Warbird Information Exchange

Can someone explain the process to me? What happened to all the gun camera film after the event?


I assume but I'm guesing that first it was reviewed but squadron staff and Intel but then what? Did it get ship back to a national repository? After all we are talking about thousands of missions flown in thousands of aircraft made for WW2 and then add in Korea and Vietnam. It adds up rather quickly and that's not taking into account our allies and then the axis.

But for the US is there a stock pile of footage that quite possibly hasn't seen the light of day since shortly after being filmed?

Also did any reports accompany the footage?

Thanks


Shay
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Semper Fortis

Probably scrapped.

Today we use either 8mm videotapes or digital "pucks", and after clips of bomb drops or other interesting info is dubbed off, they get put back into circulation and re-used.

That's slightly disheartening.

We did a similar thing when I was stationed at NAS Norfolk regarding the FAA tapes of GCA RADAR information. We had a 15 day rotation in which after said time they were degauzed and recorded on again. Mind you these were on the already ancient RD-379 systems and nowadays more modern systems (digital) have replaced them thank gawd.

Thanks Randy

Shay
_____________
Semper Fortis

I actually spent most of six hours Thursday going through reels of WW II gun camera film at work. From what we reviewed the units must have kept it at least for a while because most of them were compilation reels covering weeks or months of missions. I assume the specific clips were kept because they showed something of intelligence value. One was all made up of one day's strikes on a German airfield, another was all air-to-air, another was all attacks that resulted in secondary explosions from the targets. Others covered say two or three months of attacks by the fighter group I was looking at and were obviously intended as briefing reels for the higher ups. Also some pilots collected all their films into personal highlight reels.

James

Thanks James very interesting.

How did you come by your films?

Also just out of curiosity what units did you film cover?


While not film, my dad has recordings made by my Uncle of his sorties over Vietnam while driving F-8 Crusaders. Just need to track down that Reel to reel player.


Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

I have seen compilation reels of GSAP camera footage at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. They even have names of pilot's, dates and mission information that can readily be searched.

I was looking for information on Flying Heritages P-51 and I came across gun camera footage from one of Bud Tordoff's missions. There is a lot of gun camera film at NARA and you can bring along a blank video tape and record as much as you want for free. That whole facility is a superb example of our tax dollars put to good use. It is full of treasure just waiting to be uncovered.

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They were donated to the museum by several individuals over the years. Most of what I was looking at was from the 406th FG. We're working on an exhibit about the Group and I was looking to see if we had anything worth transfering to DVD.

We've got a recording made on one of the B-52s on the first raid on Hanoi. The Navigator hooked his personal tape player into the plane's radio and intercom and recorded about 90 minutes of the mission from just before the IP to well after the bomb drop.

James