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“I looked at it as a great adventure”
October 31st
“I think it’s very important for the public, our commanders, our leaders, to have pictures, both motion and stills, showing what is going on in a war,” said Ned Hockman, when I visited with him at his home last August. “It’s making a record, to record the happenings so that the people that are paying the bills or people that are supposed to be winning the war are doing that. That’s the contribution of combat cameramen in war.”
Hockman was one of a select group of photographers who were responsible for making a record of World War II for the U.S. War Department. Hockman grew up in Carnegie, Oklahoma and attended Cameron College in Lawton on a football and speech scholarship. His father had taught him photography, so he got a job as a photographer for the Lawton Morning Press. After a year at Cameron he received a scholarship to the University of Oklahoma, and that’s where he was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
Hockman was drafted the next summer. He didn’t have the eyesight to become a pilot, but was chosen to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He trained at Ft. Sill in Lawton, Sheppard Field in Wichita Falls, Texas, and Lowry Field in Denver, Colorado before being assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, California. The Adjutant was a young captain named Ronald Reagan. Hockman trained in California for a year and a half before getting orders to go to his new home for the rest of the war, the China-Burma-India theater.
(above, left) Ned Hockman, combat cameraman.
“Our assignment was to make combat coverage of all types of action of the Air Corps,” Hockman remembered. “That included flying equipment over the hump to China and later on to Burma when we pushed the Japanese out of Burma. Then, we would support the bombing missions. We would cover the Air Transport Command, the B-25’s and B-24’s. We did stories on the building of the air field, and stories on the fighters.”
It was a laborious and sometimes dangerous process. “When I’d go out on a shoot I’d have a parachute on this shoulder, in a box my 35 mm camera, a black case with a speed graphic camera, and I carried a Thompson sub-machine gun. So, I would waddle with that,” Hockman recalled. “We’d go out on assignment, with 10 100-foot rolls of film in each case. You’d take the pictures and when it was all done we’d either give it to someone who was going on the redeye or special plane that was taking film and stuff to Calcutta, or we’d call headquarters and they would pick it up. It would take another three days or so to get it over to the Pentagon to process the film.”
Hockman says much of the film was bought from the U.S. Government by newsreels, which showed the realities of war to the people back home. However, Hockman admits many of the shots were staged. “In combat, you can only shoot the backs of people, you can never see the shots being fired from the front of the gun. So, you show preparation, and you shoot to your right and shoot to your left as the troops move forward. And then, you show the aftermath - the dead, the captors, the aftermath. A lot of the film we shot wasn’t very good, because it’s very difficult.”
Danger was a constant companion for photographers, but Hockman told me there is little time to think about it. “You just do your job,” he said, “and you don’t really have time to think. You’re not paying any attention to what’s going on around you, because you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing (to get coverage). I looked at it as a great adventure.”
After World War II, Hockman returned to Oklahoma and stayed in the Air Force Reserves. He returned to combat status as a photographer during the Korean War. Hockman rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Reserves, and retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1981.
In his long career at the University of Oklahoma, Hockman established the Film Department, shot film of OU football games, produced the ground-breaking Bud Wilkinson Coaches Show, hosted the National Press Photographers Association annual training for almost three decades, and photographed or produced countless other productions, including a feature film, “Stark Fear.” He was inducted into the National Television Academy of Arts and Sciences Gold Circle in October, 2006.
Until next time, Dick Pryor
(Ned Hockman was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on October 31, 2007. To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’s Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.)
“You do what must be done”
October 2nd
Ministers cannot be drafted into the military, but Charles Richmond knew, when the United States entered World War II, that he was destined to serve. “You remember the picture of Uncle Sam pointing right at you - we want you? As a minister I looked at that picture,” Richmond said, “and looking over the shoulder of Uncle Sam was God himself, looking at me and saying,’I want you’.”
Richmond had been married about three years, but he decided he would rather pray with the the soldiers in the theater of war, rather than stay home and pray for them. “I just thought I needed to get in the Army,” Richmond told me, “because they needed chaplains and our men needed guidance during that time and I just felt that’s what God wanted me to do.”
Richmond went to Harvard University for a one-month orientation for chaplains and 30 days later received his military orders. He not only had to leave his wife, but the Baptist church in Oklahoma County, just west of Edmond, that he had pastored for two years. Richmond went to Rothschilds in Oklahoma City to buy a uniform, and reported to Will Rogers Field to get sworn in. He remembers that he avoided seeing any enlisted men because he did not know how to salute. 
Richmond boarded a ship in California and sailed across the Pacific, stopping in New Zealand and Australia before reaching his final destination, India. Richmond got to know his men on the long ship ride. He remembers that the ship was crowded and there was hardly any room for the men to sleep. With 7,000 on-board they could only get on deck for a couple of hours each day to get some fresh air. He stayed with those same men for two and a half years. “The men,” he said, ” may have gotten bored, but I was busy all the time, conducting church services. And, if the men had a problem, they took it to the chaplain.”
Richmond served in the China-Burma-India Theater, where American troops were busy helping supply their Chinese allies, either by flying “over the hump” (the Himalaya Mountains) or by constructing and using the Burma Road. He recalls that many casualties in Burma were from health hazards. In fact, the first casualty was from malaria, caused by a mosquito bite. 
The chaplain had many duties: delivering death messages from home, Dear John letters, helping the troops deal with loss and the anxiety of war. Richmond drove to the frontlines every two weeks to minister to his troops and conduct funerals and memorial services (he received permission to drive to the front day or night, but was prohibited from carrying a weapon) . He also had the solemn task of writing to the parents of the soldiers who had been killed and explaining the kind of service he performed for their child.
Two of the death messages were delivered to Richmond himself. Both of Richmond’s parents died while he was in Asia. It was a tough time, but his faith got him through. He dealt with his loss through prayer. “Somebody would say,” Richmond said, “everybody takes their problems to the chaplain. Who does the chaplain take his problems to? And, invariably they would say, he takes his problems to God.”
After the war, Richmond received a doctorate in education and became a professor of education and Dean of Students at Central State University (now the University of Central Oklahoma). He also pastored a church and returned to combat duty during the Korean War. Dr. Richmond served in the National Guard for more than twenty years and rose to the rank of Colonel. Even now, in retirement, at the age of 89, Dr. Richmond stays active by holding worship services once a month. 
He says the war was bound to have changed him, perhaps by instilling “a deeper faith, a deeper love, a deeper confidence.” Richmond adds, “there’s not much good about war, but it brings out the best, sometimes the worst, but mostly the best in a man. When you’re in a position that we were in, you just stand tall, throw your shoulders back, depend on the Lord and do what must be done.”
Until next time, Dick Pryor
(Charles Richmond was profiled on the Oklahoma News Report on October 2, 2007. To see the story, click on “Videos” on this website and go to “OETA’s Dick Pryor interviews Oklahoma WWII veterans.)