35mm was often the Kodak 35. You can still find scale focusing versions
in Army colors. {Military designation: PH-324}
On 11/12/2010 8:45 AM, John Sessoms wrote:
From: Doug Franklin
No details are provided about how it was made or what the situation
was, just the title. From it I judge that it's at the moment
immediately after the bombs were dropped. An important one, because
there would have been a period prior to that, I think of a couple
minutes or so, during which the plane was under the control of the
bombardier and the bomb sight, and evasive action could not be
taken. My mind jumps to the possibility that the plane came under
attack, or had been under attack, during the final run up to the
target. That might explain the look on the guy's face. Pure
speculation, but it is "*After* bombs away," not just "Bombs
away."
>
That's possible, and it's certainly logical from the photo's title,
but it seems a bit odd. If they'd just dropped their bombs, I would
expect there to be visible flak bursts in the sky. There wouldn't be
fighters, though, as neither side's fighters would generally get into
the flak gauntlet around the actual target or specified "flak zones"
on the routes across Europe.
Likely it's *After* bombs away because up until the point of release,
the bombardier would have been facing front, hunched over the bomb-sight.
The photo was taken from the navigator's position in the aircraft;.
could have been taken by the navigator himself or by a combat
photographer assigned to the mission.
I'm leaning towards the navigator himself having taken it because the
image frame doesn't appear to have the characteristic film holder
outline I'd expect from official photos made using sheet film holders
and a Graflex camera.
Maybe official photographers with the 8th Air Force had small format
cameras, but a quick internet search turned up a dearth of information
on the camera equipment issued and used by the U.S. armed forces
during WWII.
--
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral
bankruptcy."
-Woody Allen
--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
[email protected]
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow
the directions.
