Army T/4 Cecil "Max" Campbell of the Army Pictorial Service receives the Legion of Merit Award from Brig. Gen. Richard B. Moran, Fifth Army Signal Officer.  (Early 1944) Photo by Donald Wiedenmayer, 3131st Signal Service Company

Cecil M. “Max” Campbell was killed in action on November 12, 1944, three days short of his 24th birthday. He had previously recorded action at Kasserine Pass, El Guettar and Gafsa in Tunisia. Campbell and his newsreel camera jumped with the 82^nd Airborne Division in Sicily. He was the only cameraman to go in with the amphibious assault behind the German lines at Santa Agata in Sicily. The 23-year-old Scotsman from Mesa, Arizona also saw it hot at Monte Cassino and Anzio. With his heavy equipment, Campbell followed the 5^th Army drives to Rome and Leghorn and then covered the rupture of the Gothic Line. All in all, he had spent two years as a combat cameraman. Bedded down in a house several miles behind the front, he was buried under the rubble by an almost direct hit of a German Luftwaffe night bomber’s stray missile. At the time of his death, Campbell was also a member of the 3131^st Signal Service Company, attached to the Fifth Army. Campbell was the sixth Army photographer to be killed in action in Italy, according to the Army Pictorial Service.

Fifth Army, Florence Area, Italy - 111-SC 241430, National Archives - Decoration and promotion ceremony of members of the 196^th Signal Photo Co. Left to right: Maj. Linden G. Rigby, Army Pictorial Service Photo Officer, Fifth Army; 2^nd Lt. Walter R. Emrich, Jr., (former 1^st Sgt.), Tottenville, Staten Island, New York’ Staff Sgt. Robert G. Edwards, Ashland, Ohio received Bronze Star; Pfc. Clarence E. Speicer, Corapolis, PA., received Silver Star; 1^st Sgt. Charles C. Baker, Atlanta, GA., received Bronze Star; Sgt. Robert F. Tacey, Liberty, New York, received Air Medal; Pfc. Albert A. Hauser, Brooklyn, N.Y. received Combat Infantryman’s Badge; and Pfc. Roland L. Bronson, New York City, NY received the Combat Infantryman’s badge. - Photo by Donald Wiedenmayer, 196^th Signal Photo Company

Army 2nd Lt. Robert H. Schmidt - Lt. Schmidt was born March 6, 1913 and entered the U.S. Army as a volunteer on Jan. 15, 1943. He served until Jan. 24, 1946, being overseas in Africa and Italy with nine months of continuous combat service in Italy with Fifth Army, II Corps, 196th Signal Photo Company as combat photographer and photo unit commander. He received the Bronze Star and a Battlefield Commission. Prior to entering military service, Schmidt was a feature writer-photographer for International News Service Photos. He died on Dec. 16, 1991. Source: The Forgotten Front in Northern Italy: A World War II Combat Photographer's Illustrated Memoir of the Gothic Line Campaign, McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers © 1994.