Photo-recce in RNZAF

[Barnsey]

... the Army recce task was on 23 July 2001 in NZ6255 with LAC Dean in the back seat.

[phasselgren]

May 17, 2009 13:30:20 GMT 12 Dave Homewood said:

Don't go giving away any military secrets while discussing this topic guys, some of the equipment used on the Orions and Skyhawks etc will still be classified. Not sure if the cameras are, but better to be safe than sorry.

Also, Don are those photos RNZAF Official or RNZAF Museum copyright? Please credit them. I guess the Blunty one is over 20 years old so that will be the Museum's photo.

Sorry Dave, don´t want to lead you into trouble. I´m interested in history of this equipment. Both technical information and how it was used operationally but I doubt if any of this equipment has any real value today. If we look at tactical recce most of it is made with RPVs and the information is transferred real-time from digital cameras or IR-sensors. No time for printing photos today.

Thanks for the new posts all of you. I you have any more info please keep it coming.

I was in contact with the RNZAF in 2007 and they mentioned the use of both Harvard and Vampire for photo-missions. Does anyone know anything about this?

By the way if any of you has spare time and wants to do a real research on this subject the Air Force Museum would welcome this. I once had the intention to do this myself but soon discovered the difficulties to do this from Sweden. I now concentrate on New Zealanders in the RAF during WW l and ll. British National Achives are much closer to Sweden and it´s quite easy (but expensive) to get digital copies of the documents.

Peter

[twenty24]

Hey guys, just found this thread. I have a camera in a wooden box, says B Camera 5” on the door of the box. Has a sticker on the camera saying PHOTOGRAPHIC SECTION
OPS/INTELL/PHOTO FLIGHT
RNZAF BASE WIGRAM
Looking for info on what aircraft it was used in?

[davidd]

Perhaps only of marginal interest to readers of this thread, but 5 Squadron, in it's Sunderland days, took some interesting photographs. The one I remember best was that taken from one of their Sunderland's beam hatches, of a Boeing Stratocruiser (Pan Am I presume) in full flight and at some altitiude (may have been 10 - 12,000 feet I think), have an idea the two aircraft were in communication, some sort of technical problem aboard the airliner, in mid to late 1950s. Probably taken somewhere over the great, wide Pacific, north of Fiji.

Also RNZAF Corsairs in WW2 rarely carried gun cameras, due to the flimsy type of mounting for the cameras. However they may have carried another type of camera (or perhaps somebody designed a better mounting bracket), as they certainly took some Tac Recce photographs of some Japanese tanks bumbling about on Bougainville in early/mid 1945, one of these photos reproduced in J M S Ross's official history of RNZAF in WW2, Pacific. PV-1 Venturas and PBY Catalinas always seemed to carry various cameras in case they came across something interesting in their travels. Possibly also with Ansons, TBFs, etc., perhaps even abord Vincents or Vildebeests, Baffins? Sometimes F-24s, other times standard American military types.

I also have a vague recollection that RNZAF P-40s were sometimes used to take "tactical" photographs with the normal gun-camera, I think one example was flown by "Mort" Vanderpump somewhere around Rabaul in late 1943 or early 1944.

[Dave Homewood]

Venturas and Hudson crews carried decent reconnaissance cameras so they could take photos of any shipping they spotted. You would think that would also be the case for the Vincents, Vildebeests, and Baffins, too, but I do not recall any mention of cameras being used in those types. And I do not recall ever seeing photos taken from them on patrols, the closest would be aerial survey work they did for local councils who were planning flood diversions, etc.

I am guessing the survey photos would have been taken from the bomb aimer's position in the bottom of the Vilde or Vincent, with the camera mounted looking down.

I guess if they actually did not carry cameras in the biplanes as a regular thing, maybe that was because it was difficult to get an oblique photo from an open cockpit in the slipstream?

And also the RNZAF did not have a Photographer trade till mid-1941 so I assume they did not have dark rooms, and all the associated equipment. Before the trade was formed any official photography was done by hiring in local studio photographers to do, on a job by job basis, I believe, and for specialist stuff Stewart & White was engaged. Leo White of that company later joined the RNZAF himself. But anyway, I just wonder if the RNZAF would have had any capacity to handle reconnaissance photography in the first two years of the war?

[camtech]

Aug 21, 2024 20:49:12 GMT 12 twenty24 said:

Hey guys, just found this thread. I have a camera in a wooden box, says B Camera 5” on the door of the box. Has a sticker on the camera saying PHOTOGRAPHIC SECTION
OPS/INTELL/PHOTO FLIGHT
RNZAF BASE WIGRAM
Looking for info on what aircraft it was used in?

Just to clarify, the camera is an F24 aerial camera, with a 5" lens. Based on the box, I would assume the camera was probably used in Devon aircraft, but may have had a wider use in other types.

[McFly]

Here's a photo from the Air Force Museum collection showing several camera boxes including the F24. There may be some info/clues among them..?

"Photographers working with aerial cameras. WhG2555-44 - 1944" (link)

[camtech]

Those are definitely the same box as our query camera is in.
That's quite a few F24's, more than I've ever seen in one place.

[davidd]

Note that the wartime flying trade of Observer in all British Commonwealth air forces (including RNZAF) did include in part of their syllabus the operation of aerial cameras (in addition to navigation and other useful trades). So there should have been no shortage of trained aerial photographers (once we started training that is, I think our first observers probably graduated about mid 1940).

[Dave Homewood]

A Ventura Air Gunner I used to know told me he also used the F24 camera a fair bit. I hve a photo he took out the window of his PV-1 of another beside them.

[Dave Homewood]

I sent a message to former Wigram Photographic Section Warrant Officer Mike Provost who was the boss there in the 1990s till the base closed, and asked if he recognised your camera Callum. He replied to me, "Yes is was definitely one of our cameras held at Wigram. Wonder where he got it from? Cheers, Mike"

[camtech]

When I was repairing F24's at Whenuapai, I would often wander round the tarmac area and take random photos of aircraft or scenery to test the camera. Got a few interesting shots that way. Very helpful Photo Section would develop the film and show me any worthwhile prints. One way to use odd short ends of film.

[Dave Homewood]

Aug 26, 2024 12:36:09 GMT 12 Dave Homewood said:

I sent a message to former Wigram Photographic Section Warrant Officer Mike Provost who was the boss there in the 1990s till the base closed, and asked if he recognised your camera Callum. He replied to me, "Yes is was definitely one of our cameras held at Wigram. Wonder where he got it from? Cheers, Mike"

W/O Mike Provost (rtd) has added "they were last used for oblique photography."