A-20 Question: Ventral Position Camera

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

I will probaly start to build my 1/48 A-20 as one serving in the Pacific in 1944. I am using this book as a reference on the subject:

Wreaking Havoc: A Year in an A-20 (Texas a & M University Military History Series, 91.)
by Joseph W. Rutter (Author)

From the end of the New Guinea campaign throughout the Philippine campaign the ventral gun position was modified, by replacing the flexible .50 cal with a camera. Control of the air was wrestled so completely from the Japanese that seldom would defending fighters be encountered. The author of the book was never attacked in any of his missions except by AA guns. This brought about the use of the camera to evaluate the bombing runs faster than relying just on photo recon aircraft. The flight engineer would operate the dorsal turret and turn on the camera just prior to the bomb run. Besides the gun, the gunner was removed as well, bringing it down to a two man crew.

Eventhough the book has pictures of the camera position it doesn’t show the camera completely (from the inside and the finished model will be looking the opposite way.) . I am looking for either an AM camera to use or some pictures to scratch build one by.

Thanks, any help would be appreciated.

Mike T.

2

Mike, do you suppose it would have been just a gun camera mounted back there? I can’t imagine that it would have been a camera normally used for photo recon. Any camera names in the book?

3

John;

I’ll check the text tonight and get back to you.

Going over the Squadron 'In Action" for this bird last night , I found no mention of this conversion. The author was pretty adamant that this was how things were, especially his claim of not seeing a Japanese aircraft in flight. He had bombed Clark Field with the first major attack on it and also the big Japanese air base in Taiwan. All of those pictures of the parachute bombs being dropped from bombers in the Pacific were probably filmed by this method. Notice how steady the camera stays in position.

Mike T.