Television’s Victory at Sea (1952-53)

Victory at Sea movie poster from 1954, image courtesy Heritage Auction Galleries

Producer Henry Salomon and the National Broadcasting Company introduced Victory to Sea in 1952. The television documentary produced 26 half-hour episodes, chronicling American naval operations in World War II.

Henry Salomon’s Victory at Sea

Victory at Sea was the brainchild of Henry Salomon, a then 35-year-old naval historian and former U.S. Navy officer. Salomon (1917-1958), the series’ producer and co-writer, had assisted Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison in writing the 15-volume tome History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Little, Brown & Co., 1947-62).

Henry Salomon, who had been a Harvard classmate of Robert Sarnoff, an NBC-TV executive and the son of RCA chairman David Sarnoff, took his idea to the National Broadcasting Company. The network gave him the green light, authorized a budget of $500,000 and set up a special production unit in January 1951.

Victory at Sea Searches for World War II Film Footage

Producers’ first order of business was film gathering, which encompassed a massive search of the archives of ten nations. Although a few snags were encountered – archivists for the Royal Indian Navy, for example, had difficulty locating an original print for needed combat footage – over 60 million feet of film was eventually gathered.

The process was laborious, as Henry Saloman told Val Adams of The New York Times in 1952: “The first thing we had to do was set up an index system of 60,000 cards just to be able to figure out what film we could throw away. We had to eliminate 99.9 percent of the 60 million feet at our disposal.”

Given the monumental task of cutting the film to its final form was film editor Isaac Kleinerman, a Hollywood veteran. Kleinerman was told the theme for each chapter; he then ran through about 50,000 feet of film per show, culling the necessary 2,377 feet that best captured the mood and background of a particular segment.

Richard Rodgers’ Victory at Sea Theme Music

In October 1951, Richard Rodgers, a Broadway veteran, was signed to compose the music score. “It was something new to me since no words were involved in the music,” Rodgers later told The New York Times. “I had to express a mood and even a picture with music. In this way the job has been challenging.”

Arranging Rodgers’ music score was Robert Russell Bennett, who also conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Bennett had been an arranger for a number of Broadway musicals, including 12 of Rodgers’ shows. Bennett added to the score various sound effects, such as crickets and frogs in the episode “Guadalcanal,” which greatly enhanced the production.

Actor Leonard Graves, who had been appearing on Broadway in The King and I, provided the strident narration.

Victory at Sea Debuts in 1952

Victory at Sea premiered over NBC-TV at 3 PM (EST) on Sunday, October 26, 1952.

“Victory at Sea, an account of the Navy’s role in the Second World War, is a documentary film of rare power and poetry. With a superlative score by Richard Rodgers, the series of 26 chapters is not above history but a drama told with moving simplicity and restrained majesty. It is a television program not to be missed,” reported Jack Gould of The New York Times (10/27/52).

Victory at Sea was a huge critical success, winning 12 major awards, including an Emmy, a Peabody and a U.S. Navy Distinguished Services Award. The series was later edited into a lean 108-minute production and released to movie theaters by United Artists in 1954, with Alexander Scourby providing the narration.

Victory at Sea Episode Guide

1. “Design for War” (10/26/52)
2. “The Pacific Boils Over” (11/2/52)
3. “Sealing the Breach” (11/9/52)
4. “Midway Is East” (11/23/52)
5. “Mediterranean Mosaic” (11/30/52)
6. “Guadalcanal” (12/14/52)
7. “Rings Around Rabaul” (12/21/52)
8. “Mare Nostrum” (12/28/52)
9. “Sea and Sand” (1/4/53)
10. “Beneath the Southern Cross” (1/11/53)
11. “Magnetic North” (1/18/53)
12. “The Conquest of Micronesia” (1/25/53)
13. “Melanesian Nightmare” (2/1/53)
14. “Roman Renaissance” (2/8/53)
15. “D-Day” (2/15/53)
16. “The Killers and the Killed” (2/22/53)
17. “The Turkey Shoot” (3/1/53)
18. “Two If By Sea” (3/8/53)
19. “The Battle for Leyte Gulf” (3/15/53)
20. “The Return of the Allies” (3/22/53)
21. “Full Fathom Five” (3/29/53)
22. “Fate of Europe” (4/5/53)
23. “Target Suribachi” (4/12/53)
24. “The Road to Mandalay” (4/19/53)
25. “Suicide for Glory” (4/26/53)
26. “Design for Peace” (5/3/53)

Victory at Sea Notes, DVD

• Best emotional episode, “Two If By Sea.” Pictured are wounded U.S. marines being evacuated to offshore Navy hospital ships where surgical teams work around the clock.  
• Wildest episode, “Suicide for Glory.” Japanese kamikaze pilots attack Allied ships during the Battle of Okinawa.
• Best Allied episode, “The Road to Mandalay.” A mighty Allied army comprised of American, British, Australian, Chinese, Burmese, Gurkha, New Zealand, Scottish, Irish and Welsh troops launch an offensive in Southeast Asia in 1943.
• Best episode (the war is over!), “Design for Peace.” Crying mothers and fathers, jubilant wives, girlfriends and children (”Here we are, Dad,” reads one sign) welcome home America’s returning veterans as they disembark from ships in San Francisco, New York and elsewhere.
• On DVD: Victory at Sea – The Legendary World War II Documentary (A&E, The History Channel, 2003).

“Victory at Sea is an emotional understanding of what the war was all about in terms of Navy men who fought the battles. We try to get over the feelings of the kids who were in it,” series director N. Clay Adams said in 1952.

By most accounts, Victory at Sea mightily achieved that goal and much more…