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In Search of Al Schmid: War Hero, Blinded Veteran, Everyman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

David A. Gerber
David A. Gerber
Affiliation:
David A. Gerber is Professor of History, State University of New York at Buffalo, Park Hall, Amherst, N.Y. 14260-4130, U.S.A.
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Extract

During an intense firefight at the Tenaru River on Guadalcanal in August of 1942, Marine Private Al Schmid, a Philadelphia metal worker, shared a machine gun emplacement with two other young Marines: Johnny Rivers, a Native-American from rural Pennsylvania, and Lee Diamond, a Jew from Brooklyn. During many hours of night combat, as wave after wave of Japanese tried unsuccessfully to cross the Tenaru and overwhelm the thin line of American defenders, first Rivers was shot and instantly killed, and then Diamond was severely wounded. Furious over the death of his friend and fighting for his life, Schmid continued to try to ward off the enemy. Toward the end of the battle, which was to prove decisive for securing Guadalcanal, he was wounded by a grenade fragment. One of his eyes was immediately destroyed and the other was greatly damaged. Now sightless, Schmid continued, with what little aid the barely conscious Diamond could provide, to fire the machine gun. Eventually he was credited with killing two hundred Japanese before his position was relieved in the morning. Schmid spent much of the next two years in military hospitals, where unsuccessful efforts were made to save what little sight remained to him, and where he began the process of blind rehabilitation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , April 1995 , pp. 1 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

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33 Telephone interview with Gloria Adalion, 13 June 1992; taped interview with Elaine Powers, coordinator of Visual Impairment Services, Buffalo VA Hospital, Buffalo, New York, 3 Jan. 1990, in author's possession; taped interview with Edward Huyczyk, blinded veteran of World War II and early national board member of the Blinded Veteran's Association, Buffalo, New York, 14 Aug. 1990, in author's possession, (hereafter, cited as EH, 14/8/1990.);Lay, Edward, “Excuses and Blind Rehabilitation,” VIS View (Winter, 1989), 9–10Google Scholar.

34 RS, 3/8/1990.

35 RS, 3/8/1990. Photos: Butterfield, “Al Schmid, Hero,” 35; Philadelphia Inquirer, 6 March 1943; Chicago Daily News, 15 March 1944; Washington Post, 8 June 1944; New York Times, 22 May 1946; Atlanta Journal, 16 June 1946. Saint Petersburg Independent, 6 Oct. 1957, 25 Sept. 1954; Saint Petersburg Times, 8 June 1972, 2 Dec. 1982 (obit.); studio publicity photographs, taken on location in Philadelphia during the filming of Pride of the Marines (Film Stills Archive, The Museum of Modern Art).

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40 EH, 14/8/1990; RF, 24/7/1990; RW, 24/7/1990; St. Petersburg Times, 2 Dec. 1982 (obit.); Kathern Gruber, retired consultant to BVA, to David Gerber, undated [1991], in author's possession.

41 RW, 24/7/1990. Also, RF, 24/7/1990, who believes Schmid “might have rested on his laurels” for the balance of his life.

42 RW, 24/7/1990; RF, 24/7/1990.

43 New York Times, 10 Sept., 3 Oct., 13 Nov. 1945, 21 Nov. 1946, 15 Jan. 1947; Greenwood, , “The Blinded Veteran,” in Blindness, ed., Zahl, , 264Google Scholar; Brown, and Schutte, , Our Fight, 15Google Scholar. Scott, Robert A., The Making of Blind Men: A Study in Adult Socialization (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1969), 112–6Google Scholar.

44 Graham, Milton D., 851 Blinded Veterans: A Success Story (New York: American Federation of the Blind, 1968), 74, 126–8Google Scholar.

45 EH, 14/8/1990.

46 Telephone interview with Gloria Adalion, 13 June 1992; Williams, Russell, “Why Should I?,” VIS View (02 1987), 12Google Scholar; Graham, , 851 Blinded Veterans, 66–8Google Scholar; Scott, , The Making of Blind Men, 72Google Scholar.

47 Greenwood, , “The Blinded Veteran,” [documentary film] in Blindness, ed., Zahl, , 266–8, 269–70Google Scholar; The Long Cane (1952; Veterans Administration).

48 Pride of the Marines was produced at Warner Brothers by Jerry Wald, one of the studio's leading executives who was attracted to Butterfield's Al Schmid — Marine. Butterfield was consulted in the earliest stages of the adaptation of his book. The popular reception of Al, as reflected in the press, was studied by Wald, director Delmar Daves and the writers during the adaptation process. A liberal in politics, Wald enthusiastically employed Left-oriented creative people on this and other projects, because he respected their talents in dealing with contemporary events. Alvah Bessie and Albert Maltz, two prominent Hollywood Communists, were the key writers. The Marine Corps gave the studio technical and marketing assistance. Most wartime movies that had any relevance to contemporary events were monitored by the Roosevelt administration's Office of War Information. These elements are discussed infra; and also, see, Dick, , The Star-Spangled Screen, 213, 221–2, 229Google Scholar; Sklar, , City Boys, 162–5Google Scholar; Higham, Charles, Warner Brothers (New York: Charles Scribners, 1975), 144–71Google Scholar; Warner Brothers Pictures and U.S. Marine Corps, Pride of the Marines (n.p.: 1945; pressbook accompanying release of Pride of the Marines)Google Scholar; Suid, , Guts and Glory, 72–3, 92Google Scholar.

49 Koppes, Clayton R. and Black, Gregory D., Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Hamilton, Ian, Writers in Hollywood, 1915–1951 (New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 1990), 191–283Google Scholar; Gabler, Neal, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (New York: Crown Publishers, 1988), 311–60Google Scholar; Suid, Guts and Glory; Dick, The Star-Spangled Screen; Sklar, , City Boys, 104–76Google Scholar.

50 Koppes, and Black, , Hollywood Goes to WarGoogle Scholar.

51 Hamilton, , Writers in Hollywood, 228–30, 279, 285, 292, and passimGoogle Scholar; Gabler, , An Empire of Their Own, 323Google Scholar; Dick, , The Star-Spangled Screen, 211–29Google Scholar; Isserman, Maurice, Which Side Were You On?: The American Communist Party During the Second World War (Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 1982), 103–86Google Scholar.

52 Polan, Dana, Power and Paranoia: History, Narrative, and the American Cinema, 1940–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 86–96, 194–200Google Scholar, analyzes the movie (as “an exemplary case” of the juxtaposition of the themes of war and commitment) from the perspective of narrative theory. Reviews of Butterfield's Al Schmid — Marine laud the author for this personalization of the role of an ordinary man in the war; Chicago Daily News, 15 March 1944; Philadelphia Record, 10 April 1944.

53 RS, 3/8/1990; Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 132–5Google Scholar; Maltz, Albert, “This Love of Ours”: Suggestions and Criticisms, 18 (typescript/memo, 2 12 1944), DDCGoogle Scholar. (“This Love of Ours” was an early, working title for Pride of the Marines.)

54 Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 134–5Google Scholar; Virginia Pfeiffer to Ruth Hartley, 8 Dec. 1942, DDC; Pittsburgh Gezette, 26 Feb. 1943.

55 Warner Brothers Pictures and U.S. Marine Corps, Pride of the Marines, 9, 13, 14Google Scholar. Hirshhorn, Clive, The Warner Brothers Story (New York: Crown Publishers, 1979), 179Google Scholar.

56 Maltz, , “This Love of Ours”: Suggestions and Criticisms, p. 18 and pp. 12–13, 14, 16Google Scholar. In spite of Maltz's objections, the material was in all cases retained in the revised script; see Warner Brothers Pictures, Pride of the Marines (1945; script), pp. 83, 94, 115Google Scholar, Albert Maltz Collection, Boston University Archives.

57 When Bessie and Maltz became part of the “Hollywood Ten” in 1947, Pride of the Marines came under intense scrutiny. In May 1947, the film industry's Motion Picture Alliance actually placed it on a list of subversive movies. Several years later John Garfield, who was not a Communist but had a history of Left associations, was blacklisted, and this helped, too, to seal a Left-oriented reputation on the movie. See, Hamilton, , Writers in Hollywood, 278–9, 283, 287, 292–9Google Scholar; Gabler, , An Empire of Their Own, 351–86Google Scholar; Sklar, , City Boys, 216–26Google Scholar. The limits of the influence of men like Maltz in Hollywood in the 1940s are succinctly put in Koppes, and Black, , Hollywood Goes to War, 220–1Google Scholar; and in Roffman, Peter and Purdy, Jim, The Hollywood Social Problem Film: Madness, Despair, and Politics From the Depression to the Fifties (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), 4–9Google Scholar.

58 St. Petersburg Independent, 6 Oct. 1957, 7 Aug. 1962, 25 Sept. 1965; St. Petersburg Times, 10 Nov. 1962.

59 The Marine Corps' concerns are difficult to document directly, but I have attempted to do so by following the text of Warner Brothers Pictures and U.S. Marine Corps pressbook, Pride of The Marines; and by comparing Butterfield's book with the movie on matters having to do with the Marine Corps. For OWI's concerns: Virginia Richardson, Feature Script Review — “This Love of Ours,” (formerly Al Schmid — Marine, November 1, 1944; William S. Cunningham to James Geller, Warner Brothers, 2 Nov. 1944; Peggy Shepard, Feature Reviewing — Pride of the Marines, July 11, 1945; [?] Gyorgy-Bercovici, Office of War Information, Long Range, Motion Picture Review, Pride of the Marines, July 12, 1945, in Records of The Office of War Information, Record Group 208, Washington National Record Center, Suitland, Maryland (hereafter “OWI Files”).

60 Warner Brothers Pictures, Pride of the Marines (script), 35, 41, 42Google Scholar; Maltz, Albert, Suggestions for “Al Schmid — Marine” (typescript/memo; 30 09 1943), 3, DDCGoogle Scholar.

61 Maltz, , “This Love of Ours”: Suggestions and Criticisms, 5, DDCGoogle Scholar; Sklar, , City Boys, 163Google Scholar.

62 Warner Brothers Pictures, Pride of the Marines (script), 35, 38, 65Google Scholar; Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 48, 66Google Scholar; Richardson, Feature Script Review; Cunningham to Geller, 2 Nov. 1944; Shepard, Feature Reviewing; Gyorgy-Bercovici, Office of War Information, Long Range, Motion Picture Review, (OWI Files).

63 Maltz, , “This Love of Ours”: Suggestions and Criticisms, 5, DDCGoogle Scholar.

64 Ibid, 9, DDC.

65 Maltz, , Suggestions for “Al Schmid — Marine”, 18–19Google Scholar, and idem, “This Love of Ours”: Suggestions and Criticisms, 9–10, DDC; K. R. M. Short, “Hollywood Fights Anti-Semitism, 1940–1945,” in Film and Radio Propaganda in World War II, idem, ed. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983), 166–8.

65 Hamilton, , Writers in Hollywood, 278–9, 287Google Scholar; Dick, , The Star-Spangled Screen, 213Google Scholar; Koppes, and Black, , Hollywood Goes to War, 308Google Scholar.

66 Cf., Sklar, , City Boys, 164–5Google Scholar, which finds less political implication in the movie's depiction of Schmid's spiritual breakthrough, but does not analyze it in the context of the crucial homecoming sequence that includes the argument between Al and Lee aboard the train. Roffman, and Purdy, , The Hollywood Social Problem Film, 227–30Google Scholar, contend the movie locates Al's problem squarely in his own “neurosis” and is without any apparent political implication, a reading which seems insensitive to the delicate ways in which Maltz chose to integrate politics into the script.

67 For evocations of the hospital ward culture of convaslescing disabled combat veterans that confirm this plausibility, see, in autobiography, Russell, Harold, Victory in My Hands (New York: Creative Age Press, Inc., 1949), 91–143Google Scholar, and The Best Years of My Life (Middlebury, Vermont: Eriksson, 1981), 11–30Google Scholar; and, in autobiographically inspired fiction, Jones, James, Whistle (New York: Delacorte Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

68 Shepard, Feature Reviewing, OWI Files.

69 RS, 3/8/1990.

70 Harry Horsman to David Gerber, 29 May, 16, 19 June 1993. Other Tenaru River combat veterans also offered their opinions and evaluations of their own and Schmid's experiences: Lee Diamond to David Gerber, 2 June 1993; Fred Stewart to David Gerber, 26 July, 10 Aug. 1993. (All letters in the author's possession.) It is from these letters, and especially Harry Horsman's, that I have attempted to create a collective profile.

71 Diamond to Gerber, 2 June 1993.

72 Ibid. Horsman to Gerber, 19 June 1993. This state-of-mind is evoked very convincingly in Fussell, Paul's controversial Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 52–65, 129–95, 251–97Google Scholar.

73 Diamond to Gerber, 2 June 1993. Horsman (19 June 1993 to Gerber) expresses himself in exactly the same terms, but focused his search for the origins of the movie's conception on “the public relations office of the Marine Corps,” which did indeed cooperate closely with Warner Brothers.

74 Ruth Schmid offered their difference in background as the explanation for this failure to revive their ties after the months in San Diego; RS, 3/8/1990.