This day in Military History
On this day, 20 September, in 1944, Academy award winning Australian cameraman Damien Parer was killed while filming American troops on Peleliu in the Pacific. Parer’s documentary Front line Kokoda won an Oscar for best documentary in 1943. Having filmed Australians in action during the early years of the war, Parer accepted a job with the American film company Paramount to film American’s in action in the Pacific.
The man
and the image
The Australian War Memorial has a piece on Damien here and Neil McDonald has written a biography of Damien, reviewed here. Murray Sayle, a war correspondence of some note himself, has a lengthy piece in a 2004 edition of Quadrant. It is worth the read, not just for Sayle’s perspective on Parer, but for his perspective on MacArthur and Blamey. He is not complimentary and in my opinion, neither should he be. I would however question some of his interpretations of Japanese capabilities.
Worth the time for those with an interest in our history. Damien Parer did a lot to ensure the Australian people knew exactly what it was their military forces were confronting in North Australia and the Pacific in the dark days of 1942.
The man
and the image
The Australian War Memorial has a piece on Damien here and Neil McDonald has written a biography of Damien, reviewed here. Murray Sayle, a war correspondence of some note himself, has a lengthy piece in a 2004 edition of Quadrant. It is worth the read, not just for Sayle’s perspective on Parer, but for his perspective on MacArthur and Blamey. He is not complimentary and in my opinion, neither should he be. I would however question some of his interpretations of Japanese capabilities.
Worth the time for those with an interest in our history. Damien Parer did a lot to ensure the Australian people knew exactly what it was their military forces were confronting in North Australia and the Pacific in the dark days of 1942.
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