Photographing a War: World War II

Thomas W. Hope, a SMPTE Life Fellow, was drafted by the U.S. Army on May 4, 1942, three weeks before graduating from college. He received a BA degree in absentia. After Army basic training and motion picture school, he was assigned to the First Special Service Force where he rose from private to T-4 sergeant. Nine months later, after graduating from Signal Corps Officer Candidate School as a 2nd lieutenant, he taught, and then became head of, the Army Motion Picture School in Astoria, NY, before going to Europe with a photo replacement unit on the Queen Elizabeth, arriving in Scotland on June 29, 1944. — His first assignment, in August 1944, was as photo officer of the VIII Corps, 3rd Army. In October, he was made photo officer of the new XIX Corps, 9th Army with the rank of 1st lieutenant. In April 1945, he was made photo officer of the 9th Army with the rank of captain. He was released from active duty in October 1945. — Before the war, after graduating from high school, Hope produced a film of the Boy Scout Fifth International World Jamboree in the Netherlands in 1937, the first of 67 films. He was one of the first cameramen to shoot football movies for coaches in 1939 to 1941.