Japanese guncam footage (1 Viewer)

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Jenisch

Staff Sergeant
1,080
17
Oct 31, 2011
Hello,

What I know is that gun-cameras were only used by Japan for training and propaganda shots. Any exception for combat, specially that survived the war?
 
NHK (= Japan's BBC) maintains a fairly extensive on-line collection of wartime newsreels, including various shots of Japanese aircraft going up to meet allied attacks. I've trawled through quite a number of them, on sleepless evenings, but have never found any guncam shots.

Example of what I'm talking about:

日本ニューã'¹ï½œNHK 戦争証言ã'¢ãƒ¼ã'«ã'¤ãƒ–ã'¹

Above link has the directory, here'sn actual newsreel from June '44:

http://cgi2.nhk.or.jp/shogenarchives/jpnews/movie.cgi?das_id=D0001300345_00000&seg_number=002
 
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it is a shame we dont have those to use for reference. but an odd thought crossed my mind concerning the PTO and gun film. what ever happened to the gun camera film ( and combat reports ) from "operation vengeance"...the mission to get Yamamoto? were these shuffled away into some "classified" folder never to be seen again....or destroyed out of respect? all i can find are some photos of possibly the ac he was in....but nothing of military record.
 
It seems to me that the mission was top secret, and the USA didn't want the Japanese to (even suspect) that their top secret codes had been broken. The USAF did everything that they could think of, to make the attacking P-38's look like they where on a typical sweep. They might have thought that cameras, found on a downed fighter, may have been proof of a planned attack.
 
Most US aircraft had gun cameras, the P-38 had them. That doesn't mean they were always loaded with film though.
I've looked at several Japanese aircraft cutaways, haven't seen any with gun cameras noted yet.
The Japanese were sometimes so anal about weight, they may have just saw gun cameras as just un wanted extra weight.
 
Other than to confirm kills, the quality of early-to-mid war camera technology left a lot to be desired. I've always questioned their efficacy as a training tool.
 

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