The Battle of Midway (1942). US Navy Field Photographic Branch. Held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
The Battle of Midway
Ford filmed the Japanese attack on Midway from an exposed position on the island and was hit by shrapnel; the resulting short went to American cinemas and won the Academy Award.
- Year
- 1942
- Made by
- US Navy Field Photographic Branch
- Directed by
- John Ford
- Free to use because
- A work of the United States government — no copyright, anywhere
The note
The camera shakes because the island is being bombed. Ford was on Midway on 4 June 1942 with a 16mm colour camera and took shrapnel in the arm while shooting. What he brought back was cut into eighteen minutes with four narrators, deliberately including ordinary American voices, so that the film would sound like the country it was addressed to. Heard as audio it is startlingly intimate — the score, the voices, and underneath them the actual concussion of the raid. Public domain.
The Battle of Midway, 1942. US Navy Field Photographic Branch. Directed by John Ford. This is the film’s soundtrack: narration, score and location sound, streamed from the Internet Archive’s master. No picture — the audio is the work. A work of the United States government, and therefore free of copyright anywhere it is used.
The soundtrack