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American Morning

Remembering D-Day: President Bush Honors Memorial for D-Day Veterans; George Stevens Jr. Remembers Legendary Father

Aired June 06, 2001 - 10:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LINDA STOUFFER, CNN ANCHOR: You're looking at tape right here, video taken a couple of minutes ago as President George Bush leaves the White House on his way to Bedford, Virginia. He's saying hello to a few folks there. He's on his way to Bedford, Virginia for the dedication of a World War II memorial that honors the men and women of D-Day. You can see he's saying hello to a few folks there. He will actually be speaking at the ceremony a little bit later today.

And, as you know, thousands of people lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, among them 21 soldiers from the small farming town of Bedford, Virginia. And that was a devastating loss for a community that had sent just 35 of its sons into battle.

Well, CNN national correspondent Bruce Morton joins us live now from Bedford, Virginia today. He has more on the new memorial and today's dedication.

Hello there, Bruce.

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Linda.

This started, as you say, as a sad occasion, in a sense -- the monument here because of the heavy losses Bedford took. The men of Able Company, the 116th Infantry Regiment, the 29th Division; 35 Bedford men went ashore; 19 died in the first 15 minutes.

But that is 57 years ago. The veterans I have talked to here feel a sense of satisfaction now. This exists. People know about D- Day. People know the enormous losses the Allies took: over 9,000 dead; the Americans: over 6,000. And the mood here is almost celebration. It was, a lot of people still think, a good war, a war that had to be fought. People are proud of what they did. People are proud of what their fathers and grandfathers did.

So there's a big crowd here. The only really worry, I suppose, is the weather. They had a series of violent thunderstorms go through here last night: tents knocked down, one photographer slightly injured. So far today, it's sunny. There are clouds on the horizon. But this crowd is looking forward to a long ceremony -- two hours, we're told -- to be highlighted, of course, by the remarks of President Bush -- Linda.

STOUFFER: Bruce Morton with on the latest on the dedication of the memorial today from Bedford, Virginia, thank you,

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Well, for now more on the memories of Normandy, let's go to Washington -- our Jeanne Meserve standing by there.

Good morning, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.

George Stevens Jr. has executive produced films like "The Thin Red Line." But he has also put out a documentary about his father, Hollywood legend George Stevens, and other members as the film industry, who, as members of the Army Signal Corps, took personal color movies of D-Day and beyond.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE STEVENS JR., FILM PRODUCER: I remember the first time I saw it. And I put it up on a screening room screen here in Washington, where I was running the American Film Institute. And I didn't know what was in the can. I knew it was war footage.

And up on the screen came this extraordinary footage on that gray day on the HMS Belfast. And before that, all I had seen or anybody had seen was black and white footage. And then suddenly the camera angle changed and my father walked into frame, 36 years old, in his uniform, about to be part of the greatest seaborne invasion in history.

MESERVE: Did he talk to you ever what it was like to be there for D-Day to witness that firsthand?

STEVENS: You know, not in a great deal. You know, it was interesting: Most of the stories those guys told were comic. Most of their remembrance of the war were enormously funny stories. I think it was probably the wittiest army in human history.

MESERVE: Explain who these men were.

(CROSSTALK)

STEVENS: Well, they were writers: William Saroyan, Irwin Shaw. And then, in addition to the writers, there were cameramen: William Mellor, who later photographed "Shane" and "Giant" for my father; a man named Joseph Biroc, who photographed "It's a Wonderful Life," Frank Capra's film with Jimmy Stewart. And they ended up being called the "Hollywood Irregulars."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: 6:00 D-Day: landing for the first beachhead boat. Now Signal Corps cameras catch the full drama of the fateful hour.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEVENS: Their job was to photograph the war in black and white: 35-millimeter cameras. The film was then, before television, run in news real theaters in news reals along with movies. And my father took along a 16-millimeter camera and got a bunch of color film in London. And this was just sort of their home diary.

MESERVE: You quote your father in the film as saying that one of the greatest moments of his life was the liberation of Paris. Talk to me about why he felt that way and the pictures he took that day.

STEVENS: Well, I guess it was just the most -- you know, if you had been slogging through Normandy and fighting the very tough German army, you know, there was a real question: Are we going to make it?

And somehow getting to Paris was such a milestone. And it was this beautiful August day and, notably, the women in the street cheering and welcoming them -- I guess it must -- and then you will see my father in the footage bringing General von Choltitz -- that peace was signed -- or the liberation of Paris was signed in a little train station. But there was no light. And you could see footage of my father bringing General von Choltitz out -- my father always the movie director -- to get him in some good light to take the picture of that historic moment.

MESERVE: One of the other striking moments in your documentary is Dachau and the footage taken there. What was your father's reaction to what he saw there?

STEVENS: Well, his reaction to that was profound. I think anybody who was there, it changed them. And he had a unique reaction, I think -- was that he said when people would come towards you, these prisoners, and they are covered with lice -- and they would come over and they would sort of reach out and grab you -- he said, you know, your tendency was to push them off. And he said, "I felt the Nazi in me."

It gave him an understanding that there's a little something dark in all of us. And this terrible tragedy, to him, kind of illuminated that.

MESERVE: Before the war, he had done some rather lighthearted work. Did his experience in the war change his product?

STEVENS: It did, indeed. I mean, he had made wonderful comedies with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne -- and "Gunga Din" and "Alice Adams" and pictures like that.

And, after the war, he made "A Place in the Sun" and "Shane," and "Giant," sometimes called his American trilogy, which had humor in them, but they were deeper things. It was about life.

MESERVE: He also did "The Diary of Anne Frank."

STEVENS: And "The Diary of Anne Frank," which we worked together on. My father was 36 when he joined the Army. He couldn't have been drafted. And they went because they believed in that war.

(END VIDEOTAPE) MESERVE: George Stevens Jr. reminiscing about his father, his father's films and World War II.

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