WWII combat cinematographer Norman Hatch dies at 96
Maj. Norman T. Hatch, a Marine combat cinematographer during World War II whose harrowing footage became the basis of an Academy Award-winning documentary short, has died, his son said. He was 96.
Hatch died Saturday of natural causes at a nursing home in Alexandria, Virginia, the city where he lived for most of his life, said his son, N. Thomas Hatch Jr.
Hatch's footage of the 1943 Battle of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands, now part of Micronesia, was unusually graphic, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt had to give special permission for the resulting documentary to be shown as a newsreel. The documentary, "With the Marines at Tarawa," won the Academy Award for best documentary short.
