf and largely forgotten, until Allison learned about them several years ago. Taglianetti has had the opportunity to interview some of the World War II combat correspondents who are alive today. He learned how they risked their lives hitting a beach while pushing a cart filled with their equipment. “There’s so much that can be learned from these recordings,” he said.

Taglianetti played a recording made on D-Day Plus 2. On the recording you can hear a bomb explode after landing near the combat correspondent’s landing craft. “You can hear the shaking in his voice,” he said.

Taglianetti said the digitized recordings will be available on the History’s Division web site, www.history.usmc.mil, when the project is completed.