DAN MCGOVERN USAAF PHOTOGRAPHIC TALK AND CAMERA EXHIBITION
Dan McGovern was the US Army Air Forces cameraman who led the filming of the harrowing aftermath film footage from the devastated cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact, he filmed and photographed many of the most important events of the 20th Century. Now your camera club or photographic society can avail of a detailed talk on this remarkable photographer and cameraman and also view a substantial collection of vintage motion picture and still cameras, many of which are the exact types which Dan used to film his historical footage. Your host, Joe McCabe knew Dan and is his biographer. See HERE.
6'5" tall 'Big Mack' McGovern was one of the first 'Americans' and the first outside cameraman into Japan after that country’s surrender to the Allied forces in late 1945. However, McGovern was, in fact, an Irishman. Having emigrated to the United States in 1922, he went on to become Photographer/Cameraman to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt before being chosen to establish the Combat Camera Training School for the United States Army Air Forces in 1942 in Hollywood, California. There, he trained the very first batch of USAAF combat cameramen who where deployed to document on film the United States Army Air Forces' involvement in WWII and all around the world.
McGovern then deployed to England with the USAAF's 8th Air Force and filmed combat footage over Nazi occupied Europe for Hollywood Director William Wyler's acclaimed 1944 documentary "The Memphis Belle – A Story of a Flying Fortress." He later filmed US atomic tests on remote Pacific islands and in the Nevada Desert and was even involved in the 1947 'Roswell UFO Incident'. This fascinating historical talk is augmented throughout by an accompanying display of identical WWII motion picture and still picture cameras as used by Dan McGovern throughout WWII and his photographic career.