Searching for John Ford: A Life (Joseph McBride, 2000) 

After being appointed a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve in September 1934, Ford made periodic cruises aboard his yacht down the coast of Baja California between 1936 and 1939, gathering information for the 11th Naval District. He reported that the crews of Japanese shrimp boats off the Mexican coast were spying and constituting “a real menace” to national defense. He said that there were Imperial Navy officers aboard the trawlers and that the Japanese were familiar with every cove and inlet of the Gulf of California. Ford was commended for his “unselfish and patriotic work. What his military records do indicate is that he performed reconnaissance missions in Mexico for the navy between 1935 and 1939, turning in secret reports and receiving citations for spying on the Japanese military pres- ence in Baja California. In contrast with Sinclair’s portrait of Ford leading a “boyish” double life inspired by a “playful sense of conspiracy,” Ford in fact was deadly serious about his spying. He fully recognized the grave implications of the rise of fascism in Germany and Japan during the 1930s and was pre- scient in his understanding that war was becoming inevitable. His inside knowledge no doubt stemmed in part from his closeness to superior officers, with whom he took pains to ingratiate himself, both for the sake of his own career interests and out of a genuine desire to be of vital service in military reconnaissance during an impending national emergency. 

Among Ford’s military records is a document revealing that there was in- deed a hidden purpose behind his obtaining a navy commission. In a 1941 au- tobiographical sheet prepared for the navy, Ford wrote, “In 1931 I was asked by Admiral Frank H. Schofield, Captain Herbert Jones, and Lieutenant Com- mander Gail Morgan to prepare a course in naval photography; its uses, tacti- cal, historical, and propaganda. In 1934 I was commissioned as a Lieutenant Commander in the Naval Reserve to forward this work, upon the recom- mendation of Admiral Schofield.” In a report during World War II on the for- mation in 1940 of his combat photography unit, the Field Photographic Branch of the U.S.Navy, Ford added further details, writing that he had been ordered by Captain Jones in 1934 to plan a course in “Naval and Combat Photography.” He explained that the navy wanted him to use his positions in the Naval Reserve and the film industry, as well as his experience as a yachts- man, “in studying infra-red and other supersensitive films and complementary filters as to their efficacy on sea and in the air, particularly in tropical waters.” As part of his preparation during the 1930s, Ford studied how to make training films and conducted a study of aerial and sea photography. He exag- gerated somewhat when he claimed to have “pioneered combat and sea photography” for the navy. But it was true that he “visualized the great im- portance of photography in times of peace and war,” as his commanding offi- cer, W W Waddell, wrote in February 1941. In addition to providing data for the Office of Naval Intelligence, Ford’s reconnaissance and mapping of Mex- ican waters gave him valuable practice in the art of photographic documenta- tion. 

Ford’s reports were “of considerable importance/’ he was told in a 1936 let- ter of commendation from navy lieutenant commander A. A. Hopkins. “For your own personal information, [I] will state that of the six yachts who [sic] have been requested to make observations during the past two years, the Araner, its owner and commander are the only ones who have made entrance to the area you explored and who have brought back the data wanted.” The ONI noted in July 1936 that Ford had contributed “valuable and most inter- esting data on Scammon Lagoon” in Baja California. For that report, Ford spent two days with Araner captain George Goldrainer and crew members photographing and charting the area from launches. Ford wrote that while he had seen no indication of a Japanese presence, the isolated lagoon was “close enough to shipping lanes to serve as an ideal place to either stockpile supplies or to serve as a rendezvous point for submarines and sub tenders.”

Ford’s annus mirabilis of 1939 saw the release of Stagecoach, Young Mr Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk, the director s informal “Americana trilogy.” By immersing himself in the American past and bringing it so stir- ringly alive in those three films, Ford reached his full-blown maturity as an artist, triumphantly finding the themes and motifs that would involve him for the remainder of his career.  At a time when the world stood at the brink of war and America s role as a world power was being challenged by the demands of isolationists and inter- ventionists alike, Ford used his 1939 excursions into the American past as a means of urgently reexamining national values. Focusing on the formative years of the republic and its western expansion, he acknowledged some of the darker elements of the early American story while glossing over others that he preferred, at this point, not to examine too closely. If the patriotic messages sent forth from these films were somewhat ambivalent, since they were couched in terms of nostalgia for a brighter and now vanished past, Fords look back into American history at this turning point in his career neverthe-less was suffused with optimism about the future of his country and its demo- cratic way of life. 

Its only a slight exaggeration to say that 1939 was the year John Ford dis- covered America. Not coincidentally, the end of the thirties also marked the high point of Ford’s Popular Front period. Hollywood liberals and leftists joined forces in those years, concerned about the rise of fascism in Europe and Japan, as well as about the continuing economic problems of the Great Depression. At a time when isolationism was still rampant and served to inhibit President Roo- sevelt’s foreign policy, Ford was well ahead of most other Americans in his concern about the probability of war between the democracies and the fascist powers. That concern was reflected not only in his filmmaking but also in his service in the navy reserve and his involvement in Hollywood political organizations. American leftists during the Popular Front period emphasized patriotic rhetoric as a way of finding common ground with liberals in defense of basic democratic principles. That urgent patriotic groundswell no doubt influenced Ford’s cinematic focus in his 1939 trilogy about western pioneers, Abraham Lincoln, and the Revolutionary War, as well as his decision to film John Stein- beck’s controversial 1939 protest novel about the mistreatment of migrant workers, The Grapes of Wrath. Ford’s heartfelt patriotism was expressed in symbolic, almost pop-art terms in Drums Along theMohawk, whose ending offers one of the director’s most joyously optimistic, if somewhat nai’ve, affirmations of American national unity. At the end of the Revolutionary War, when the first American flag ar- rives at a fort in New York’s Mohawk Valley, Ward Bond runs it up the flag- pole in a burst of patriotic frenzy to the tune of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” The pioneer couple Gil and Lana Martin, played by Henry Fonda (in a tri- cornered hat) and Claudette Colbert (wearing a red bonnet and a blue-and- white dress), pridefully watch the flag-raising along with a beaming black servant (Beulah Hall Jones) and a Christian Indian who salutes the flag (Chief Big Tree). All are symbolically gathered in multiracial harmony to celebrate the birth of the nation. For Ford, the fact that the new nation was “conceived in liberty” is enough for the African-American and the Native American to celebrate, even though their own personal liberty has yet to be won. Perhaps this flaw in the fabric of American democracy is obliquely acknowledged in the film’s final lines when Gil says, “Well, I reckon we better be gettin’ back  to work. It’s gonna be a heap to do from now on.”
Ford’s militancy on behalf of the Screen Directors Guild helped ease him into publicly supporting more controversial political causes that reached be- yond Hollywood in the late thirties. Although he was a Catholic and the Church supported the Fascist revolt of General Francisco Franco against the Spanish Republican government, Ford became an active backer of the Loyal- ist cause in the Spanish civil war, serving as one of the founders of the Mo- tion Picture Artists Committee to Aid Republican Spain, along with Dudley Nichols, Dashiell Hammett, Donald Ogden Stewart, Lester Cole, Melvyn Douglas, Fredric March, John Garfield, and others. The MPAC, which eventually grew to a membership of fifteen thousand, held rallies and benefits to raise support for Loyalist soldiers and Spanish refugees. In July 1937, novelist Ernest Hemingway came to Hollywood to seek funds for the Loyalists. Hem- ingway was guest of honor at a party held at the home of March and his wife, Florence Eldridge, both of whom had acted in Mary of Scotland. They invited Ford to their gathering, at which Hemingway screened a documentary film, The Spanish Earth, that he had helped Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens make on the battlefront. Ford was not particularly a fan of Hemingway’s work, but after spending some time talking with the writer about the fighting in Spain, he wound up donating an ambulance to the Spanish government. 

Bob Ford, one of the sons of Francis Ford, was a member of the Interna- tional Brigade in Spain. From Albacete on September 30, 1937, Bob wrote his uncle Jack a thank-you letter for the ambulance. Confessing surprise that Ford was interested in their cause, Bob expressed pleasure that American liberals like his uncle were supporting the Loyalist forces. Assuring Ford that, contrary to Fascist propaganda, the brigade was not entirely made up of Communists, Bob added that Ford would be intrigued to learn that there were many former IRA men in the British battalion. Ford must have felt chastened to be responding to Bob s letter from a ranch on the Hudson River in upstate New York, near West Point, where he had gone to dry out from another alcoholic binge. “I am glad you [have] the good part of the O’Feeney blood,” Ford wrote his nephew. “Some of it is very God- damned awful—we are liars, weaklings & selfish drunkards, but there has always been a stout rebel quality in the family and a peculiar passion for justice. I am glad you inherited the good strain. Politically, I am a definite socialistic demo- crat—always left.” But Ford added that, having paid close attention to the de- velopment of the Soviet Union, he was convinced that Communism was not the answer to the world s problems because it ran the risk of bringing about despotism. Suggesting that Bob keep a combat diary with an eye to writing a book, Ford advised him to be on the alert for details of both comedy and drama. He cautioned his nephew to be as careful as possible in battle against the Fascists. In an anti-Semitic “joke” that seemed particularly at odds with the cause for which Bob wasfighting, Ford added that he hoped aJew wouldn’t be feeding Bob ammunition. 

Ford addressed a public rally held by the group at the Shrine Auditorium on January 30, 1938, the fifth anniversary of Adolf Hitlers rise to power. The rally’s theme was “The Nazi Menace in America.” That spring Ford became involved in a labor issue that seemed relatively in- nocuous at the time but would have unexpected ramifications years later for his friend and colleague Frank Capra. Ford joined the picket line on the first day of the strike, along with fellow SDG board members Capra and Herbert Biberman. Dunne and Robert Montgomery, the president of the Screen Actors Guild, also were there rep- resenting their guilds. “We spent about five minutes walking up and down the picket lines and had our pictures taken,” Dunne recalled. A photo of Ford, Capra, and Biberman standing in front of the newspaper building “as they joined the picket line” appeared in the Hollywood Citizen-News Striker (an ad hoc publication by the striking employees) on June 1 under the heading “Film Directors Give Aid.” There was a mild backlash within the Directors Guild. At a board meeting on June 6, the conservative director Howard Hawks criticized the publication of the picketing invitation in the Bulletin, and the board re- served the right to approve such action in the future. 

The House Committee on Un-American Activities was created on May 26, just nine days after Ford appeared with his colleagues on the picket line. HUAC was already turning its sights on Hollywood as part of its mandate to investigate “the extent, character, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States.” Referring to a report in the West Coast Communist Party newspaper People’s World, HUAC placed an item in a file on Capra indicating that: “The 30 May 1938 issue of the People’s World described CAPRA as a member of the picket line in the Hollywood Citizen s [sic] News Strike which was Communist inspired.” That citation, among similar charges, would cause problems for Capra during the postwar Hollywood blacklist era, forcing him to call on Ford for help.  During the same period of the late thirties when Ford considered himself “a definite socialistic democrat—always left,” he served in a semiofficial capacity as a spy for U.S. Naval Intelligence. Fords spying missions to Mexico are amply documented in his U.S. Navy personnel file and his personal papers, but Dan Ford’s biography, written before John Ford’s official navy file was released, mocks his grandfather’s accounts of these missions. The book’s account of a mission to Baja California in 1939 suggests that Ford was “fantasizing” and that his objec- tive was not gathering genuine intelligence but “advancing himself in the Navy. 

Pappy does not quote the letter of commendation Ford received from the navy in January 1940 for the seven-page report he filed on possible Japanese military activity in Mexico. The navy praised his “initiative in securing the valuable information contained in your very interesting Intelligence Report of 30 December 1939 on Lower California and the Gulf of California. Your ef- forts to obtain this information, voluntarily and at your own expense, are con- sidered very commendable. Japanese infiltration south of the Mexican border was of particular concern to the man who supervised Ford’s missions, Captain Ellis M. Zacharias, chief intelligence officer of the Eleventh Naval District at San Diego, the district in which Ford served as a naval reserve officer. Zacharias worried that Japanese fishing trawlers might be surveying Mexican waters for the Imperial Navy and stockpiling supplies and equipment for possible later use by submarines. Ford’s cover as a yachtsman, sport fisherman, and carouser gave him the perfect op- portunity to sail from port to port observing Japanese activity. While some of the fishermen and other Japanese whom Ford observed on such trips may well have been innocent of any military purpose, it’s too easy in hindsight to dis- count the genuine fears the United States had about the vulnerability of Mex- ico, Central America, and South America to such infiltration in the years prior to the onset of war with Germany and Japan. There is no doubt that such fears were exaggerated. Public hysteria over a possible Japanese invasion led to one of the worst episodes of injustice in American history, the interning of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps for the duration of the war. But during the early days of America’s involvement in the war, the Japanese mili- tary did make some attempts to attack the western states with submarines, miniature airplanes, and balloon bombs. 

General William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, director of the Office of Strate- gic Services (OSS), reported in 1943 that Ford had “devoted himself to the study of intelligence matters” during much of his time in the Naval Reserve before World War II. On September 15, 1941, four days after being called to Washington for active duty in the navy, Ford wrote in a navy document that he had performed “several Naval Intelligence assignments” as a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve. “I have made numerous voyages [on the Araner] to Hawaii, Panama, the Mexican Coast, and various places on the Pa- cific,” he elaborated in a 1941 navy biographical sheet. “Trips to the Mexican Coast have been mainly at the suggestion of Captain Zacharias, USN.” This kind of activity began soon after Ford received his commission in September 1934, and continued at least until February-March 1941, when he undertook a three-week mission to Mazatlan and La Paz. In his October 1935 annual fitness report for the navy, Ford wrote, “Under Instructions from Director Naval Reserve llth Naval District [Capt. Herbert A. Jones] have made research covering camera photography and camouflage problems. As Master of my 108-foot Ketch Araner have cruised Coast of Mex- ico to Acapulco visiting en route La Paz, Mazatlan—Tres Marias [Islands]— Cleopha—Manzanillo—Have just completed a round trip to Hawaii on Araner visiting all the Islands. Visited the Sub Base V-4 . . .” Jones described Ford in the same report as an “Excellent officer, enthusiastic, loyal, intelligent, influential in his community. Has been working intensely in an effort to col- lect photographic and camouflage information likely to be of value to the Navy.” 

Ford’s intelligence activities eventually led to his formation of the Field Photographic Branch of the OSS to document military activity in World War II and provide mapping and other photographic reconnaissance information. Ford began organizing Field Photo, as it was called, on an unofficial basis as a Naval Reserve unit in 1939, but it was not fully operational until September 1941. Ironically, the navy declined to accept Ford’s unit for wartime service, forcing him to turn for backing to Donovan’s newly formed overseas intelli- gence agency. However, Ford’s prewar activities in concert with Naval Intelli- gence and the conditions of his recruitment into the Naval Reserve clearly indicate the navy’s awareness that he would be a valuable asset in any future combat situation. As part of his preparation during the 1930s, Ford studied how to make training films and conducted a study of aerial and sea photography. He exag- gerated somewhat when he claimed to have “pioneered combat and sea photography” for the navy. But it was true that he “visualized the great im- portance of photography in times of peace and war,” as his commanding offi- cer, W W Waddell, wrote in February 1941. In addition to providing data for the Office of Naval Intelligence, Ford’s reconnaissance and mapping of Mex- ican waters gave him valuable practice in the art of photographic documenta- tion. 

Ford’s reports were “of considerable importance/’ he was told in a 1936 let- ter of commendation from navy lieutenant commander A. A. Hopkins. “For your own personal information, [I] will state that of the six yachts who [sic] have been requested to make observations during the past two years, the Araner, its owner and commander are the only ones who have made entrance to the area you explored and who have brought back the data wanted.” The ONI noted in July 1936 that Ford had contributed “valuable and most inter- esting data on Scammon Lagoon” in Baja California. For that report, Ford spent two days with Araner captain George Goldrainer and crew members photographing and charting the area from launches. Ford wrote that while he had seen no indication of a Japanese presence, the isolated lagoon was “close enough to shipping lanes to serve as an ideal place to either stockpile supplies or to serve as a rendezvous point for submarines and sub tenders.” 

On his 1939 trip to Baja California and the Gulf of California, Ford was accompanied by Mary; his longtime cinematographer George Schneiderman;Schneidermans wife, Rita; John Wayne; Ward Bond; Preston Foster; and  Wingate Smith. Mary and the Schneidermans provided assistance in Ford’s es-pionage activities, but the others were just along for the carousing. The entire group spent a fair amount of time in Mexican bars while cruising the route from Magdalena Bay to Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlan. Ford and Schneiderman amused themselves on the Araner at one point by making a 16mm movie composed of “artistic” studies of beer bottles. Upon his return to Los Angeles, Ford prepared his seven-page report for Zacharias, the most detailed such document available in his files. Most of the report concerns his reconnaissance of Muertos Bay at Guaymas, where he spent three days fishing. Schneiderman used a still camera with a telephoto lens to take photographs of Japanese trawlers. Ford also included observations of a fellow passenger on a train trip in Mexico, “a large Japanese, [an] obvious Army type” carrying an expensive Leica camera with a telescopic lens. This man gave orders to groups of other Japanese he met at various stops along the way, and Ford thought he was a spy:”Takes pictures only of bridges and oil tanks. He was sublimely indifferent to the scenery and the picturesque Mexi- can hills we passed through.” 

Ford’s report on Muertos Bay contains many details about ships and naval uniforms, but what is most remarkable is the way it reflects his keen eye for de- tails of human behavior. This power of observation, when translated into cin- ematic terms, helps account for his visual and dramatic authority as a director. He wrote in his report: 

When entering Guaymas harbor, I thought for a moment I was in Moji Straits. The Japanese shrimp fleet was lying at anchor. Four- teen steam trawlers two to two hundred and fifty tons . . . two mother ships five to six hundred tons. . . . I believe the Company that owns them is Nippon Kaisha. . . . the majority of the stock is owned by the Imperial Family, the remainder by Matsui.  The most striking point concerning this fleet is its personnel. This has me completely baffled. The crews come ashore for lib- erty in well-tailored flannels, worsted and tweed suits . . . black service shoes smartly polished. . . . The men are above average height. . . young . . . good-looking and very alert. All carrying themselves with military carriage. . . . None of these young men spoke English. Some had a smattering of Spanish. I cannot com- pare them to any ratings in our service . . . unless possibly to the University Naval Reserve Units such as the one at the University of California. . . . Aboard each trawler three or four young officers were sta- tioned, who never went ashore unless in uniform. The uniform, with the exception of the cap, badge and stripe was the regulation braid-bound Imperial Navy uniform, smartly cut and well pressed. The cap badge while not regulation had the Rising Sun motif. The Ensign stripe was black, tilted. These young men were tall, straight as ramrods, high cheek-boned, with aquiline features, definitely aristocratic. For want of a better word I would call them the Samurai or military caste. (During three trips to Japan I have studied this type very closely. I’m positive they are Naval men.) . . . 

I beg to submit the following opinion. It is my belief that the crews and officers of this shrimp fleet belong to the Imperial Navy or Reserve. The crews are not the same class of fishermen that I have seen so many times in Japan. It is my opinion that these young men are brought here from time to time to make themselves absolutely familiar with Mexican waters and par- ticularly the Gulf of California. . . . It is plausible to assume that these men know every Bay, Cove and Inlet in the Gulf of Cali- fornia, a Bay which is so full of islands, and so close to our Ari- zona borderline.  They constitute a real menace. Although I am not a trained Intelligence Officer, still my profession is to observe and make distinctions. I have observed well in Japan. I will stake my pro- fessional reputation that these young men are not professional fishermen. In a 1943 report, Commander W. H. Vanderbilt, USNR, head of strategic services for the ONI, described Ford as “fully qualified as an intelligence offi- cer. I doubt if he has the technical experience for certain official duties, but he is a man of broad knowledge, wide experience, and sound judgment.”  

With war coming ever closer to America in 1940, the need for modern, so- phisticated combat photography units was becoming more urgent. Ford had foreseen that need when he joined the Naval Reserve in 1934 and began plan- ning for possible American involvement in war with Germany and Japan. His reconnaissance missions to Mexico and elsewhere on behalf of the navy, which continued until February 1941, were part of those preparations. But despite the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, the United States remained largely isolationist, and its military bureaucracy was slow to mod- ernize photographic operations. Impatient with the situation and unaccus- tomed to going through official channels, Lieutenant Commander John Ford, USNR, took it upon himself in 1939 to begin organizing what originally was called the Naval Volunteer Photographic Unit, devoted to “carrying out the original plan” for which he had been commissioned. 

“John Ford’s Navy,” as it was known in Hollywood, recruited and trained experienced technicians from the studios’ camera, sound, laboratory, and crafts departments. Ford received valuable organizational assistance from Gregg Toland, who trained the unit’s cinematographers; sound engineer Edmund H. Hansen, a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve, who ran the sound di- vision; and the dapper, diplomatic Lieutenant Commander Alfred J. “Jack” Bolton, USN (Ret.), who served as a liaison between Hollywood and the navy. Ford submitted a written proposal to the navy in 1940 for acceptance of his volunteers as a Naval Photographic Organization to document naval combat activities for operational, intelligence, historical, and propaganda purposes. The proposal also was signed by Bolton; Hansen; Ford’s Air Mail screenwriter Frank W. “Spig” Wead, a retired lieutenant commander in the navy; and Ford’s producing partner in Argosy Pictures, Merian C. Cooper, then a captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve. They explained that a more modern photo- graphic organization was needed because the current war already had seen an unprecedented use of photography in naval and other military operations, particularly by the Germans. Pointing out that the use of film reconnaissance and documentation of combat could change the course of battle, they set forth some far-reaching proposals. Predicting the use of radio and television to transmit films of operations and intelligence, they noted that “the develop- ment of television for such purposes is an urgent naval photographic research problem, not beyond early realization.” 

Most of the proposal, however, was spent discussing the morale and propa- ganda value of motion pictures to obtain “the complete support of the na- tion” for naval operations: “To our own people, radio, newspapers, [and] motion pictures blast contrary ideas back and forth. Some say our Navy is old- fashioned, . . . The average man has no conception of our Navy’s weight, prowess, power, high morale, and striking force. A series of films which show factually the power of the American Navy is bound to give a psychological lift to the whole nation. Let them see the rigors of training; the skill of execution in maneuvers; how money is spent for sea power. . . .  “The German nation in seven years was changed from an indifferent, apa- thetic, despondent people into a mighty military machine, by the use of radio, printed words and motion pictures, until they were prepared to follow one man and fight the world. “Our use would be different. Our morale purpose is to show that a Democ- racy can and must create a greater fighting machine, in spirit and being, than a dictator power.” 

In April 1940, through Bolton’s intercession, Ford’s navy acquired official status as the Naval Reserve Photographic Section of the San Diego—based Eleventh Naval District. Ford was appointed recruiting officer to enlist photo- graphic personnel and instructors to study the use of photography in “tactics, ballistics and training and historical films.” Believing strongly in the cause of the upcoming fight against fascism, Ford threw himself with enthusiasm into the practical tasks at hand, serving without pay. But his emotions were espe- cially stirred by the ceremonial aspects of military command, the drilling, training, and parading with the full panoply of flags, uniforms, and weaponry. Seeing World War II service as an exciting adventure that would make up for his failure to win acceptance to Annapolis and his lack of service in World War I, Ford approached the upcoming fray with something of a Walter Mittyish perspective. In a 1941 navy biographical sheet, Ford boyishly noted that though he had won two Academy Awards and three awards from the New York Film Critics Circle (“supposedly the greatest honor in the industry”), as well as honors for his films from Italy and Belgium, “I state with pardonable pride that I am the proud possessor of the Small Arms Expert’s medal.”  Ford’s Photographic Section started regular weekly training with 38 officers and 122 enlisted men. By May 1941, it had signed up such men as Cooper; cameramen Joseph H. August, Sid Hickox, John Fulton, Alfred Gilks, and Harold Rosson; editors Otho Lovering and Robert Parrish; and special effects technician E. R. “Ray” Kellogg. At its full strength, the section included about 300 men, many of whom joined after the draft was reinstated in September 1940 and American involvement in the war seemed increasingly inevitable. Before Pearl Harbor, about a third of Ford’s men volunteered for active service in the U.S. Navy. 

Every Tuesday night from eight to midnight, his ragtag band of volunteers drilled and received instruction on Twentieth Century—Fox soundstages, thanks to Zanuck, who had military ambitions of his own. The men used weapons from the Fox prop department and uniforms borrowed from the Western Costume Company. They took supplemental classes on Monday and Wednesday evenings at other locations, including the Los Angeles Naval Re- serve Armory, learning how to use various types of camera and sound equip- ment under wartime conditions and how to develop and print their own motion pictures and stills in the field or on board ship. The training sessions included Toland’s “Ten-Minute Talk on Elementary Photography” and a course in “Military Indoctrination” taught by Ford, Bolton, Jack Pennick, and Ben Grotsky. Pennick, a pug-faced ex-marine, was Ford’s loyal drillmaster, and Grotsky, a colorful character from Brooklyn, came out of retirement as a chief petty officer in the navy to join the unit. Ford’s attempts to have his Photographic Section accepted as part of regular navy operations were frustrated. His unorthodox approach to documentary filmmaking was threatening to military bureaucrats used to following safe, es- tablished procedures. Partly to show the brass what the unit could do, and partly for their own training, Ford’s enlisted men made a film of the mobiliza- tion and induction ceremonies of the newly formed California State Guard, held at the Santa Anita racetrack. Shot in 1940 as a shakedown assignment without help from their commissioned officers, the completed film was shown throughout California to encourage enlistment in the guard. But the navy stalled when Ford volunteered his men. Undaunted, sure they would be needed, they continued training in the expectation that America soon would enter the war. 

Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal (John B. Lundstrom, 2006).