Hi John,
Yes, we all were confused - it's just a story that won't die. The belly window
was a bombing window, but for setting up attacks on enemy ship AAA. (One version of the window story had the window used to check if the landing gear was down, even though the landing gear couldn't be seen through the window.)
The recon versions of the -1 Corsairs generally had a vertical camera mounted in the modified ventral access hatch, like this:
View attachment 588214View attachment 588215
There were at least two versions of oblique camera mounts. The earlier version had the camera pointing to the left side like so:
View attachment 588216View attachment 588217View attachment 588217
while the modified F4U-1Ds ran the oblique camera to the right:
View attachment 588218View attachment 588219
Note the sliding hatch for the camera on #171. I suspect most of the mounts used a similar form of lens protection.
Anyhow, I hope this helps...
Cheers,
Dana