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Steven Loomis (SaigonShipyard), IC3
to remember
Erickson, Leif (born William Wycliffe Anderson), AFC.
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Contact Info
Home Town Alameda, Alameda County, California
Last Address Pensacola, Florida Cremated, ashes scatter in unknown location.
William Wycliffe Anderson
Navy Combat Photographer WWII
aka: actor Leif Erickson
Erickson took off four years from his Hollywood career to serve in the Navy during World War II as a combat photographer.
He enlisted in 1941 and studied photography at the Naval Training School in Pensacola, and after graduation taught as an instructor/lecturer. He was assigned to a Combat Photographic Team, shooting stills and movies in combat zones. Erickson was shot down twice in the Pacific, and was twice wounded. He was one of the combat photographers to cover the surrender of the Japanese on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor at the end of WWII. He shot over 200,000 feet of film for the Navy. Erickson left the Navy in December 1945, a Chief Photographer’s Mate.
Erickson was born in Alameda near San Francisco, California. He attended the University of California at Los Angeles, beginning his career as a soloist (singer/vocalist) and trombone player with the dance band of Ted Fio Rito (and his orchestra) during the 1930s, and it was Fio Rito who changed his name to the more memorable Leif Erickson. He then performed in Max Reinhardt's productions, and then gained a small amount of stage experience in a comedy vaudeville act
Initially billed by Paramount Pictures as Glenn Erickson, he officially changed his name to Leif Erickson in 1938, although he was occasionally credited as Erikson. He began his screen career as a leading man in westerns making his film debut in two 1933 band films with Betty Grable before starting a string of Buster Crabbe western films based on Zane Grey novels.
Leif Erickson may be best know as Big John Cannon in the television series High Chaparral. In 1969, Leif returned to the Navy's Photographic Training School, a famous Hollywood actor. The staff and students, including one of his former pupils, were delighted as he talked about the latest motion picture equipment in use on the NBC hit, The High Chaparral.
Other Comments:
CinCPAC Publications and Information with
VD-5: Fleet Air Photographic Squadron (VD) 5
Chief Photographer's Mate Leif Erickson produced motion picture films and pre-landing photos of Iwo Jima with VD-5. Other targets routinely covered included Truk, Puluwat, Woleai, other Marshalls and Carolines, Marcus, Chicha Jima, Haha Jima and still Jap occupied islands in the Marianas. Both PB4Y-lPs and F6F-5Ps were used.
The landings at Iwo Jima were covered by planes for photographic and news coverage. All aerial photos of the landings were by: L. J. Bodkin, PhoMlc and J. F. Rankin, PhoM3c of the regular crew for still photos and Leif Erickson, CPhoM of CinCPAC Pub Info for motion pictures. Mr. Webbley Edwards of CBS accompanied them for the combined radio networks and gave a very graphic account of the operations after their return to Guam.
West Point Society Citation
"In November 1969, Erickson became the first man ever singled out by the West Point Society of Southern California to be cited in recognition of his many visits to military hospitals and installations throughout the United States and Vietnam. A combat veteran of World War II, as a naval aerial photographer in the Pacific area, Leif was shot down twice and once deposited into the sea when the USS Nevada was hit by a Kamikaze (March 1945)."
Citation from the West Point Society
Date
Nov 30, 1969
Last Updated: Apr 4, 2013
Comments
In November 1969 Erickson became the first man ever singled out by the West Point Society of Southern California to be cited in recognition of his many visits to military hospitals and installations throughout the United States and Vietnam. A combat veteran of World War II, as a naval aerial photographer in the Pacific area, Leif was shot down twice and once deposited into the sea when the USS Nevada was hit by a Kamikaze.
"The year before, I'd gone to Vietnam visiting the evacuation hospital and the little field hospitals. That's where you see war like it is --- the agony, the destruction. But this year, I wasn't being sent into the battle zone. That's because, with those bum knees of mine, I couldn't jump out of helicopters the way I did before. I couldn't go without sleep the way I used to, either --- that trying to snuggle down in a bunker, the way they do, God help them!" he continues.
"Nope, that year the Army carefully planned to make me play it safer, going alone to visit hospitals in Tokyo, Guam, Okinawa, the Philippines, the many places where there is still hope for recovery of the patients.
"It's both a heartbreaking and an inspiring job," Leif murmurs, almost to himself. "You go to those hospitals and you sit on the side of a fellow's bed. What strikes you first is how young he is, and you are bound to notice how sick or how chipper he is, though you try to conceal any shocked reactions.
"You ask him what's wrong with him, what happened. Does he ever open up! These boys are starved for a chance to talk. They can't talk to one another about their wounds, for if they did, they'd bore one another crazy. Your wound is always fascination, but only to you, the one who got it. In the military hospitals, if the guys even try to talk to one another about their ailments, they get competitive.
"Talking to a stranger is something else. Especially when he's not a stranger but a guy they have seen for a couple of years on High Chaparral. He's a real 'happening.' He sits on the guy's bed and asks, "What hit you, where?' It's fantastic therapy, for here is an ear that listens.
"As a visitor," Leif speaks from experience, "you learn not to show sympathy. You feel it deeply, but you act as if everything is gung ho. It takes quite a bit of practice to arrive at this point. some of the best-intentioned people can never reach it. But you simply have to imply that everything is going to be just fine --- even when, a lot of times, you know it isn't going to work out like that."
