![]() ![]() Savage served aboard Kidd from April 1943 to January 1945. Lowell Crosby Savage, gunnery officer of Kidd and future commanding officer of Abbot. We don’t positively know the identities of the Fletcher-class destroyers on which all of the scenes were filmed, though Kidd is definitively identified as the destroyer being refueled from a cruiser the officer looking through binoculars and then turning toward the camera is none other than Lt. Also, there are some fine close-up running shots of the famous Essex-class carrier Bunker Hill and extensive footage of Kidd refueling from an unidentified Brooklyn-class light cruiser. Most likely the entire film was assembled without regard to a timeline.Īmong the vessels shown are the battleships Indiana, Maryland and Tennessee the veteran fleet oiler Cimarron the Fletcher-class destroyers Abbot, Bullard, Kidd and Murray and the light aircraft carrier Cowpens. The original film was heavily spliced, and at least two scenes are known to be out of chronological order. ![]() There appears to be some brief combat footage with flak bursts above the fleet and smoke on the horizon. It continues with various fleet duties, including gunnery practice, carrier escort, refueling, dramatic aircrew rescues, mail delivery, depth charge runs and finally a rendezvous with another Fletcher-class destroyer. The film begins in Pearl Harbor on 19 October 1943 this can be dated by the presence of the ships seen moored. Also, other destroyer film clips tend to be short and directed at other nearby - and presumably more interesting - ships. This motion picture is remarkable because routine life aboard destroyers in World War II was not the subject of the same intense filming as, say, activities aboard aircraft carriers. Modern titles have been added and a scene showing collision damage to Abbot ( explained elsewhere on this site) has been slightly edited, but otherwise the film is original. It is from that duplicate that this Internet version is produced. Although the original film is believed destroyed, a 16mm duplicate was made in the 1950s. Someone in Destroyer Squadron 48 - probably a crewman aboard Kidd - filmed routine life aboard Fletcher-class destroyers of the Pacific Fleet in 1943. Your browser does not support the video tag. ![]()
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