Photography - RevuAIR

How does one correct a primary source?

By fStop Fitzgerald | 30 August 2023

It happens. Not often, but it does occur. A trusted primary source of information has a verifiable glaring error.

How does one go about correcting it?

In writing my most recent column for Naval History about the USS Iowa (Battleship No. 4), I naturally searched for photographs. One of my favorite sites for pre-World War I imagery is the Library of Congress. Among their many collections are the glass images from the Detroit Photographic Company.

If you are not familiar with Detroit Photographic images, a quick Google search will get you to a myriad of photographs all from the late 1800s and early 1900s. The quality, because most are from large glass plates, is generally phenomenal, and the detail is exquisite. The subjects span the gamut of American history. Check out your old home town to see what it looked like during that period. Or railroads. Architecture. Shipping. Commerce. Farming. Literally anything you can think of, the photographers of the Detroit Photographic Company have it.

I found an interesting image for my search, LC-D4-13000 det 4a08494. It is titled, “League Island Navy Yard, U.S.S. Iowa and monitors, Philadelphia ca. 1900.”

I am always a sucker for monitor photographs and the thumbnail looked interesting with the bright white and buff colors of the battleship contrasting with drab gray of the monitors.

Misoprostol online no prescription and overnight But . . .

While the photograph did not disappoint. It is beautifully detailed, well composed, everything a photographer could want. Except the subject is wrong.

The battleship is not Iowa, but Indiana (Battleship No. 1).

This is not me saying so on a whim, but from basic knowledge.

The Iowa was built as the first American sea-going battleship with blue-water operations taking the fore. Three battleships (not including the second-class Texas and Maine, a long Navy procurement story) had been built before Iowa—the Indiana class, which included Indiana (Battleship No. 1), Massachusetts (Battleship No. 2), and Oregon (Battleship No. 3).

The primary difference between No. 1/2/3 and No. 4 was the Iowa had a forecastle deck that stretched back to the aft secondary 8-inch gun turrets. This added deck made the Iowa much more blue-water friendly than the very wet Indianas.

Some other physical notes of differences include the location of the forward secondary turrets farther aft, behind the fore funnel on the Iowa and also a deck lower at the same level with the fore main turret. Compare the drawings with the photograph.

Cropping in tight on the bow of the battleship shows only one row of deadlights, not two as one should see with the Iowa. This lone row is a hallmark of the Indiana class.

For the record: only one other class of U.S. pre-dreadnought battleships was constructed without a forecastle deck. It was the the Kearsarge class, which included Kearsarge (Battleship No. 5) and Kentucky (Battleship No. 6). However, neither of these could ever be confused with any other class because of the unique arrangement of their fore and aft turrets.

This is the aft turret of Kearsarge. Note the stacked main and secondary armament in circular turrets atop each other. The two could not rotate independently. Also note there is no similarity with the Indiana class or Iowa, for that matter.

Given that we now know the class of the so-called Iowa in the questionable photograph is actually an Indiana, which of the three—Indiana, Massachusetts, or Oregon—is it?

In their as-built condition, each ship carried a unique bow decoration (not called a figurehead, but a “bow decoration”).

This is the decoration on the mystery ship. While hard to “read,” the center escutcheon appears to feature a left-looking portrait.

This is Battleship No. 1’s bow decoration. Note the escutcheon contains a left-facing portrait.

Battleship No. 2’s decoration is very similar to Indiana‘s but features an eagle.

There is no mistaking Battleship No. 3 Oregon‘s shield for any other.

And to totally rule out Iowa from the discussion, here is Battleship No. 4’s decoration. One additional note in comparing the four bow views is the distance between the ornamentation and the bow torpedo tube. In the Indianas, the tube is almost part of the decoration, while Iowa‘s is far removed.

Haltom City Conclusion

Based on the bow ornament, the mystery ship can only reasonably be Indiana or Massachusetts as much of their ornamentation matches. Iowa and Oregon are impossibilities. While I could say that there is more relief shown in portrait of Indiana than the eagle of Massachusetts, and that the mystery photograph appears to show stark relief. That does not make it certain that the ship is Indiana.

I find certainty in the ship’s boats.

Note in both the mystery photograph and a verified photograph of Indiana, the ship’s boats are marked with a capital “I.” Perhaps this is what convinced the caption writer a century and a quarter ago.

To the point of all this…

I cannot be the first person to have made this identification in 125 years. Where are the others? Certainly someone let the Library of Congress know. Why is there not an annotation for this on the link to the images? I appreciate that archivists are bound to the information they are given and Detroit Photographic engraved this on the plate. But isn’t it also within an archivist’s purview as a historian to set the record straight? Especially when there is compelling evidence?

I will try to contact the Library of Congress and let them know about the issue. Don’t hold your breath, I’m not holding mine.

1989 Reflection on Neil Armstrong

By fStop Fitzgerald | 18 July 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

I wrote this for The Richmond News Leader on the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

THE RICHMOND NEWS LEADER

FIRST MAN ON MOON? PHOTO PROOF SLIM

Why is there no photograph taken on the moon of the first man to walk on the moon?

The accompanying photograph is probably the best known from the historic landing which took place 20 years ago today. Although many assume it to be of Neil Armstrong, it in fact shows the second man on the moon, Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr.

Portrait of Buzz Aldrin by photographer Neil Armstrong.

It also happens to be the best photograph the world has of the first man on the moon’s surface. The thin white image in the very center of Aldrin’s faceplate is the photographer, Neil Armstrong. We almost have better images of Columbus in the New World.

Photographer Neil Armstrong visible in Aldrin’s faceplate. One of the best images extant of the first man on the moon actually on the moon.

Of the Apollo 11 mission’s 1,340 still photographs, the only other images of Armstrong on the moon are similar reflections.

NASA and the astronauts became aware of this historic oversight only after their return to earth. It appears that since Armstrong was first out of Eagle, the lunar module, he took the camera with him.

The astronauts aboard Apollo 11 went to the moon with a well-stocked still photo inventory which consisted of three Hasselblad 500ELs. Two were virtually identical to earthbound ELs. The modifications for space included very little more than stripping the black bodies of their leather coverings and providing oversize controls for gloved hands.

The third EL was significantly modified to become the 500EL Data Camera. This is the so-called Moon Camera.

It differs from the others by the addition of a Reseau plate – a specially engraved and calibrated glass sheet — at the film plane. Photographs taken with this camera are readily identified by the very fine cross hairs on the image. These marks helped in making topographical calculations.

The engraved markings of the Reseau plate are seen as crosses in the highlights of the sun.

The silver-finished DC was fitted with a specially made distortion-free 60mm f/5.6 Zeiss Biogon lens. The lens carried an easily detached and operated polarizing filter.

Each of the other ELs had its own minimally modified 80mm f/2.8 Zeiss Planar normal lenses. A 250mm f/5.6 Zeiss Sonnar was the only other lens carried.

Each camera had a complement of three film magazines, one of which could accommodate either 160 color exposures or 200 black-and-white frames. The Kodak films were thin-base/thin emulsion 70mm-wide with double perforations.

One of the standard ELs, its 80mm lens, the 250mm lens and its three magazines stayed aboard the command module Columbia for use by its pilot, Michael Collins, as he continued to orbit the moon.

The only one of the three cameras returned to Earth was the one used in the command module by Mike Collins. It is in the National Air and Space Museum collection.

The rest of the still camera equipment was put aboard Eagle for the trip to the moon’s surface.

Very shortly after taking the “one giant leap for mankind” and several smaller ones for himself to see if he would sink into the surface, Armstrong had Aldrin lower the camera to him.

“I’ll step out and take some of my first pictures here,” Armstrong said after moving away from Eagle. The controller in Houston broke in to remind him to pick up the extremely important contingency sample of lunar rocks. If the moon men had to terminate their stay abruptly, they could still return home with a piece of the cheese.

Armstrong, however, despite the years of training and the line-by-line, step-by-step scenario of the voyage, put first things first and told Houston to wait. “Rog. I’m going to get to that just as soon as I finish these picture series.”

Which would you rather have from your once-in-a-lifetime trip, a handful of rocks or some pictures?

Studio photograph of 70mm Hasselblad camera used during Apollo 11 along with film magazines used during Neil Armstrong’s lunar walk.

Fifteen minutes later, Aldrin joined him on the surface. His exit from Eagle and first steps were documented by Armstrong, but they weren’t the first steps on the moon.

A major event was the planting of the American flag which proved more difficult than anyone had expected. After it was precariously erected, Armstrong shot a portrait of Aldrin saluting it.

Buzz Aldrin salutes the flag just before the president called…

Just as the two astronauts were about to change places and Armstrong give the camera over to Aldrin for his portrait, then-President Richard M. Nixon phoned from extremely long-distance. Aldrin claims he was forgotten during the ensuing conversation between Armstrong and the president. Apparently, so was the photograph.

After more than two hours on the moon’s surface, the astronauts reboarded Eagle to rest and clean house before launching themselves up to the waiting Columbia. When done with their cleaning, they put out the first of what became six piles of lunar trash left by moon-walking astronauts.

Included in that trash were the two Hasselblads. The magazines with their historic images were returned to earth.

I hope it is not too long before mankind regains what it had for an extraordinary period two decades ago. I’d like to see some of that “trash” in the Smithsonian.

But none of us will ever see the picture not taken.

D-Day: Remembering Scotty

By fStop Fitzgerald | 6 June 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Bob Frascotti never made it to the beaches of Normandy, yet he was a veteran of that invasion. He was one of the first to die that day.

Just four months past his 21st birthday, Bob—known as Scotty—was to fly one of the first missions of the day. His fellow pilots recall his “superb” singing voice, reminiscent of Vaughan Monroe, and his rendition of “Racing With the Moon.” A fellow pilot from that fateful morning recalled with some grim irony that clouds scudding across the face of the moon that morning may have robbed Scotty of a few vital seconds of visibility that literally meant life or death.

The night before, ground crews of the Eighth Air Force’s 352nd Fighter Group hastily painted their pristine ships with white and black invasion stripes. “Breakfast” was at 2200 on the 5th, with the briefing set for midnight. The “Blue-nosed Bastards of Bodney” were then informed that D-Day had truly begun. Their mission was to fly aerial cover for the landing forces to protect them from air attacks. The 486th Fighter Squadron, Bob’s unit, would be the first to launch at 0230 and he was assigned to the second section of four.

It was Scotty’s 89th mission. Night operations were unfamiliar to the group, which was used to protecting bombers on daylight raids over the continent. Their field, at RAF Bodney, England, USAAF Station 141, was grass. It’s lack of a well-defined illuminated runway compounded a pilot’s issues as the turf blended into the night sky like “black velvet.” A string of temporary lights had been laid, but one of the taxiing Mustangs had snagged and broken the power cable. The pilots had no recourse but to position and orient themselves as best they could in the drizzle and darkness.

RAF Bodney, USAAF Station 141 [© English Heritage, NMR.]

An armorer, Sergeant Jim Bleidner, watched as the red and green position lights on the wings bumped in the night as the planes moved from the dispersal area to their take-off position near the tower on the western edge of the field. A new, second tower was under construction at the east end of the field, directly in the path of their take-off.

Frascotti’s plane, with a pale, weather-worn blue nose, was P-51B-5-NA, 43-6685, named Umbriago. This could be a corruption of the Italian word umbriaco, which means ‘drunk.’ More likely, however, it was taken from the 1944 song Umbriago by Jimmy Durante about a dear friend by that name. The lyrics end: “So when you feel low, better send for my friend, Umbriago.”

The flight lead, Lieutenant Martin Corcoran, turned his fighter into the wind and taxied forward a few feet. Without knowing, he was slightly to the right of the intended take-off line. Using the flame from his exhausts—described by Bleidner as “tiger’s teeth”—as a guide the other three slotted into position. At Corcoran’s command, all four fully laden Mustangs waddled forward in the dark, slowly gaining speed. To fly, the fighters needed an indicated airspeed of 150 mph.

Lieutenant Bud Fuhrman, to Bob’s right, held his craft down as it gained speed. Lieutenant Charles Griffiths, trailing slightly, thought his plane was “glued to the ground.” From his position, he could see the lights of Corcoran’s plane that indicated he was airborne, Then those of Furman, also up. Frascotti, however, off to his left, were slightly lower. Then, at near flying speed, Umbriago slammed into the unlighted unfinished control tower.

The new, unfinished Bodney control tower in the aftermath of Bob Frascotti’s collision.
[© 352nd FG, USAAF]

The unit’s history described the aftermath: “An enormous smear of fire, spewing like dragon’s bile, burned over the tower balcony and flared malevolently onwards as the aircraft disintegrated.” Bob Frascotti was no more.

Griffiths pushed on, his plane still on the ground, but eventually making into the air somehow after striking a net post on sister 328th FS’s volleyball court. In the 328th’s briefing room nearby, a blinding flash lit the area followed by a concussion and flying .50-caliber bullets as Bob’s ammunition cooked off in the flames.

The rest of the group took flight guided by the flickering flames of Umbriago.

D-Day

By fStop Fitzgerald | 5 June 2019 | Comments 1 comment

**LST-60** carried six LCVPs during the Normandy invasion.

Two harbors and a ship

Seventy-five years ago young Americans and their Allies took a big gamble with the largest invasion force ever assembled. On 6 June 1944, they stormed ashore to gain first a toe-hold, then a foot-hold, and then more on the European continent and bring the ground war to Nazi Germany.

While their actions and sacrifices cannot and should not be minimized, their tenuous clutches at the beach and later their forays through the boccage of northern France could not have be accomplished without support in additional men and material. Much logistical planning—some have said even more so than that of the invasion—occurred in the months leading up to the landings.

One of the primary concerns of the planners was that there were few quickly obtainable ports in the north of France. Cherbourg was captured early, by the end of July, but its port facilities had been comprehensively destroyed and booby-trapped. Antwerp, Belgium, was captured on 4 September, but its wasn’t opened until the end of November after the Germans were pushed from its approaches. Boulogne and Calais were not opened until October and November, respectively. So without the prospect of decent port facilities, planners decided to bring their own.

Two synthetic harbors—named Mulberries—were planned for the Normandy beaches. Mulberry A was to be set up off the American’s Omaha Beach and Mulberry B was created for the British off Gold Beach. These had to accommodate the large tidal fluctuation on the beaches while providing a minimum of 18 feet of water for supply ships and transports and direct offloading to the shore. The solution was a set of floating piers connected to shore by a series of floating steel bridge segments.

The Mulberries consisted of a number of literally moving parts—including curiously named Corncobs, Gooseberries, Bombardons, Lobnitzs, Phoenixes, Whales, and Beetles—all of which required time for planning, design, construction, movement into position for the invasion. Construction consisted of 23 Lobnitz pierheads, 10 miles of road bridge comprising 660 80-foot spans (Whales), 670 floats (Beetles) to support the bridges, 8 shore ramps, 50 Bombardon floating breakwaters, 61 blockships (Corncobs), and 213 concrete Phoenix caissons. In all, 210,000 tons of steel and one million tons of concrete were used in the construction.

The major parts of a Mulberry harbor are shown.

The plan for Mulberry A was never completed because of the three-day gale starting on 19 June and the loss of many of its components at sea during the storm while in transit to the beach.

Three different types of breakwaters were provided to shelter the piers, bridges, and ships.

Bombardons were farthest from the beach and were connected to each other by hemp ropes and anchored to form a mile-long deep-water breakwater for ships to anchor as they waited their turn to unload or the tide to be right. These curious 200-foot-long by 25-foot wide and tall 1,500-ton objects were used in water too deep for the other breakwaters to function. They were hollow watertight steel constructions in the form of an equal-armed cross. In the water they floated with the horizontal arms just beneath the English Channels surface. Omaha used 24, while Gold had 26.

The bombardons float with about six feet of their surface exposed.

Six bombardons under construction in a British drydock.

Bombardons off Gold Beach are highlighted.

The second tier of breakwaters was constructed from concrete caissons—called Phoenixes—of six different sizes, sunk in water of 5.5 fathoms or less, displacing between 6,044 and 1,672 tons. These were designed and built to provide the Mulberry’s primary protection. The Phoenixes—the largest 204-feet long and 56-feet wide—were sunk in position end to end. Mulberry A was to have 47. They got their name from the fact that after construction they were sunk and then later refloated for the invasion.

Two Phoenixes are shown, both equipped with antiaircraft artillery. The one at right is sunken to its operating depth.

Phoenixes off the coast of Omaha Beach await their placement.

Five lines of Phoenixes are highlighted in this image of Mulberry B on 27 August 1944.

The third tier, called a Gooseberry, was placed in relatively shallow water—2.5 fathoms or less—to provide shelter for smaller craft. Each consisted of a number of Corncobs, blockships prepared in Scotland by cutting holes in bulkheads of surplus ships and placing scuttling charges below their waterlines. Gooseberries, numbered 1 through 5, were assembled off each of the five invasion beaches. The number of ships in each varied by the needs of the beach. In number order from Utah (10 ships) were: Omaha (15), Gold (16), Juno (11), and Sword (9).

Sunken corncobs in form a gooseberry in one of the Mulberries.

The line of corncobs in the center foreground shape a gooseberry of Gold Beach.

The harbor facilities consisted of floating pierheads connected to the shore by a system of floating bridges and roadways. The Lobnitz spud pierheads were 1,760-ton barges 200-feet long by 60-feet wide, which were positioned and anchored to the seabed by four 89-foot long legs—called spuds—at each corner. When positioned, the spuds were lowered to the sand and forced down until they could move no further. This firmly anchored the pierhead and allowed it to ride up and down the spuds with the movement of the 24-foot tide. Ships unloaded their cargoes directly to the pierhead.

The free floating barge of the pierhead slides up and down its spuds with the rise and fall of the tide.

***LST-543*** approaches a pierhead off Omaha Beach guided by a U.S. Army tug.

The pierheads had to be positioned far enough from shore so that they could be used by ships at low tide. Thus, they needed similar floating roadways. The answer was found in the Whales and Beetles.

This diagram shows both low and high tides and their effect on both the pierheads and the whales and beetles. Note the relationship between the pierhead and its spuds.

Whales were 80-foot-long steel girder bridge sections supported at both ends by floats called Beetles. The beetles accommodated the tidal fluctuations and provided a firm base for the bridges when the tide was out. Expansion whales were inserted in the chain at intervals and connected the chain to a pier. These adjusted for the change in length as the tide rose or fell.

Lines of four sets of whales are highlighted at Mulberry B on 27 August 1944.

75 years on, a bridge over the Moselle River near Cattenom, France, still uses five spans of whales used during the Normandy invasion. [Source: Foxandpotatoes]

At Omaha, the task of assembling the Lobnitz, whales, and beetles was assigned to the 108th Naval Construction Battalion of the 25th Naval Construction Regiment. They began their work on 9 June and received its first ship—LST-342—at 1400 on the 16th.

Over the next 3 days, 15 LCTs and 22 LSTs delivered 1,168 vehicles to the beach until a nor’easter from 18–22 June—the worst June gale in more than 40 years—destroyed the pierhead and bridging units. They were not placed back into service after the storm.

The gale wreaked havoc with the American Mulberry while the British port fared much better. Some reports indicate that the U.S. facilities were not as well anchored as the British, but what was more significant is that Gold Beach had a natural protection in the Calvados reef. Because a number of Mulberry A’s sections were lost in the Channel during the storm, the American Mulberry was abandoned.

Some of the damage at the American port.

Portions of A were salvaged and used by the British for what they now called “Port Winston.” It remained in use for a full six months until the opening of the port of Antwerp.

How effective were the Mulberries?

The Americans were not very impressed. While their loss of its facilities to the gale may color this thinking somewhat, numbers don’t lie. The Yankees—by design at Utah and by chance at Omaha—were forced to land their reinforcements and supplies primarily by LSTs.

At the American beaches, 6,614 tons of cargo was landed in the first three days. A month later, they handled 9,200 tons. A month after that, they were off-loading 16,000 tons per day. The Mulberry harbors, however, provided less than half the total even on good weather days from the start.

The crowded beachhead had some aerial protection in the form of barrage ballons.

Average Daily Tonnage of Supplies Landed
Beach/Port	D+30	D+60
Omaha	1,200	10,000
Utah	8,000	6,000
Total U.S. beaches	9,200	16,000
Mulberry B	6,750	6,750

Planners had obviously underrated the capacities of open beaches and the utility of the LST. The tremendous tonnage capacities developed at the American beaches must have been one of the most surprising and welcomed features of the entire invasion.

Landing Ship, Tank (LST)

Arguably the most important ship type involved in Operation Neptune, these ships were among the most robust and versatile types put into service during the war. Their enormous capacity—each could transport an equivalent of 18 M4 Sherman tanks, 160 troops, and an LCT (landing craft, tank)—combined with the ability to put equipment and troops directly on a beach made them invaluable. Further, despite being called by irreverent crewmembers as “Large Slow (or Stationary) Targets,” they suffered few losses throughout the whole war—26 to enemy action and 13 to accidents and weather—compared to their number and wide-spread heavy combat operations.

Displacement	1,625 tons
Length	328 feet (overall)
Beam	50 feet
Draft	8 feet fore; 14.3 feet aft (full load);
	2.3 feet fore (unloading)
Speed	11.6 knots
Armament	8 40mm (some had 1 5-inch)
Complement	110

Brodie System

By fStop Fitzgerald | 28 May 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Mini Aircraft and Carriers to Match

Norman Polmar’s March-April 2014 for Historic Aircraft in the U.S. Naval Institute’s (USNI) Naval History magazine concerned the smallest of aircraft carriers and perhaps its (and the Marine Corps and Army’s) smallest aircraft.

The tiny aircraft—OY-1/2 in the Navy and Marines and L-4 in the Army—are often mistaken for the ubiquitous and similar Piper Cub. Their “carrier” was an LST.

An artist’s depiction of a U.S. Marine Corps OY-2 BuNo 03929.

In the July 1943 invasion of Sicily, LST-386 was fitted with a flight deck to launch the so-called “grasshoppers.” The runway was 12-by-216 feet and constructed timber with a metal mesh covering in just 36 hours. While also carrying her normal full load of troops and cargo, she also launched four grasshoppers.

The flight deck as installed on LST-906. Crewmembers watch as one grasshopper takes off and another waits its turn, foreground. Note the aircraft stowage and their side codes.

At Salerno in September 1943, LST-356 was fitted with a similar deck and launched five grasshoppers before a sixth hit a guardrail and crashed. The crew was rescued, but the other two planes the LST carried were not launched.

During the invasion of southern France in August 1944, three LSTs, among them LST-906, were configured as grasshopper carriers and launched more than 30 aircraft. A similar LST also operated in the Pacific with Army and Marine aircraft.

*LST-906* with a grasshopper preparing to launch from its deck.

An L-4B takes off from LST-906 during the invasion of southern France, St. Tropez, circa August–September 1944. Note the aircraft stowage. [Society of the Third Infantry Division]

An Army lieutenant, James H. Brodie, developed a system for launching and landing light aircraft from ships. While the system could be easily adapted to virtually any ship large enough to carry the airplanes, the LST was the ship of choice. For the operations, a tripod assembly was attached to the planes nose and wing with a locking hook at the apex. This was somewhat akin to that used by the Curtiss F9Cs to attach themselves to the airships Akron (ZRS-4) and Macon (ZRS-5).

The Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk had a lockable hook attached above its wing to latch onto a trapeze in the bottom of the airships Akron and Macon.

Two booms were angled off the side of the ship with a reinforced cable connecting them about 40 feet clear of the water. For launching, a plane was hoisted up and connected to a trolley on the cable. The plane would run the length of the cable gaining enough speed to remain airborne and trip a release at the end freeing the plane for flight.

To “land” the plane, the pilot would fly parallel to the ship and hook onto a trapeze attached to the trolley, which had a braking system to stop the aircraft.

During training on LST-776, three Marine aircraft were lost, with no casualties, and five pilots qualified.

At Iwo Jima in February 1945, the Brodie system was activated aboard LST-776, making four launches of Marine OY-1s. No recoveries were noted. At Okinawa in April, LST-776 successfully completed 25 Army grasshopper launches and recoveries.

Mr. Polmar’s column goes into greater detail. In the end, only one graphic was used (below) but it only shows the landing aspect of the process because it was more complex. Four photographs were published, three showing a take-off from a deck and one showing LST-776.

Two photographs of LST-776. Note that the overhead oblique shows a catapult with grasshopper amidships. This was mounted only during the early training off San Diego and was removed before the LST entered combat.

Grumman F-14A Tomcat (III)

By fStop Fitzgerald | 28 May 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Part III

As beloved as the Tomcat is in many Navy aviation circles and in portions of the general public, there are a few remaining on active duty, but with a potential adversary—Iran.

Norman Polmar’s article goes into that. All I will share here is my work on the images of two of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF).

My primary source for the drawings was Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop’s Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat, #49 in the Osprey Combat Aircraft Series.

I also used a number of images from the internet, primarily from Airliners.net, which has many international contributors.

One interesting sidelight to the Iranian use of the Tomcat is their testing of U.S. Army MIM-23 Hawk missiles, provided to them during the Iran-Contra Affair, as air-to-air missiles.

This was unusual enough that I chose to include it on one of the drawings.

Here are the pair that resulted:

Save Our Photographic Heritage Part II

By fStop Fitzgerald | 16 August 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

The colorization soapbox is completed.

Now, here is something that can be done with color that is not artificial.

I added nothing to this image.

All I did was change the values of what was in the original. I added no blues, deleted no magentas.

I, and I believe most others would agree, that the lower left version is closer to what the photographer wanted us to see than what is the “original” in the upper right.

Old color films and prints are not stable. They react to chemicals in the air (yes, what we breath is laden with all sorts of not good things) and light. Some colors react more than others. Over time the image color shifts. If you want to see some personal examples, go to your family’s photo archive (in my day it was a shoe box) and look at some Kodacolor, Ektacolor, Agfa, Ansco, Dupont, and others from the 1950s and 60s. You like magenta? You got magenta.

With good scanning—preferably of the original negatives or transparencies—and proper techniques using programs such as Photoshop, more than a few images can be restored to what they actually appeared on the original film or at least a much better approximation than what currently exists.

If more time was spent on images such as this rather than painting black and white photos, we would have a much more important historical record.

Oops. The soapbox popped up again. But that is my point.

Here are some other examples.

Sometimes surprises await. I never expected the vibrant colors in the print below from this original. I am in awe of the engraver’s art.

Even photographs that appear to be in good shape should be investigated, such as this one of USS Franklin (CV-13) on her return to New York after being seriously damaged in World War II. The original was a bit red-orange.Again, just adjusting values, gave this result.And more magenta images cleaned up . . .

Three VS-51 Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless in formation during work ups in Hawaii prior to deploying to Samoa in June 1944. Naval History and Heritage Command [80-G-K-1608]

USS *Wasp* (CV-7) taken probably at San Diego, Ca. Note the SB2Us and F4Fs on the flight deck. c June 1942. Naval History and Heritage Command [80-G-K-447]

And sometimes an image goes green, but that can be cleaned up as well.

Save Our Photographic Heritage Part I

By fStop Fitzgerald | 16 August 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

I am not a fan of colorized imagery.

If you want to call it “art” (with a little “a”) feel free. Teddy Turner fought that battle for a lot of years and lost.

It is an artifice.

Sure, it would be nice to see what those days looked like in “living” color. But anything that is added to those images is pure conjecture on the part of the “artist.”

I have the colors in my mind, and I am certain you have yours in yours.

Take a look at these versions of a very famous photograph of Lt. (j.g.) Alex Vraciu signifying his six kills during the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” on 19 June 1944. I downloaded the original from the Naval History and Heritage Command web site (https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/80-G-236000/80-G-236841.html). The colorized version came from Pinterest. (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/322851867016047359/)

The colorized version got a fair number of “likes.” Fine. If you like this sort of thing. But there are two significant failings in that version. The first, upon which I will elaborate below, is the most significant reason for not doing this. The focus of the photograph—Vraciu’s toothy grin—is completely lost.

Lost? How can I say that? It is right there. Sure, but look at other values of brightness of equal or greater impact. Instead of focusing on the grin, the eye spreads around the image, giving equal or more weight to other, less significant areas. The “world is flat” theory.

The second is an obviously induced historical inaccuracy. This is something of which colorizers must be wary.

See that touch of red band of the insignia touching the chin of the central sailor? It is pretty inconspicuous, but telling. That red border (and it is missing from the rest of the insignia) was only authorized on U.S. military aircraft for basically six weeks in 1943, from 28 June through 14 August. While not all insignia were repainted immediately, thus appearing on aircraft for several months thereafter, this photograph was taken nearly a year later. This red should be blue.

Was that the only historical error the colorist introduced?

The bottom line is that colorization is very much akin to adding changes to passages in Moby Dick and republishing the novel without special notation. It is not what the author intended.

You might argue that the photographer, in real time, saw color and wanted to photograph that but could not because he did not have the proper film. That argument is invalid for a number of reasons. Color imaging material was available in World War I, indeed color photography first surfaced in 1855, within 20 years of the birth of the medium.

More to the point, however, is the purpose of the photography and the requirements of the job. Then, what were the limitations put on the photographer by “management?” For the Vraciu photograph, the photographer had color film available. Why did he chose black-and-white? This far removed we can only guess what the standard operating procedures were. My guess is two factors played into the choice: expediency and wide-spread distribution. The b&w process was quick and its results could be rapidly reproduced and disseminated. Color was problematic at all those points.

In the early 1970s, newspapers were just beginning to use color more frequently. The process had been developed years before and was widely used in magazines, but even there, only on a limited basis. It was an expensive process. A color page required four passes through the printing press—one for each color of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Each required its own printing plates and ink setup. Getting all four into alignment of 1/120th of an inch, meant there was a lot of wastage. Usually four-color images were only used in advertising, because the advertiser paid the cost. It wasn’t that way with news imagery. The paper bore the cost of that from its profits. Thus it was used sparingly.

But in the 70s, newspapers were competing with television news and the American viewership was beginning to see everything in “living compatible color.” (There is another whole story about that word “compatible.” We never knew how bad we had it.) So papers had to bite the bullet and compete.

Still, we photographers were limited by the assignment and/or page positioning. Page 1, Metro/City front pages, and sports front pages all got the color treatment. Stories relegated to the inside were condemned to black-and-white.

Over the course of nearly 40 years of newspaper photography, I have hundreds of thousands of black-and-white negatives in my files, and (pre-digital) significantly fewer than a tenth of that number in color.

My best photographs exist only in black-and-white. I do not wish to see any of them in color.

There are two very simple reasons, and they are interrelated. Black-and-white is a very objective medium. Color is not. People have predelections for colors. Humans react to color in very unpredictable manners. Some like blue, some don’t like green, some are ambivalent to yellow. Many hate red because of its resonance with blood. All this is subjective. Insert color into an image and you insert uncertainty. Among viewers there is no common predictable reaction to an image. This obscures the photographer’s communication.

Photographers have absolutely no control over the colors in an image, thus they cede a significant portion of their communication to the whims of the observer.

Black-and-white, however, has no similar baggage to overcome. The photographer, with his control over light and shadow, can get the viewer—all viewers—to the point of the image. We practiced this direction in the darkroom through the techniques of burning (adding more light) and dodging (removing light) from the printed image.

The human eye goes to light. A flash goes off, everyone turns to see the source. A light burns out, and unless it is the only one on in a room, no one notices.

In the darkroom, the photographer could and would de-emphasize certain portions of the image by burning, which had the effect of making that area darker. Conversely, he emphasized portions by dodging, making them lighter.

This pair of photos shows the not-so-subtle use of the “Hand of God.” The top is as published, the other has been deliberately darkened to emphasize how the photographer directed the viewer to the message—Rodney Marsh’s impish grin.

A skilled photographer—indeed the best in the world—crafted black-and-white images that could be read literally like a book. That is why they are the masters, even the most visually illiterate understand the point of the photograph.

The point here, especially as it relates to recent overload of colorized imagery particularly from World Wars I and II, is that by adding color the “artist” is adding subjectivity.

Realize that that color addition is just one person’s take on the actual colors; was it really that blue? something lighter? something darker? something a tad more green? yellow? red? mauve? puce? or a billion other colors, shades, intensities, brilliance, and more. And that is just one color in their addition to the photographer’s work.

What is lost is the photographer’s objective message.

Now don’t go splitting hairs on this. You will immediately observe that burning and dodging are subjective actions in their own. Aha! True! However, they are the photographer’s subjective insertions—the person who created the image. There is no subjectivity in that. The image as presented is what he wants you to see. It is his communication. Look at this, don’t look at that.

How can someone literally generations removed from a subject have the audacity to state this is what the photographer did or did not want you to see?

We Will Not Forget 6

By fStop Fitzgerald | 28 July 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

These are some of my notes regarding the tragic Forrestal (CVA-59) fire 50 years ago this Saturday, on 29 July 1967.

Firefighters check what remains of Whip’s A-4E Skyhawk after the fire was extiguished.

Lessons Learned

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana (1863–1952)

The Navy—and I am certain it is true for the other services as well—often dwell on “lessons learned.” How can the past be relevant? How can we make our history more relevant? More so than any other organizations, all too often the lessons learned by the military came at the great cost of blood and lives.

The Forrestal (CVA-59) fire of 50 years ago this Saturday, 29 July, literally affected the thousands of people on board ship that day. Many still bear the scars after a half century and often, they are invisible.

But not all scars are bad.

For one of the pilots on board the flight deck, then Lt. (j.g.) Richard M. “Whip” Wilson, whether or not even obvious to him he carried the lessons he learned that day on through his life. And many people may owe their lives to him and those lessons.

Whip is in the front row, fourth from left.

That 29 July, Whip, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1964, had just fired up the engine in his A-4E Skyhawk BuNo 152024, coded 310. He was assigned to VA-106, one of two light attack squadrons on board Forrestal. His aircraft was spotted just behind the jet blast deflector for the No. 3 catapult.

Right after the Zuni rocket fired, he saw his plane captain, “eyes as big as saucers,” frantically signalling him to shut down his engine. As he did so, off to his side he saw fuel on the deck. “I thought the [fuel] drop tank was over pressurized.” Then a bomb went off. Off to the right side of his aircraft, which was aft of the island by about two aircraft lengths, he saw bodies and debris.

As he dismounted his aircraft, he noticed that it wasn’t chocked—the wheels had no blocks to prevent the aircraft from rolling. By that time the fire was two stories high. He saw that the aircraft wasn’t moving, so he ran toward the island. About 30 seconds later his aircraft was on fire.

In talking about those day’s events today, he brought up the subject of lessons learned. He stated that those deaths, the fire, the trauma, did not need to happen. Procedures to prevent such an occurrence had, as noted in a previous blog post, not been followed.

Whether he consciously considered it or not, he can’t say, but in his post-Navy career in senior flying positions for Delta Airlines, acknowledgment and respect for procedures were in the top of his toolkit.

His resume is impressive. At Delta he was a line second officer on DC-8, Convair 880, and L-100, then second officer instructor on DC-8 and L-1011, then lead second officer instructor for both aircraft. Later. a line first officer and captain on the DC-9, DC-9 and L-1011 pilot instructor, L-1011 captain and Fleet Manager. He retired flying the MD-11 as a captain flying mainly the Atlanta-Tokyo route plus Atlanta-Tokyo-New York-Tokyo-Atlanta. He was at John F. Kennedy International Airport briefing for a JFK-Tokyo flight on 9/11.

When we spoke, it wasn’t about credentials and merits, it was about rules.

On one long-distance flight a warning light came on shortly after take-off. It was for a failure in a portion of the wing deicing system. Of itself, it was rather insignificant. The plane would not fall out of the sky, no one was in danger. But in the greater scheme of things, the deicing system is a protection against icing situations. The book said land and have it repaired unless no ice would be encountered. Flight Control and maintenance thought it okay to continue. Whip requested in writing verification that he would have a 6,000-mile ice-less trip or he would land the plane. He landed.

On another flight en route to Hawaii, he sensed a very slight bump when turning the aircraft. It was nothing of great concern. It just felt different. When it happened again, it got serious. He switched to manual control and could feel something was not right. He dumped fuel and landed the aircraft. While not of great worrisome magnitude there was enough of a “something isn’t right” sensation and repeatability that told him something indeed was wrong. It turned out to be a main landing gear door actuator that was letting the huge door move into the airstream. There is no telling what could have happened had the door opened wide enough to get some purchase on the airstream to rip it off. There was nothing in the rule book for this. But it was recognition, taking responsibility, and action in the face of an unknown. It could have been nothing. But deep down, Forrestal told him it could be something.

These were just two of the events that occurred over his long flying career. With the exception of the frustration of their flight delays, his many passengers were unaware that they owed their safety to the men of Forrestal.

We Will Not Forget 5

By fStop Fitzgerald | 27 July 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

These are some of my notes regarding the tragic Forrestal (CVA-59) fire 50 years ago this Saturday, on 29 July 1967.

Profile view of Forrestal with profiles of all the types of aircraft and representative squadrons on 29 July 1967.

In all my research about the fire, I had not seen a correlation between the PLAT film and the aircraft as they were spotted at the time.

Based on drawings in the Navy’s official Manual of the Judge Advocate General Basic Final Investigative Report Concerning the Fire on Board the USS FORRESTAL (CVA-59), which is the Navy’s definitive statement on the topic, I redrew the flight deck to scale and spotted the aircraft per the official drawings.

I then roughly plotted the plat camera angle based on the photograph and identified the aircraft in both the plan and the PLAT. There are some minor discrepancies, especially at the far left. This is because the flight deck was extremely dynamic. Not just because of the fire, but because of preparations for the Alpha Strike and normal movement of aircraft.

But for the A-4s across the fan tail from 410 to 303, and up the port quarter from 414 through 316, it is as accurate as I can make it.

Deck with aircraft as spotted at the time of the fire according to the official report. The PLAT film image is correlated with the diagram. 405 is the aircraft struck by Zuni, piloted by LtCdr. Fred White.

Below is a drawing of the plane spots as presented in Naval Aviation News in October 1967, just three months after the fire.