Burton “Bud” Hartman (1918 – 2000) served as a U.S.  Army Photo Signal Corp photographer during WW2. From October of 1941 while in England, to Omaha Beach on D-day, to the liberation the Dachau concentration camp in 1945, Bud with his still and motion picture cameras captured all sorts of images of war in Western Europe and North Africa.

Assigned to film the invasion at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, Bud’s amphibious craft, about 6 miles offshore, was scheduled to land with the fifth wave but was struck by German artillery and capsized.  A trawler transporting U.S. Rangers of the 2nd Battalion scooped him and others from the fridged waters of the English channel and went on to the beach in the predawn hours. When the morning light arrived Bud started shooting film of the Rangers bloody  battle at Point du Hoc. For what may have seemed like an eternity the German counteroffensive prevented the Rangers from capturing the top of the cliff. Bud chose to go south down to the beach and 10 minutes before “H” ” hour he was filming the first troops storming Omaha beach.