B-29s over Japan documentary.

[crsutton]

This one is very good.

http://youtu.be/heDUXilPIOc

[wdolson]

Some of that footage may have been my father's. I'll send it to him and see if he remembers anything.

He did photographic work flying B-29s out of Saipan early in the B-29 campaign. Though it looks like most of that footage is from later.

Bill

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Some of that footage may have been my father's. I'll send it to him and see if he remembers anything.

He did photographic work flying B-29s out of Saipan early in the B-29 campaign. Though it looks like most of that footage is from later.

Bill

It would be fascinating to know Bill. Perhaps your dad knew the photographer. My best friend lost his dad a few years ago. His dad was an non commissioned army photographer during the war and one of a few enlisted personnel to serve in both theaters. It seemed like he was at every major historical event during the war and I was always amazed to go to his house and see some of his fathers photos just lying around. Patton, MacArthur, Churchill you name it. The sad thing is that the family just can't get it together to see that these photos get into some sort of historical collection. Very sad.

[wdolson]

I just got off the phone with my father. I sent him the link, but he hasn't seen it yet.

He said he was there just before they switched to night bombing in early 1945. So the time frame looks about right. He's talked about this project before, but he went into more detail tonight.

His main job was to film every bomb run to every target in Japan. They were assigned an F-15 (recon B-29) and they mounted a 35mm motion picture camera in the nose. The goal was to show the navigators the film for the target and to

The officers in his unit were mostly Hollywood motion picture guys and they didn't think much of still photography, but my father took his Leica with him and was shooting some still pictures. He talked to the guy who built the mount for the movie camera mount and he built an add on where my father could mount the Leica and take still photos.

My father's thinking was that still photos would be better for finding stuff than motion pictures which are constantly moving and you get poor resolution when you stop the movie. He figured a slide show would be better for the navigators than a movie. The Hollywood guys thought he was nuts.

One of the few officers who was not a Hollywood guy found out about it and ordered a bunch of Kodachrome and Leicas for the other planes as well as modifying the camera mount for all the planes on the project.

My father said they were trying to find the Ha-140 plant somewhere around Mt Fuji. He said it was very well camouflaged, they knew it was there, but couldn't locate it exactly. My father's Leica pictures found it and the plant was bombed out of business soon after. So my father's work might be responsible for the Ha-140 shortage in 1945.

In all the years he's been telling his war stories he's never told me that little nugget.

My father was part of the 1st Motion Picture Unit which made a large number of training films. In 1943 they started sending detachments out to the Pacific and he was in the first detachment. He's not sure if his detachment had another name or not. He said nobody really ever told him what unit he was in. Everyone in the unit had to qualify for OCS. For the most part the Hollywood people were made officers and the non-Hollywood people were enlisted.

My father was going to go to OCS, but got talked out of it. He wishes he went though.

Bill

[Chickenboy]

Wow. Great reading, Bill. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Thank your father for us too, while you're at it...[&o]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

This one is very good.

http://youtu.be/heDUXilPIOc

Thanks, crsutton. Once you get past the first few minutes with the smiling natives that "don't notice" their island is now basically tarmac, this was a very good video.