“Hundreds of kids had been sucked out through the windows. At a ruined school he filmed the bodies of children amid piles of skulls. The fields around Nagasaki were bleached white and the city looked as if a “massive anvil” had flattened it, he later told McCabe. His defining work came in Japan a year later, where he took still photographs and filmed with 35mm in black and white and Technicolor. McGovern flew bombing missions over Germany – surviving two crashes – and filmed footage used in a 1944 documentary, The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress.
He was a photographer for President Roosevelt before setting up an air force camera training school in Hollywood, where he encountered Ronald Reagan, Clark Gable and other stars. The family moved to the US and McGovern, nicknamed Big Mack for his 6ft 5in frame, joined the air force, ending up in its artistic wing, the First Motion Picture Unit. During Ireland’s 1919-21 war of independence, still a boy, he hitched rides with the Black and Tans, a British military force. McGovern was born in Monaghan town in 1905, the son of a policeman. “Dan was the most interesting person I ever met,” said McCabe.
His presence at key moments in the 20th century has elicited comparisons to Forrest Gump, the fictional character who stumbled through historical events. The research has revealed that McGovern bore witness not only to the dawn of the atomic age but also Ireland’s revolution, Franklin Roosevelt’s White House, wartime Hollywood and the so-called Roswell incident that entered UFO lore.
It’s such a surprise to see my uncle Dan and his family recognised,” said Michael McGovern, a nephew. McGovern’s relatives travelled to Monaghan last week for the unveiling of a plaque. Joe McCabe, a journalist from McGovern’s native County Monaghan in Ireland, has pieced together his remarkable life in a biography, Rebels to Reels, published earlier this month after 20 years of research, including interviews with McGovern before his death in 2005.
Daniel the cameraman full#
Only now, decades later, has his full story emerged. Photograph: Al Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images McGovern, holding the photo of himself in Nagasaki, with son Tim in 1998.
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