From the Summer 2017 issue (Volume 8, No. 4) of World War II Quarterly: Journal of the Second World War – Susan Zimmerman’s article titled, Combat Photographers: Shooting the War. It can be found in its entirety at www.https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/shooting-the-war/
Photo by Lt. William Wilson; U.S. Army cemetery on Sicily, 1944.
Lieutenant (later Captain) William R. Wilson served in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy while serving in the 162nd Signal Company of the Army Pictorial Service from 1941-1945. He recalled the influences from Hollywood photographers and the issue of photo credits.
“One morning, Hollywood’s gift to the American Army – the name was Daryl Zanuck; you may have heard of him – had the idea of shooting both still and motion pictures of the invasion of North Africa when he came aboard the Derbyshire and found my men and me.
“At that time, all of our equipment consisted of Speed Graphic 4×5 cameras and Bell and Howell Eyemo motion picture cameras, but Colonel Zanuck brought us 35mm Kodak 35s, all metal and painted olive drab. My unit got three of those, I believe, and a beautiful scenic Kodak special 16mm movie camera….
“During my postwar encounter with a lady in the Pentagon, she said, ‘The photographs that you produced during World War II are the finest that we have in our files.’ And I said, ‘Well, do you know why that was?’ She said, ‘No, why was it?’ I said, ‘Because they were all shot on 4×5 negatives.’