Norman Hatch, Marine who captured heroism and horror on film, dies at 96 – The Washington Post

His film of Marines taking Pacific island of Tarawa in World War II won an Academy Award.

Norman T. Hatch, a Marine Corps cinematographer who produced some of the most intimate and harrowing glimpses of war seen on film and whose dramatic footage of the Battle of Tarawa during World War II won an Academy Award, died April 22 at a nursing home in Alexandria, Va. He was 96.

The cause could not immediately be determined, said his son, N. Thomas Hatch Jr.

Using a hand-cranked 16mm camera, Mr. Hatch and his crews in the Marine Corps’ newly formed Photographic Services Branch captured several fierce battles in the Pacific Theater as they happened. The resulting film revealed the heroism and horror of battle in sometimes raw and unsettling ways.

Source: Norman Hatch, Marine who captured heroism and horror on film, dies at 96 – The Washington Post