La grande combattente

Here's the Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature of 1944, about the U. S. S. Yorktown, its crew, and its involvement in a running battle around Guam. Or, as Robert Taylor calls it in the narration, "a two-week turkey shoot." I wonder what Boyer called it in his French-language narration.

It's one of four Oscar wins for co-director William Wyler. Also credited as a director is Edward Steichen, one of two people born in Luxembourg I can name. He was mostly a photographer, in charge of that department at Conde Nast in the early 1930s, and at the Museum of Modern Art from 1947 through 1962. During the World Wars, he was in charge of aerial photography for the A. E. F. And the Navy. Robert Fritch may be credited with the editing, but surely it's Steichen who made the choice of shots, and left it to Wyler to figure out the rest of it. The movie includes some amazing battle shots, including the aerial fights through yellow skies, the ones of crew members trying to relax between battles, and the ones of wrecked planes landing on the Yorktown. Amazing work.