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Lieutenant Joseph P. Dieves

Motion Picture Photographer

163rd Signal Photo Company, 5th & 7th Army

     Joseph Paul Dieves was born into a hardworking Berkeley family on September 4, 1917, sharing the same name of both his father and grandfather. As the great-grandson of German immigrants to California, he was expected to carry on with the same resolve as his grandfather who poured his work into businesses like the Oakland Brewery and Eagle Hotel to build them from the ground up. Joseph got a good education early in his life, attending Willard Junior High School and later Berkeley High School. While in junior high he participated in many extracurricular activities such as playing on the boy’s volleyball team and picking up the violin in orchestra. High school, however,is where he really took interest in the hobby that later became his profession: photography. As the secretary-treasurer of his school’s Camera Club, he found a unique fascination with capturing moments in time through a lens.

     After high school Joe knew he wanted to pursue photography, specifically looking for jobs as a motion picture cameraman. He found a few with smaller production companies around Berkeley and was mentored by well-known local film producer, Alvin Gordon. After some time he settled with the company Palmer Films and worked on a few of their projects, even landing a few jobs with Paramount and Universal Studios in Hollywood. Even with his professional success, he couldn’t help but notice the country growing closer and closer to war in Europe and the Pacific. After his required registration for the draft in October 1940, he was officially drafted a little less than a year later--before the US entered the war. At this time, Joe went through training at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey preceded by basic Signal Corps training. His first assignment came soon after at the Signal Corps Photographic Center (later known as the Army Pictorial Service). He found new motivation in December, 1941, with the news of Pearl Harbor making him eager to do whatever he could to support the war effort. 

     For the next few years, Dieves traveled around the country filming training, educational, and theatrical movies for the army. He made often unrecognized, but important, pieces such as a radio training film in New Jersey, an army theatrical production in New York, a German prisoner story-film in Maryland, and a few productions back in his home state of California. It was here that Dieves received a promotion to Tec/4, and soon after Tec/3. With his experience and growing rank, Dieves was assigned to the 163rd Signal Photo Company (SPC) as a combat cameraman and set to land in Europe for some of the most hazardous photographic work the Army had devised. After some specialized combat cameraman training at Camp Sutton, North Carolina, the 163rd SPC found rhythm in organizing their photographers in three-man teams: one took motion picture, one took stills, and one drove a jeep for the team to get around. Dieves typically took on the role of the motion picture photographer, and upon completion of the new specialized training, the rest of the 163rd SPC received their Official War Photographer documents and papers, took their last pictures in the states, and said their goodbyes.

      After a very arduous trek across the Atlantic, in which over two-thirds of the unit became sick, Dieves and the 163rd spent a brief time around Algiers in North Africa before landing in Italy in November of 1943, only a month and a half since Allied troops invaded the subcontinent. Here he followed the U.S. 36th Infantry Division throughout their campaigns, and filmed the brave troops first meeting face to face with the German enemy. He found an entirely new experience in cinematography as he tried to hold his camera still while under fire in the middle of a battlefield. However, just like filming in the states, this was his job. It was also here that he, as someone who always enjoyed woodworking, fashioned a new handle to hold his Bell & Howell camera. Taking the trigger assembly and grip off of a Thompson submachine gun, he rigged it to his camera to provide a more steady and firm grip while filming in the field. Because the Army had never developed any sort of frontline photographers before, Dieves and his comrades learned to quickly adapt in the field to perform their jobs in the most efficient and effective manner. With his new and improved handle, Dieves continued to document the Allied invasion of Italy, following troops into Anzio where he desperately tried to get usable footage through constant artillery shells and aircraft strafing runs. During his time on the beachhead, with all the confusion and shrapnel, Dieves’ camera was severely damaged to the point where it was unusable. While waiting for his new camera, Joe made friends with some of the British troops, who seemed interested in his job as a combat cameraman. Once he got a fresh camera, he made a second iteration of the Thompson-grip-handle for his camera. This time, he took the foregrip from the Thompson, attached the trigger mechanism to the front, and tied a string between it and the camera shutter. This way, when he held down the trigger it would pull the shutter and the camera would film. With his engineering project finished, Dieves followed US troops into Rome to film the taking of the first Axis capital. Despite filming the newly liberated streets of the ancient city, he wouldn’t get a break for long, as he prepared with the troops for their next daunting task. Off the coast of Naples, he filmed the mock landings held to prepare the 36th ID for their next amphibious landing in southern France.

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     With fresh film and camera in hand, T/3 Dieves landed on “Camel Green” Beach with the 143rd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division in southern France near Saint Raphael on August 15, 1944. Out of all the beaches in the invasion, Camel Green faced the most resistance. They landed under German fire, but ultimately were able to move inland by the afternoon. Dieves noticed many disoriented and scattered German troops, and found it refreshing to think that perhaps the push he’d be making into central Europe might be much faster than initially thought. Dieves spent much of his time meticulously filming every part of the invasion, with subjects ranging from newly-captured German POWs to US troops unloading equipment and cleaning up the aftermath of the landing. The 36th Division wasted no time, however, and by association the 163rd SPC didn’t either. T/3 Dieves soon found himself filming a long stretch of liberated French cities as the division and its motor convoys drove deeper into France.

     Just four days after landing in France, Dieves followed the 36th ID as they liberated Bargemon, where he first got a taste for the French locals. The same day, Dieves moved into and liberated Montferrat, where he filmed the 57th Signal Company trying to keep up with the quick-moving 36th ID. The coming weeks would be more of the same, filming the gallant US troops chasing Germans back through France and liberating town after town. During this time he found himself filming more “V’s for Victory” than he did rifles. Most of his films depicted parades, marching POWs, and local reactions to finally being freed from harsh German occupation. After all the initial celebrations and crowds thanking the Americans, however, Dieves fixated on documenting a unique part of the war. The French locals always brought those that they arrested for collaboration with the Germans into the streets. The accused sometimes pleaded desperately that they were innocent, but were deafened by the ridicule and jeers of their fellow townspeople. In many cases the collaborators would be publicly humiliated, with other locals shaving their heads, mocking them, or carving swastikas into their skin. All of this was forever documented onto the seemingly infinitely-rolling film of Dieves’ camera.

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     An interesting anecdote from this time came from just outside Marsanne, France. Joe and his fellow cameramen were trying to find their team’s command post when a German cyclist and sedan sped through the French town, pursued by three men from the 36th ID in a jeep. The photographers saw this and instinctively tried to join the chase and get some pictures of the unusual sight. Eventually the Americans ran out of ammo and yelled for anyone in the area to go catch the Germans as they drove off into a nearby forest. Just as Dieves and Irving Leibowitz–the still photographer on his team–got out their cameras, some members of the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) pointed out where they saw the Germans drive off to, and the treeline they were hiding in. The cameramen, who knew very little about how to fire a weapon, asked the FFI to accompany them. When the Frenchmen refused, the 163rd SPC photographers quickly decided that Dieves would run motion picture film while the other two took up whatever rifles and pistols they had closeby. The driver, Raymond Rocha, picked up a rifle while Leibowitz held two M1911 pistols–one in each hand. Attempting to flank the hiding Germans, Rocha approached from the left, Leibowitz in the center, and Dieves on the right, with one hand on his pistol and one on his camera. As Leibowitz bravely approached in the center, a German with a pistol jumped towards him. With a combination of quick thinking and adrenaline, the photographer hit him on the head and disarmed him. When Dieves saw this, he noticed another four Germans in the woods. He pointed them out to Rocha who, hoping he wouldn’t have to use his rifle, yelled at them in German to put their hands up. Much to all of their relief, the Germans did just that and Dieves motioned with his pistol for them to come out before proceeding to film. The camera crew immediately searched the German troops for intelligence, finding various maps and other important documents, before proudly marching them back to Marsanne. Upon interrogation, four of the Germans revealed that they were officers with the Military Police detachment of the 338th Infanterie Division, who had gotten separated from their convoy after a flat tire. The last one came from the 189th Infanterie Division, who was similarly separated from his unit, and picked up by the MPs along the way. Like many other specialized field occupations, combat cameramen were told to be soldiers first and their occupation second. Dieves and his team followed through with that order and, rather than film POWs from previous battles, had just captured their very own.

     For the next few months T/3 Dieves found himself filming the hardest, most discouraging fighting yet: the Vosges. As German forces left the plains of Southern France, they decided to set up their defense along the Vosges, a series of extremely rugged mountainous hills and valleys bordering Alsace and, just beyond, Germany. The closer the Americans got to Germany, the harder the Germans fought back. Around this time, Dieves was transferred to cover the 44th Infantry Division, a fresh unit that had just landed in France. The troops in the south reached the Vosges mountains and the weather grew colder with constant rain and snow, which only added onto the harsh combat conditions the troops were facing. Dieves went through a daily cycle of defrosting his camera in the morning, filming whatever he could, cleaning his equipment from rain, and sending it back to get developed–all while trying desperately to stay warm. Simply put, in one of his reports Joe stated “the weather is the photographer's enemy presently.” On the front, everyday consisted of patrols and constant artillery from both sides, making it extremely hard for the photographers to find any action to photograph. However, Dieves found some stories to cover by hopping on a cub flight over Maginot Line bunkers, the division moving to take the defenses, and Christmas celebrations. After finishing his filming on Christmas Day, Joe and his team made their way to the 163rd SPC headquarters, where they enjoyed some great food, entertainment, and caught up with photographers from other teams. 

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     In the new year, Dieves and his team found themselves stuck in Sarreguemines, as they filmed the 44th Division desperately trying to defend the front line town against waves of German counterattacks and artillery. After weeks of stagnant lines and failure to find interesting topics to film, Dieves received word that he was put in for a field commission to Second Lieutenant. On January 16, 1945, he took part in a ceremony in which he and three other photographers received their lieutenant bars.

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     The next couple months continued to pour down snow and rain in the freezing cold, making it extremely difficult to get any coverage of the division. Joe even recalled a Major from the 1st Battalion of the 71st Infantry Regiment exclaiming that “only photographers and crazy people would be out in weather such as this!” Towards the end of February, Dieves found himself on an assignment to film those same crazy people. In a special request, his team along with another team from the 163rd SPC, were sent to film other cameramen in an attempt to show how combat photographers functioned on a daily basis. Afterwards, he found himself brushing shoulders with various generals, filming a convoy that consisted of General Devers, General Patch, the U.S. Secretary of War, and more. Towards the end of March he briefly visited Bitche, to check in where the 100th Infantry Division had seen harsh resistance from Germans. Here he filmed the division band marching through the streets.

     One can only imagine both the relief and fear Dieves felt finally stepping foot into Germany in March of 1945; entering the homeland of the enemy he watched kill so many fellow Americans on the battlefield. It was officially the beginning of the end, and although the exhausted California cameraman was ready for it, the war wasn’t over yet. Along with his jeep, “Photo Joe”, he moved through southern Germany, crossing the Rhine, and filming the house-to-house fighting that would come to define the later part of the war. He moved through Landau, Würzburg, Schweinfurt, and more as he was newly attached to the 71st Infantry Division. 

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     In a rather funny story told by his stills photographer at the time, Clifford Bell, the team heard there was a large winery in Speyer, where they briefly stopped. After breaking in, they were met by a workman to whom they explained that an unnamed general was going to have a party and thus the team needed the best wine the locals could offer. The worker brought up a few cases, but the photographers urged him that they needed the best they had. Annoyed, the worker led them down to a cellar with thousands of champagne bottles stacked on the walls. Periodically the worker would show them samples, but each time they refused he brought one with an older date on the label. After the team was satisfied with the selection, they filled up two cases and Dieves signed the invoice as “Col. G.I. Shitz.”

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     In Speyer, the U.S. Military Government (MG) moved in and gathered all the weapons and cameras from the town. Upon hearing they gathered a whole room of cameras now without owners, Bell spoke for the team in their decision that “a picture story on the working of the MG was indispensable to a complete record of the war.” While waiting at the MG office, they were led to the room by a Colonel from the 103rd Infantry Division, who asked them to pick him a nice camera from the pile. Dieves and Bell were in awe at the five-foot-high stack of expensive cameras in front of them, and immediately began digging through it. After filling their pockets with the best cameras they could find, and eventually finding one for the Colonel, they taught the officer how to use it and went on their way.

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     The team then moved further into Germany with the 71st, chasing a tired and defeated German army. Amongst one of their stops was Würzburg, which had been subjected to some of the worst fire-bombing they had seen. The town was estimated to be 90% destroyed and 99% damaged. Dieves tried to document the extent of the destruction, showing the hollow shells that remained of most of the houses. He also met up with some “grasshopper” pilots in the area, who agreed to take him up and get some aerial footage of the city, which truly showed the massive amount of destruction that had been done. Germany was in shambles, but the war still trudged on. Unbeknownst to Dieves at the time, he was about to film arguably his most important footage yet.

     In late April of 1945, Americans began to discover the atrocities committed by the Germans to the Jewish people. Dieves encountered these scarring images firsthand in the Kaufering subcamps of Dachau, near Landsberg. As he arrived he was first greeted by the unbearable stench, a scent so rancid that he found it hard to breathe without putting something over his mouth and nose. He was sent to film the burial of a mass grave north of the camps near the Lech river, where he saw a sight that no man should lay their eyes upon: over 2,000 bodies, many left naked, some burned or charred, and all of them nothing more than a skeleton with a thin layer of skin. The stunned Dieves realized the importance of his job at this moment, although that didn’t make doing it any easier. An atrocity of this caliber had to be permanently documented for future generations to fully understand the extent of it. Putting his viewfinder to a war-weary eye, Dieves held down the shutter. As he did the film rolled, forever imprinting the horrifying images of piles of malnourished bodies both on film and in his memory. As they watched, the photographers noticed some Germans waving a white flag coming out from the nearby woods. After stripping any weapons off of them, he promptly commanded them to bury the bodies instead, forcing them to confront what had been happening in their country. As a cameraman his job was to film all aspects of the war, and this part was undeniably the hardest.​

     For the rest of the war, his footage featured the Germans in full surrender. As his team traveled through the fallen Reich, he filmed the capture of General Von Runstedt, General Von Henkelman, and Field Marshal Kesselring, the last of which Dieves found amusement because his own jeep and hotel were both guarded by surrendered Germans. Along the way he visited the site of the infamous Battle of Castle Itter, where German Wehrmacht joined American soldiers of the 142nd Infantry Regiment, 36th Division in liberating French prisoners from the SS only a few days prior. While he was there, Dieves snapped the only known surviving photo of the famous tank that was destroyed during the battle, “Besotting Jenny” (previously believed to be named “Besotten Jenny”). Given the lack of action, there was very little left to film and Joe spent much of his time sightseeing on the Autobahn, watching new movies, and celebrating the end of the war. Some of the subjects he did film included medical treatment and delousing of displaced persons as well as awards ceremonies during occupation. It wasn’t until October 1945, a little more than four years after he was drafted, that Dieves finally returned home. After four years, the war in Europe was finally over, and Joe was glad to go back to filming anything but war. The scenes that passed through his lens had taken their toll on him and he was eager to return home.

     As dedicated as ever, Dieves wasted no time going back to work as a cameraman. He returned to his job at Palmer Films and worked on various documentaries and educational films, with subjects that ranged from railroad life to redwood forests. Among these documentaries was one about the legendary photographer Ansel Adams, whom Dieves brushed shoulders with while working as a cameraman on set. He even dusted off his old camera from the war to film a few more movies for the military. Among these was Operation Miki, the mock invasion of Hawaii just before the Korean War. He was involved in various other projects, such as being a cameraman for The Examiner, a few short TV series, and various commercials in the 1950’s and 60’s. He made quite the name for himself in San Francisco and the surrounding areas, being known as a solid cameraman that anyone could rely on to get great shots.

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     Around this time, Dieves made a friend at a local barber shop in California. He introduced himself to the barber and, over the course of a few visits, began to chat with him about photography and his experience in the war as a combat cameraman. The young man cutting his hair expressed a lot of interest in photography, but had never really tried shooting motion picture film. During one haircut, the barber mustered up the courage to ask if he could watch Dieves at work, to which Joe graciously offered to make the barber his assistant. The man cutting his hair was none other than the famous Jack N. Green, who would become one of the most renowned cinematographers in Hollywood, shooting all of Clint Eastwood’s films from 1986-2000 and many more blockbusters from the past 50 years. Little did Dieves know at the time, but the conversations he struck sparked Green’s career. Dieves was able to get him jobs at some local companies, including W. A. Palmer, which he previously worked at. He also sponsored Jack Green’s union membership in 1965.

     Dieves lived the rest of his life settling down with his family, continuing to shoot movies and film for various companies. Joe brushed shoulders with countless celebrities in the process, including President John F. Kennedy when he came to speak at the University of California, Berkeley in 1962. For the next decade he mostly worked around California, but every now and then traveled across the states for on-site shooting in different productions. Despite keeping busy with various jobs, what he saw during the war never left him. He fought a long battle with post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism ever since he returned from Europe, feeling as though he had no one in his life to talk about what he saw. In early November of 1975, he tragically ended his own life at only 58. The young cameraman from Berkeley made the most of the life he had and documented some of humanity’s greatest struggles. Much like his grandfather, he built his business from the ground up, making himself into one of the most respected and reliable cameramen of his time. On top of that, he spent over four years in the service, serving for the duration of World War II and documenting it for countless generations to witness now and in the future. Joseph Dieves certainly did his job--wherever and whenever it was--to the best of his ability. It’s hard to know how many people he truly impacted, whether it be a barber-turned-Hollywood-cinematographer or a French child he cheered up during a lull in humanity’s bloodiest war.

Wartime Footage shot by Dieves

The footage linked above is a compilation of shots made by Dieves while he was a member of the 163rd Signal Photo Company. Below are some markers to view different footage he filmed.

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  • 0:00 - A destroyed German Tiger I Tank - Giuncarico, Italy - June 23, 1944

  • 0:32 - Troops advancing - Massa Marittima, Italy - June 25, 1944

  • 5:47 - The 143rd Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division landing on Camel Green Beach for Operation Dragoon - St. Raphael, France - August 15, 1944

  • 12:28 - FFI finding collaborators - Bargemon, France - August 19, 1944

  • 13:33 - Arrival of A Company, 57th Signal Battalion - Montferrat, France - August 19, 1944

  • 14:52 - Dieves' photo team captures five German soldiers - Marsanne, France - August 28, 1944

  • 16:13 - 143rd Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division moving POWs - Loriol, France - August 30, 1944

  • 19:44 - Troops of the 141st Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division moving towards Lyon - Hauterives, Beurepaire, Pact, France - September 1, 1944

  • 21:48 - 753rd Tank Battalion and 133rd Field Artillery Regiment carrying the 143rd Infantry Regiment, all of the 36th Division - Lafayette and Heyrioeux, France - September 1, 1944

  • 24:30 - Collaborators, welcoming the 36th Division and 753rd Tank Battalion - Lyon, France - September 3, 1944

  • 34:29 - Collaborators, welcoming the 36th Division and 753rd Tank Battalion - Besancon, France - September 8, 1944

  • 42:03 - Troops of the 143rd Infantry Regiment and 133rd Field Artillery of the 36th Division - Cussy-sur-l'Ognon, France - September 9, 1944

  • 43:20 - 143rd Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division troops with Major General John Dahlquist, division commander - Oiselay-et-Grachaux, France - September 10, 1944

  • 49:15 - 111th Engineer Battalion, 36th Infantry Division at the La Lanterne River - St. Marie en Chaux, France - September 16, 1944

  • 50:36 - 143rd Infantry Regiment being carried by the 753rd Tank Battalion and 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion - Luxeuil-les-Bains, France - September 16, 1944

  • 55:11 - 36th Division troops moving forward - Plombieres-les-Bains, France - September 20, 1944

  • 57:29 - 143rd Infantry Regiment troops crossing the Moselle River with Brigadier General Robert Stack, assisting commanding general of the 36th Division, watching - Noir Gueux, France - September 21, 1944

  • 1:04:31 - 36th Signal Company and 141st Infantry Regiment moving forward - Eloyes, France - September 23, 1944

  • 1:06:31 - German SS POWs taken by the 44th Infantry Division - Wittring, France - January 6, 1945

  • 1:07:35 - Evacuees leaving town - Aachen, France - January 12, 1945

  • 1:09:52 - 100th Infantry Division band on parade - Bitche, France - March 20, 1945

  • 1:15:18 - Destruction in Wurzburg - Wurzburg, Germany - April 10, 1945

  • 1:23:06 - Victims of the Holocaust from the Kaufering Subcamps and a mass grave near Kaufering IV - Landsberg, Germany - May 1, 1945

  • 1:27:29 - Field Marshal Kesselring meets with the 101st Airborne Division - Zell am See, Austria - May 8, 1945

  • 1:34:33 - Delousing displaced persons - Schwabisch Gmund, Germany - May 29, 1945

  • 1:40:14 - 100th Infantry Division review and awards ceremony - Goppingen, Germany - June 26, 1945

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