16mm of a world at war
By Steve Herring
Published in News on July 29, 2017 7:43 PM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Dortch Price, 97, sits in his home in Mount Olive. Price was drafted to serve in the United States Army Air Force during World War II. When he was stationed at Guadalcanal, he recorded two 16mm films that have now been entered into the State Archives.
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Dortch Price wears his United States Army Air Force uniform around 1943.
MOUNT OLIVE -- Dortch Price, 97, vividly remembers his service on Guadalcanal during World War II.
He does not need to see the two 16 mm films he shot while on the island to recall those days, nor does he know what all of the uproar is about over those movies.
After all, the undeveloped film lay pretty much forgotten in a drawer at his home near Mount Olive until just over a year ago.
Price said there was nothing special about the movies -- that he just shot what he saw and what interested him.
So what is so important about the footage?
The rare amateur films are historical offering a snapshot of the life of servicemen during that time period, were developed and digitized and are now available online through the State Archives' YouTube page.
Price shot the films with a borrowed camera while stationed with the U.S. Army Air Forces' 38th Air Materials Squadron on Lunga Beach on the island of Guadalcanal in 1943.
The movie camera belonged to Bill Carroll of Ohio, a friend in the unit. Carroll's parents had sent him the 16 mm movie camera and two rolls of film.
Price was able to scrounge up two rolls as well, one black and white and the rare color film.
"That was all that I ever got," Price said. "He just let me use it because I had two rolls of film. I didn't even have them printed. I didn't have any way to do it myself. I couldn't send them home so I brought them home.
"I got home, and I kind of lost interest in it (photography), stuck them in a drawer, and they stayed until a year and a half ago."
Price's daughter-in-law and sister-in-law convinced him to contact State Archives of North Carolina abut the films.
Price said he didn't think too much about it because the films had just occupied space for so many years.
"I didn't really care too much about it," he said. "If they wanted to mess with it all well and good."
Both films are now available online through the State Archives' YouTube page, with complete scene descriptions included.
The black-and-white film is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ5c8lNbv18&feature=youtu.be.
The color film is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmGpGiCbpsI.
A detailed finding aid for the films is available in the State Archives' public search room in Raleigh.
Price as born in a house in the back field of the farm were he now lives on Zion Church Road. The house is long gone, replaced by grain bins.
Price was 22 when he was drafted in 1942 and assigned to the U.S. Army Air Force.
"They just put me there," he said. "I didn't know enough about it to ask for anything. So I tried to keep my mouth shut, stay out of trouble, and I done that. I did that pretty well."
When his unit left California for New Caledonia its members were wearing cold-weather clothing. But they did get warm-weather gear when they arrived at the island.
Holding out his deeply tanned right arm, Price says, "See that? That is the result of living down there. It was pure damn hot. I never had any problem with sunburn when I was home. But I have had it every since. The only place it bothered me was my arms."
There was no dress code on the islands.
"You could wear any damn thing that you wanted to," Price said. "Shorts, you'd take those khaki pants and cut the legs off and throw your shirt away. That is what you wore. As long as you done your job you could almost go naked because there won't no women there."
Actually the were some native women, but they were "not attractive," he said.
Moving from rural Wayne County into the military was a shock, an experience Price said he would have never dreamt of.
And he was homesick.
"But my homesickness disappeared," he said. "When we went under the Golden Gate Bridge I knew I won't coming back so I quit being homesick. I doubted I was ever coming back. I just took it day for day, done the best I could and got along pretty good. When you go to war you know what to expect -- that you ain't coming back. But I lucked up on that.
"All said and done I got along real good. I got an education by being there. It won't a college education, it didn't come with no degrees, but I got an education."
He was trained in Army Air Corps supply -- aircraft parts, gasoline, fuels anything pertaining to an airplane. It did not include food.
"After we got set up to be there (on New Caledonia ) a while it was kind of like a hardware store," Price said. "We had all them parts. Different squadrons would come in with requests, and we went back to the shelves and got it, and they signed for it."
After three months he moved to Fiji for three or four months.
"We didn't know it at the time, but I think we were waiting for them to complete building a base at Lunga Point, Guadalcanal," he said.
Price said they worked from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week If there was a big drive going on, they might work all night or all day.
"You worked until that big drive was over," he said.
The fighting was about over when Price arrived on Guadalcanal in 1943.
He remained there until the early months of 1944.
"I got there in time to see the last two Jap airplanes shot down," he said. "It was at night. It was a beautiful sight. We were always hoping to see one."
The planes flew annoying or harassment flights flying over and around and around the base.
Once in a while they would drop a bomb.
"I don't think they aimed too much, but they annoyed us, kept us awake," he said. "That particularly night, it was not too late. Sirens went off, and of course everybody turned off their lights, started looking."
Spotlights shone skyward and the plane was spotted.
"We had one P-38 pilot up there waiting for him," Price said. "The first thing you know, the P-38 came down in a long dive, pulled up and shot him. He fell. He came down in flames.
"There was another one. We were not expecting that one. He got him, too. You had two Jap planes falling, burning. That was a glorious time, and that ended the Japanese war on Guadalcanal."
The supply setup was the same as on New Caledonia and was basically like going to Lowe's, he said. Items were cataloged. His area was oils, greases ad chemicals.
"I was not a photographer," Price said. "I had never owned a camera in my life, but I kind of got fascinated with them. I come into possession of a kind of nice camera. My commanding officer was good to me. He helped me with what I was doing. I began to make pictures, develop and print them."
That included making a portrait of every man in his outfit. He gave them one copy and the 4-inch by 5-inch negative. Price said he made 350 such portraits.
He no longer has the camera, a Speed Graphic.
"When I left the island, I left it," he said.
Price said he wasn't bothered "one damn bit" about concerns he could get in trouble for taking the photos or shooting movie film.
"If I could get my hands on the film and the camera, I used it," he said. "Now of course when I sent pictures home they were censored. You couldn't send certain pictures. If you sent a picture of a boat with big numbers on the side, you had to black out the number."
Price said the men in the outfit wanted more photos than he could print.
He would send negatives to his mother who would take them to Charles Kraft who ran a studio in Mount Olive. Kraft would print the negative, and his mother mailed them to the different soldiers.
"I don't know how many, but there were thousands of them," he said. "If I saw it, I made a picture of it. That is about what I made pictures (and film) of -- scenery, airplanes, boats, people, just anything.
"I had an ample supply of film. I got it in a big roll 20 inches wide. I had to cut the film. It had to be total darkness."
To start with Price did not have a darkroom until he converted a bomb crate into one with the help of his commander who had the carpentry shop rebuild it into a little room.
It was about 8-foot square with a light-proof door, no windows and no ventilation, but it was wired,, he said.
Price made his own enlargement equipment using light bulbs and could expose up to six negatives at once.
He said if something struck his fancy he took a photo of it.
He also volunteered for 43 aerial reconnaissance missions.
"I enjoyed every minute of it, except one," he said. "They shot a section of wing off the airplane."
The airplane wobbled and the pilot told the crew to prepare to bail out.
"But nobody made a move to bail out, the damn airplane was flying right on," he said. "We decided a good airplane was better than a chance. So we didn't bail out and he brought us back.
"That ended my flying career. That was it, but that was kind of toward the end (of the war). But I enjoyed the 43 missions. The scenery was beautiful, flying over those islands. Mindoro (in the Philippines) is a mountainous place, and I like the mountains, and I got a bird's-eye view of them."
In early 1944, Price moved to Middleburg, a small island 10 miles off the coast of New Guinea.
It was one and one-eighth of a mile long and five-eighths of a mile wide.
There was nothing on the island but big ugly lizards and coconut trees, he said. Drinking water had to be brought over.
The island was turned into a runway with earth movers extending the ends of the island. But every time a storm hit, the ends would be washed away and have to be rebuilt, normally in a day's time.
He was serving in Palawan, the Philippines in 1945 when the war ended. While there his skills as a photographer was called on again.
A cave had been discovered containing the bodies of 16 American prisoners of war who had been burned alive by the Japanese ahead of the U.S. advance.
The bodies had been in the cave for several days, and Price had to wear a gas mask.
"It was a pitiful sight," he said. "That sight has stuck with me all these years."
Price received his discharge at 3 a.m. Dec. 20 1945 at Fort Bragg.
He took the bus to Warsaw where be paid a local "hooligan" $20 to drive him home to Mount Olive where he was first greeted by his dog.
And the film that could cause such a stir nearly three-quarters of a century later was stored away.