OT: No gun cameras at Battle of Midway?

re: Gun Cameras

The fixed gun camera aligned with the aircraft's fixed ordnance was a fairly late war innovation, only saw wide use from late 1944. Carrier Divebombers could be used in the reconnaissance role with a variety of hand held cameras operated by the gunner in the rear seat. That said, dive bomber and scout bomber casualties at Midway ran some

50% which perhaps is the best explanation of why photos taken by U.S. aircraft at Midway are very rare. The ones that may have taken pictures didn't get home with them.

Bill Shuey

there's a pretty good account fron ensign george gay, the only survivor of torpedo 8. he was flosting in the water after being shot down. after he was picked up, a dr. asked him how he treated his wounds. he said he soaked them is salt water. i think the source i have is the ballentine book on midway.

Hi,Ho

There is a couple of pictures of the Hiryu (which was the last IJN carrier to be sunk) after she had be hit once or twice from SBD bombs, they are blurry and shows her forward elevator blown up and out of its well and leaning against the Island.

greg

The Hiryu pictures were taken by a Japanese plane (a BB or CA scout IIRC) that Yamamoto sent to see if the Hiryu was still afloat after Nagumo reported her scuttling. The pilot saw some 3 dozen survivors on deck, and reported that when he landed-these guys abandoned ship and sailed for a couple of weeks in a cutter trying to reach Wake when a USN seaplane tender found them. One of the survivors picked up happened to be Hiryu's Chief Engineer. All indicated that they would refuse repatriation at the end of the war-but none of them did when the time came.

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James Retief said,

"there's a pretty good account fron ensign george gay, the only survivor of torpedo 8. he was flosting in the water after being shot down."

Which is now regarded by serious scholars as utter hogwash, since VT-8 attacked at 0917 and the first dive bombers didn't push over until 1022. That means the Japanese fleet had an hour to steam away from its position, and Gay, with his eyes 8 to 10 inches above the water, could not have possibly seen them. The Kido Butai didn't stick around waiting to get attacked, either; the three torpedo squadrons' attacks were strung out over an hour precisely because the Japanese were trying to get out of dodge from the first moment VT-8 was sighted.

Better witnesses would be VF-3's Tom Cheek or Jimmy Thach, who both saw the three carriers explode. I interviewed Tom in the June 2002 Internet Modeler.

--Chris Bucholtz

Hhhmmm!

If the Japanese carriers were steaming in a straight line I'd agree. In an hour and 5 minutes a 27 knot ship would cover about 30 miles. But you don't dodge bombs and torpedoes by steaming in a straight line, you execute turns, hard ones. Formations get screwed up and ships spread out. What Ens. Gay might have seen is something that an armchair sailor sitting at a comfortable desk 30 years later can only guess at, and not very accurately unless he is an experienced ship handler. Also remember that in addition to the three torpedo squadrons there were a number of formations from Midway itself that also attacked throughout the morning, although no more effectively. They also kept the Japanese fleet in pretty much a state on constant maneuver.

My $.02 worth Bill Shuey

Except that the times I ran into George at a hobby shop in San Diego back in the late 70's his description included a very accurate explanation of the wildly varying courses and speeds the carrier division assumed as they kept dodging attacks throughout the morning, and they essentially wound up manuevering in a relatively small area.

Who are these 'serious scholars?'

Scott G. Welch