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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
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.
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2 Lee, David D., Sergeant York: An American Hero (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1987)Google Scholar; Graham, Don, No Name on the Bullet: A Biography of Audie Murphy (New York: Viking, 1989)Google Scholar. New York Times, 19, 20, 29 Jan., 26 Feb., 5, 11, 23 April, 4 Sept., 1943, 6 June, 17, 18 Oct. 1944, 28 March, 23 May 1945; Butterfield, Roger, “Al Schmid, Hero: Newly Blinded While Killing 200 Japs, He Has Returned to the Girl Who Waited for Him,” Life, 22 03 1943, 35, 40–4Google Scholar; Philadelphia Inquirier, 11 Nov. 1942, 6 May 1943, 11 Oct. 1944, 7 Dec. 1982 (editorial); undated clippings, from Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Record and Philadelphia Bulletin newspapers, in the Delmar Daves Collection, Stanford University Libraries (hereafter, cited as DDC) and in the Al Schmid file, Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C. (hereafter, cited as MCHC); Pittsburgh Gazette, 26 Feb. 1943; Albany, Knickerbocker News, 11 02 1943Google Scholar; Washington, D.C. News, 18 10 1944Google Scholar. Butterfield's Al Schmid — Marine closely follows the representation of Als' life that appeared as “Al Schmid, Hero,” in Life.
3 The movies based on the lives of York, and Murphy, are: Sergeant York (1941; dir., Howard Hawks)Google Scholar; and To Hell and Back (1955; dir., Jesse)Google Scholar.
4 On the situational, non-ideological roots of combat heroism, see, Lindermann, Gerald, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 7–110Google Scholar; Keegan, John, The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme (London: Jonathan Cape, 1976), 114–6, 191–3, 274–84Google Scholar; Marshall, S. L. A., Men Against Fire (New York: Morrow and Infantry Journal, 1947), 76, 150–2, 160–1Google Scholar; Marling, Karal Ann and Wetenhall, John, Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories, and The American Hero (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 102–21, 145, 172–3, 242CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Schmid's self-description, see, Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 17Google Scholar.
5 The influences on my conception of Schmid's story lie in historical and social psychological literature on war and myth making and on the narrative construction of the self. See, Marling and Wetenhall, Iwo Jima; and Bruner, Jerome, Acts of Meaning (Cambridgé: Harvard University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Gergen, Kenneth and Gergen, Mary, “Narratives of The Self,” in Studies in Social Identity, ed., Sarbin, Theodore R. (New York: Prager, 1983), 254–73Google Scholar; Schlenker, Barry R., Impression Management: The Self-Concept, Social Identity, and Interpersonal Relations (Monterey, CA: Wadsworth, 1980)Google Scholar.
6 Telephone interview with Ruth Schmid, 3 Aug. 1990 (hereafter, cited as RS, 3/8/1990); Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 13Google Scholar.
7 RS, 3/8/1990. Copies of the wartime letters exchanged by Al Schmid and Ruth Hartley are found in box 18, folder 9, DDC.
9 Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 21–44Google Scholar; Virginia Pfeiffer to Ruth Hartley, 17 Nov. 1942, DDC.
9 RS, 3/8/1990.
10 Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 38–45Google Scholar; Al Schmid to Ruth Hartley, “Friday,” n.d. [1942], DDC.
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12 Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 71, 73Google Scholar, Satterfield, Archie, The Day the War Began (Westport: Praeger, 1992), 129 and passimGoogle Scholar. On the influence of war movies on the imaginations of young American men, see Suid, Laurence H., Guts and Glory: Great American War Movies (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1978), 100–6Google Scholar.
13 Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 48, 66, 83Google Scholar. On the pervasiveness of anti-Japanese racism among Americans, see, Dower, John, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon, 1986), 77–178Google Scholar.
14 RS, 3/8/1990; Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 63, 89–93Google Scholar; Saint Petersburg Independent, 20 April, 6 Oct. 1957. On Marine training philosophy and combat performance, see, Dwyer, Gwynne, War, (New York: Crown Publishers, 1985), 104, 108, 114, 117–25Google Scholar.
15 Stouffer, Samuel, et al. , Combat and Its Aftermath, vol. 2 of The American Soldier (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949), 131–2, 150–1Google Scholar; Sklar, Robert, City Boys: Cagney, Bogart, Garfield (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 163, 188 and passimGoogle Scholar; Dick, Bernard, The Star-Spangled Screen: The American World War II Film (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985), 21–2, 165–71Google Scholar.
16 Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 113–29Google Scholar; RS, 3/8/1990; Virginia Pfeiffer to Ruth Hartley, 28 Oct., 3, 4, 20 Nov., 3, 8 Dec. 1942; Al Schmid to Ruth Hartley, 31 Oct. 1942; Virginia Pfeiffer to “Mrs. Schmid” [Al's sister-in-law], 4 Nov. 1942, DDC.
17 Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 Nov. 1942; undated clippings [1942], Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Record, DDC and MCHC; Virginia Pfeiffer to Ruth Hartley, 13, 17 Nov. 1942; Al Schmid to “Everybody,” 27 Nov. 1942, DDC; Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 126–28Google Scholar; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4 Aug. 1945.
18 Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 132–5Google Scholar; Virginia Pfeiffer to Ruth Hartley, 9, 28 Dec. 1942; Al Schmid to Ruth Hartley, 12 Jan. 1943; DDC; Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 Oct. 1944, New York Times, 26 Feb., 5, 11, 23 April, 4 Sept. 1943; “Girl He Left Behind Greets Blind Marine,” undated clipping, DDC.
19 New York Times, 23 May 1945, 29 January, 7 June, 22 October 1946; undated itinerary, “March” [1943?], DDC; Washington Star, 13 March 1946.
20 New York Times, 22 May, 7 Nov. 1946; Washington Star, 13 March 1946.
21 RS, 3/8/1990; Saint Petersburg Independent, 20 April, 6 Oct. 1957, 7 Aug. 1962, 25 Sept. 1965; Saint Petersburg Times, 5 Nov. 1961, 10 Nov. 1962, 8 June 1972.
22 RS, 3/8/1990; New York Times, 5 April 1943; San Diego Union, 5 April 1943.
23 RS, 3/8/1990.
24 RS, 3/8/1990.
25 Greenwood, Lloyd, “The Blinded Veteran,” in Blindness, ed., Zahl, Paul A. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), 261Google Scholar.
26 Ibid., 264, 266–8; Chevigny, Hector, The Adjustment of the Blind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), 228–30Google Scholar; Carroll, Thomas J., Blindness: What It Is, What It Does, and How To Live With It (Boston: Little Brown, 1960), 3–87Google Scholar; Brown, Robert and Schutte, Hope, Our Fight: A Battle Against Darkness (Washington, D.C.: Blinded Veterans Association, 1991), 3–5, 11, 15, 35–41Google Scholar; Stromer, Walt, “A Letter Too Late,” The BVA Bulletin, 45 (07–08 1990), 8Google Scholar.
27 Blackburn, Alan R., “The Army Blind in the United States,” in Blindness, ed., Zahl, , 272–87Google Scholar; and Merle Frampton, “Rehabilitation Procedures in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard,” in ibid., 288–93.
28 Virginia Pfeiffer to Ruth Hartley, 8 Dec. 1942, DDC; Fraser, Ian, “The Service War-Blinded in Great Britain,” in Blindness, ed., Zahl, , 297–8Google Scholar; Chevigny, , The Adjustment of the Blind, 228–30Google Scholar.
29 Butterfield, , Al Schmid — Marine, 124, 128Google Scholar; Koestler, , The Unseen Minority, 271–2Google Scholar; Frampton, , “Rehabilitation Procedures in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard,” in Blindness, ed., Zahl, 288–93Google Scholar; telephone interview with Dr. Ed Glass, clinical psychologist and blinded veteran of World War II, 3 Aug. 1990 (hereafter, cited as EG, 3/8/1990).
30 Brown, and Schutte, , Our Fight, 15, 42–50Google Scholar; Hoover, Richard, “The Cane as A Travel Aid,” in Blindness, ed., Zahl, Paul A., 353–65Google Scholar.
31 RS, 3/8/1990; New York Times, 23 May 1945.
32 Telephone interviews with Gloria Adalion, coordinator (retired), Visual Impairment Services, Bay Pines VA Hospital, St. Petersburg, Florida, 6, 15 Aug. 1990, 13 June 1992. Ms. Adalion spoke to me about Al after obtaining Ruth Schmid's permission.
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).
36 Brown, and Schutte, , Our Fight, 11–23Google Scholar; Koestler, , The Unseen Minority, 380–8Google Scholar; New York Times, 26 June 1945, 20 Jan., 9 June, 9 Aug., 27 Nov. 1946, 7 Sept. 1947, 13 March, 13 April, 8 Aug., 3 Sept., 20 Oct. 1948; Greenwood, , “The Blinded Veteran,” in Blindness, ed., Zahl, , 269–70Google Scholar.
37 Koestler, , The Unseen Minority, 276–7, 279, 315–6Google Scholar; Brown, and Schutte, , Our Fight, 46–50Google Scholar; Chevigny, , The Adjustment of the Blind, 245–6Google Scholar; New York Times Magazine, 19 05 1946, 56Google Scholar.
38 Williams, “Some Historical Perspectives on VIST and Blindness,” 7; Williams, Russell, “Believers,” VIS View (Winter, 1989), 4–6Google Scholar; Papadimoulis, Ellen, “Editorial,” VIS View (Winter, 1989), 1–2Google Scholar.
39 EG, 3/8/1990; EH, 14/8/1990; and telephone interviews with Raymond Frey, first president of the BVA, 24 July 1990 (hereafter, cited as RF, 24/7/1990); and Russell Williams, 24 July 1990 (hereafter, cited as RW, 24/7/1990).
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.
