International photographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

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First pictures inside b-19 By Sanford E. Greenwald, Cameraman, News of the Day One of the greatest thrills of my long coverage for newsreels was the assignment to make the first pictures inside the B-19. The big ship is still undergoing experimental tests at March Field and the newsreel companies were permitted to photograph the bomber on one of these test flights. The coverage on this story was cooperative with all newsreels, as is always the case with the Army and Navy, so we drew for positions and points of coverage. Chubby Lehmann of Fox Movietone drew to fly alongside the B-19 in the camera ship: Mervyn Freeman, working for Universal Newsreel, made the take-off, landing and ground shots, and lucky me, I drew the number for inside shots of the giant ship, the first shots to be made inside. I looked forward to great thrills — and I got 'em. We arrived at March Field at 7:00 a.m. and immediately attended a meeting of all those who intended flying in the B-19. This consisted of Colonel Umstead, the Army's test pilot; Major Bunker, the copilot, and a dozen technicians from the Douglas Company who made the first flight with the Colonel from the Douglas plant to March Field last spring. These Douglas men are the last word in human technique and have many ingenious devices installed in the ship to register stress and strain. The ship will undergo tests with these technicians and the Army before being turned over to the Army. After instructions and assignments to stations for the take-off, we were measured for parachutes and climbed up into the belly of the ship. The first landing or deck leads back into the fuselage bomb bays, the crew's sleeping quarters, the galley and several gunners' stations, also the entrance to the wings. Up on the second deck and you are up in the cabin where the pilots, the radio men, navigator and control engineer are stationed. I was surprised to learn that the pilot does not physically run the engines and other hydraulic machinery but merely signals to the control engineer, much the same as the captain on an ocean liner. The engineer sits at a large panel instrument board with his back to the pilot and watches for the signals. After all hands were at their stations the motors were started and tested and we were ready to taxi out to the end of the field for the take-off. My take-off station was at one of the windows in the cabin through which I could get a good shot of the two 2,000 horsepower motors, the 110-foot wing and the ground falling away as we lifted gently into the air. I have taken off in a good many planes in my time, but this one gave me quite a different sensation. It was like being up in a two-story building and all sensations of a take-off in an average plane are missing because of the size of the ship. The fighters and bombers resting on March Field passed my window at ever increasing speed and we were in the air . . . climbing. . . . We were in a steady climb until we reached an altitude of 8,000 feet over Santa Monica and here is where the many engineering tests were to begin, turns, banks, speed runs (and, oh, boy) dives at a 45-degree angle. All those tests are a little technical for me, so I immediately set out to wander around the entire ship in search of my cut-in shots that were to go with the general views by Lehmann in the camera ship which was to fly alongside, and right there is where I found out that the B-19 is really a fast airplane. The camera plane remained way back of the tail and I wondered why it did not get into position. I found out why when the radio man told me the camera ship, a fast twin motored Douglas bomber, had radioed that it was wide open and could not catch up. "Would the colonel please slow down to allow the camera ship to catch him." But Colonel Umstead was not interested, as he was in the midst of tests, and during the entire flight his eyes were glued to his instruments and his unlighted cigar was going around in large and small circles. If the camera ship could not catch us, well, that was just too bad! I used a De Vry camera with a 25mm lens and made several hundred feet of everything I could see, which included the cabin with all hands at their stations, a close-up of the Colonel (cigar and all), the control panel, the gun turrets, the crew's quarters, scenes in the wings, the gunners' stations in the tail and in the blisters underneath the ship, the bombardiers' station in the nose and shots out the windows showing the giant motors, the endless wing expansion and the Army P-40 fighters who were escorting us. They looked like large bees at the ends of the B-19 wings. And here is where I received thrill number one. The camera ship had landed back at March Field and Lehmann and Don Brinn, the latter shooting stills for Wide World Photos, were raising plenty of hell because they did not get in close enough to the B-19. I guess the pilot got sore, so he ordered them back into the camera ship, telling them he would get them close this time or else. He will never know how close it came to being "or else." We were on our way back to the field when just about at Oxnard the radio man motioned me to look out of the window. I shudder when I think of what I saw : The camera ship in a dive headed straight for our wing! It leveled off and the wing overlapped ours about twelve feet. Everyone in the B-19 held his breath. The Colonel, who was not looking, lifted the wing of the B-19 to turn, and the pilot of the camera ship barely had time to lift the wings and veer off just enough to put the landing wheel on his tail on the top of our wing. I started to think about my parachute. I The boys in the camera ship got their close-up. — Editorial note.) I had barely swallowed my heart when I got socked with thrill number two. I was in the back compartment getting my breath when one of the Douglas men told me the Colonel was now going to dive the B-19 four times — and steeper than it had ever dived before. We received orders to attach our parachutes. My job was to try and photograph the ends of the wings, which bend up about 10 feet when the ship comes out of the dive. Frankie Filen of the A. P. was right under me with a still camera shooting out the side window. There we stood, very tense, waiting for whatever might happen — and then it DID! It's strange, but the ship is so big you hardly feel any sensation when she goes into a dive, BUT when she pulls out at the bottom: well, baby, that's something else again. If you can imagine how it feels to have someone put ten tons of lead in your pants, you have a SLIGHT idea of the sensation. I tumbled on top of Filen and we both went scrambling to the floor of the ship, where we stuck until we got on even keel again. We had just gained our equilibrium when the Douglas man shouted, "HERE WE GO AGAIN, BOYS!" The second dive was worse than the first, the sensation being that you were glued to the seat and your arms and legs weighed a ton. What's the Colonel trying to do? Dive the wings off this monster? We take it because there is nothing else to do, but, gosh, will we be glad when we get over this phase of the flight! , After the last dive and we were headed back to March Field, we got very brave again and started to enjoy the ride. Then comes thrill number three. Just as we got comfortable a noisy siren started blowing. What's this, we thought? Have the wings come off or one of the motors dropped out? This must be the bail-out signal. As we got up weakly to adjust our 'chutes, the Douglas man gave a knowing smile and yelled in our ears: "The siren is just a signal to let the pilot know the eight-foot landing wheels are lowered for the landing." After a smooth landing and a very quick stop we taxied up to the starting point, where all hands disembarked — wiser men and feeling a hellofalot safer. International Photographer for December, 1941 13