RAF Gun Camera Film Questions

xtangomike,
That one with the red access panel looks like the G45 I bid for, and lost, on eBay!!!!

I would imagine the cassette has been opened at some point in it’s life – the one that came with mine was empty.
We did discover that the small black and metal cores that were dotted around the film department were used inside the cassette – allowed me to load it up with some film leader.

In my post WW11 experience the G45 gun cameras were extensively used for an exercise called “cine”. This involved dummy attacks on a fellow squadron member, a pair of aircraft taking turns at being fighter and target.

The resultant film was then “assessed” to determine if the pilots could shoot. When we had the Mossie with the fixed ring sight that meant labouriously clicking the film through the projector frame by frame. The point of aim, deflection allowed and range had to be assessed (guessed) and pilots critised on the results.

The cameras used 16 mm film running at half cinema speed. The best pieces I ever saw was when we did some affiliation with a warship. To see that ship jump in length each frame as the range closed was very entertaining. This was from a Meteor at fairly high speed, great fun. Wish I had been able to keep some of it.

These two fell into my hands recently…..wonder if the cassette is ‘live’ ?

Slightly removed from the original topic, I have Fairchild K-20 low-level reconaissance stills camera I picked up in an antique shop in salisbury many years ago (£20 iirc). No way of obtaining original film stock, but I can load it with single sheets (not entirely practical though). I gather it was simply held up to the nearest window and clicked off.

I could well have watched some of the film he’d worked on – there is a lot of 317 stuff as well as the other Polish squadrons in the backlog of films.

Glad you liked Bob. Should have some more somewhere, will keep searching. I had some frames from film he’d worked on, lent to a guy at work to enlarge, he left, lost them. Very careful now.

An interesting gun camera/stike camera installation was what the RAAF did to their 9 x A-20C’s (A28-23 thru A28-31) operated by 22 sqn, instead of the usual field instalation of 4 x .50 mg’s thru the bomb aimers window these a/c kept the bomb aimers window and mounted 3 x .50 machine guns above the window with two cheek mounted .50’s , this enabled a strike/gun camera to be mounted in the nose , it was quite a large camera, maybe some one here could tell me what type?
The Australian War Memorial has some amazing footage of gun runs by these Bostons in PNG you can actualy see 3 lines of tracer coming from the top of the film and one line of tracer from each bottom corner, these are the only Bostons I have seen with this camers/armament setup as its the only a/c i’ve seen with 5 x fwd firing .50’s i’ve seen , the US mounted 2x .50’s in A-20B’s in North Africa but no camera.

These 3 photos show the 5 gun/camera nose in the first 2 if you enlarge them you can see the camera thru the bomb aimers window

Great pics. In the first he’s obviously checking 16mm film (that was used in the gun cameras). Pot of film cement on the table so he could be joining film or removing segments (the good bits maybe!)…
As you say, great workshop!

The Spitfire image – little bit ‘spooky’ that one of the few Spitfires I’ve seen with the camera port still extant is Spitfire Mk.Vb BM597, which is marked up in 317 Sqdn ‘colours’!

The last pic – that looks like a hand held recce camera (Williamson F 24) – obviously in the ‘workshop’ with the shelf full of the same types! Sure someone here will confirm or correct my comments.

Thanks for sharing these.

Bob
found these:-





Photo 1 Father at work.
2 All mod cons (tent to work in).
3 Father far left.
4 Close to General Sikorski.
5 Unknown.
No doubt I will be told if I’ve done wrong in marking 4 photos but posted some before and had them lifted (not this site). If I am wrong I apologise.
Photo 5 has the name Morland Braithwaite, Birmingham on the back so apologies to them if , again, I am wrong in posting it.

tona,
That would be interesting to see.

This request is tied in with the current project I’m doing at Duxford. After watching RAF WWII gun camera film for almost four years, picking up a G45 camera on the way, noting various aircraft with the camera port still in place on the wing, the actual ‘mechanics’ of who, how and what, is also of interest.

My late father was a photographer in the Polish Air Force, WWII. I will try and find the photos of him at work and post them. Might be of some interest to you.

On a couple of clips there has been a tripod structure with two ‘arms’ with discs situated along the arms. Was this used for aligning the guns prior to firing?

The above info is very helpful – I expect the methods didn’t change that much post WWII so it all helps to build the picture.

FYI, post WW II, from my Lightnng experiences, Gun Camera magazines would be changed by any engineering tradesman involved in the flight servicing of the ac. Gun cameras were periodically harmonised by the armourers to ensure they pointed where they were needed!

Gun cameras were always harmonised by armourers AND photographers together, magazines were changed and reloaded by photographers and later ACF’s ( Air Camera Fitters) Lightning recording cameras were usually done by Photogs or Radar fitters as the spine mounted recorder (depending on version) was linked to a bit of radar kit and the cockpit mounted Pilot Attack Sight Recorder was linked to the attack radar via the pilot attack sight. A G90 was also mounted inside the nose intake shock cone lower support on some variants.
The mix of recording cameras was long and varied as was the position in various aircraft types, worthy of a book of it’s own.

hindenburg,
G45 was used but with a short/medium lens depending on where the camera was mounted.

In my post WW11 experience the G45 gun cameras were extensively used for an exercise called “cine”. This involved dummy attacks on a fellow squadron member, a pair of aircraft taking turns at being fighter and target.

The resultant film was then “assessed” to determine if the pilots could shoot. When we had the Mossie with the fixed ring sight that meant labouriously clicking the film through the projector frame by frame. The point of aim, deflection allowed and range had to be assessed (guessed) and pilots critised on the results.

The cameras used 16 mm film running at half cinema speed. The best pieces I ever saw was when we did some affiliation with a warship. To see that ship jump in length each frame as the range closed was very entertaining. This was from a Meteor at fairly high speed, great fun. Wish I had been able to keep some of it.

I have a G45 with `Long lens` that were apparently fitted in turrets in the place of a 303 for training purpose …were they fitted in fighters too ?

Pretty sure that G45s were fitted to Hunters and ac of that ilk. Lightnings had a G90.

To my eternal shame, I fogot to switch the damn thing on on the 2 occasions when it would have been very helpful.

= Tim

I have a G45 with `Long lens` that were apparently fitted in turrets in the place of a 303 for training purpose …were they fitted in fighters too ?

FYI, post WW II, from my Lightnng experiences, Gun Camera magazines would be changed by any engineering tradesman involved in the flight servicing of the ac. Gun cameras were periodically harmonised by the armourers to ensure they pointed where they were needed!

But an answer and thanks for the swift reply. It fills in a few gaps.

RAF Photographers.

Hello Bob,
This stuff was looked after by dedicated RAF Photographers, that was (and probably still is ) their Stock trades, they would operate from out of a photographic section, install/un-install camera’s and gear/ films,etc.in Aircraft and retreive the films immediately after the flight finished and rush these back to section for developing/printing etc. usually with a tight deadline to get the Photo results back to intelligence Officers and Staff ASAP.

However, with the Inter Trades overlaps and desperation of WW2, Armourers /and all A/C trades men ( And women) would be getting involved too after being cleared for that task by Unit Engineering Officer. So not a complete answer Bob.

Bill T.