Edwin Fitchett films

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: 37-5-3814

Scope and content

Two DVDs: "Ed Fitchett's Memories of Cornell and Alpha Gamma Rho, 1942-1949" and "The Poughkeepsie Intercollegiate Regattas 1947 and 1948," all transferred from 16 mm. movie film and edited with a talk by Fitchett and a background of Cornell music. Also included on the first DVD is a three-minute clip of Philippine Independence Day, July 4, 1946. Revised copy of "Memories of Cornell...," 2014. Regatta footage shows the Poughkeepsie railroad bridge and train. Cornell memories DVD shows, Spring Day parade and Beebe lake regatta, baseball, gorge swimming, campus construction including Phillips Hall, what appears to be Alpha Gamma Rho rush hazing, reunion, winter scenes.

Scope and content

DVD: "Ed Fitchett's Army Memories 1945-1946 after the Pacific War" in two parts: "Sullivan's Travels" (33 minutes) in which he escorts 1,500 prisoners of war to their homelands - Formosa, Korea, and Japan and "Adventures in the Philippines" (38 minutes), which shows the destruction of Manila, Corregidor, and native and ending with the Independence ceremony with pictures of General MacArthur.

Dates

1942-1949, 2014.

Creator

Fitchett, Edwin E. (Person)

Language of Material

In English.

Biographical / Historical

Cornell University Class of 1944. Edwin Fitchett came to Cornell in 1940. He enlisted inthe Army in September 1942, but remained in the U.S. until his artillery battalion was shipped to the Pacific in July 1945. They arrived in the Philippines just weeks after the end of the war. A serious amateur photographer from his early years, he had filmed college and fraternity life at Cornell when he was a student. In the Philippines, as soon as military censorship was lifted, he had his parents ship his camera and whatever Kodak color film they could find. He took the camera on sightseeing trips and in the battalion's two-seater aerial spotter planes. He had the films edited and transferred to DVD, adding music, sound effects, and his own narration.