Richard Thomas Ham
MilitaryCourtesy of Cox black and white lab
Dick studied photography at Modesto Junior College, California, and undertook a brief period of training in Hollywood to learn how to operate a film camera. He enlisted in the US Signal Corps in May 1942 as a motion picture cameraman and was sent to the UK with the 162nd Signal Photo Company.
In late 1942 Ham was attached to the Royal Navy where he filmed the invasion of Algiers during Operation Torch. On his return he was posted to ETOUSA in Grosvenor Square. Among his film assignments were capturing the visit of Kind George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Molesworth, photographing Maynard Smith receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor at Thurleigh on 12 July 1943, and filming A Welcome to Britain (1943). Ham flew a mission over Hamburg with the 303rd Bomb Group in 1943, he was also invited to film a B-24 Liberator mission, but declined the opportunity, later finding out that squadron who extended the invitation lost all 19 of its aircraft that day.
In 1944 Ham shot an instructional film about waterproofing jeep. He landed in Normandy on D+3 and filmed African American troops serving on an artillery battery in France in August 1944. The footage was used in The Negro Soldier (1944). Ham was then transferred to SHAEF headquarters in Paris, where on 15 December 1944 he notably captured a series of portraits of Pablo Picasso in his studio.
Ham flew in a C-47 Skytrain during Operation Plunder in March 1945 to record airborne operations over the Rhine, reporting that his aircraft was repeatedly hit by small arms fire while hedge-hopping over woodland. In April 1945 he accompanied Lowell Thomas to document conditions at Buchenwald concentration camp shortly after its liberation by US Forces. He filmed VE Day celebrations in Paris in May 1945.
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Units served with
- Unit Hierarchy: Group
- Air Force: Eighth Air Force
- Type Category: Bombardment
- Unit Hierarchy: Squadron
- Air Force: Eighth Air Force
- Type Category: Bombardment
- Unit Hierarchy: Headquarters
- Type Category: Combat organisation
- Unit Hierarchy: Headquarters
- Unit Hierarchy: Headquarters
People
- Military/Civilian/Mascot: Civilian
- Role/Job: Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth
- Military/Civilian/Mascot: Civilian
- Nationality: American
- Military/Civilian/Mascot: Military
- Nationality: American
- Service Numbers: 39021076
- Highest Rank: Captain
- Role/Job: Actor and filmmaker
- Military/Civilian/Mascot: Military
- Nationality: American
- Unit: The Writing 69th
- Service Numbers: 32135400
- Highest Rank: Sergeant
- Role/Job: Staff Reporter, Stars and Stripes
- Military/Civilian/Mascot: Civilian
- Nationality: American
- Unit: 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group 107th Reconnaissance Squadron
- Role/Job: Journalist
Places
- Site type: Prisoner of war camp
- Known as: Konzentrationslager Buchenwald
- Site type: Airfield
- Site type: Airfield
- Known as: Bedford
Events
Event | Location | Date | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Born |
Ceres, Stanislaus, California | 11 July 1920 | |
Enlisted |
Los Angeles | 25 May 1942 | |
Died |
Palo Alto, Santa Clara, California | 10 April 2014 |
Revisions
Information from object file for IWM EQU 3934 , B-2 Cap worn by Dick Ham
Enlistment record, Legacy Obituary, Obituary in the Ceres Courier, footage of The Liberation of Buchenwald, filmed by Dick Ham at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum,