Hatch, Norm
Posted on 14 September, 2021 by in Veterans By Name, H
3 October 2019
Norm Hatch March 2nd 1921- 2017
This is being typed by Larry Martin from notes taken during Norm’s interview at his home in Washington D.C. June of 2014 by Larry Martin and Grandson Trenton Grimes. Some of these notes are also from memory of telephone calls to Norm at different times.
Norm join the Marine Corps in July 1939 his service # is 038964. I believe that his He was assigned to the photographic office of the 2nd and 5th Divisions of the Marine Corps. The two interviews were donated by Trenton Grimes and Larry Martin to the Quantico Marine Museum. There were about 12 movie men and 72 cameramen in the Division. (I do not know what the difference between the two titles were since Norm took movies of the battles of Tarawa and Iwo Jima). Norm personally shot about 30% of the film “With the Marine’s at Tarawa” Another man who shot the footage of Tarawa was named Johnny Ercole from New York. Norm joked about Tarawa that “The Marine’s shot the Jap’s and the damned fools shot the film of the battle” I think he met that while the Marine’s were fighting they were crawling or bent over as much as they could to avoid being shot while the cameramen had to stand quite upright to get the footage.
Norm was later transferred to the 5th Marine Division and went into Iwo Jima to shoot the battle footage. He was on Iwo Jima from the 19th of February 1945 until the 12th of March when he left on the first plane off of the island. On Iwo Jima Norm talked about another well known Marine photographer Bill Genaust that he knew personally. Genaust went into a Japanese cave on hill 362-A to look around the cave to look around he was killed by Japanese and never seen again. The cave was sealed by bull dozers after Genaust’s death.
Norm talked about many Marine Corps General’s that he knew personally mostly after the war. One that I have a note of is General Julian Smith but there were several including Gen. Merritt Edson, Shoup as well as newspaperman Robert Sherrod.
On his 93rd birthday he was very proud that he current Commandant of the Marine Corps James Amos sent him a birthday greeting in 2014.
Larry Martin has a personally signed copy of Norm Hatch’s book about the Pacific Theater of WW II titled “War Shots”