American Cinematographer - September 1968 - 31

in action as fast as possible, dictated
that each complex do work for the air
bases within its sphere of operations.
"Our capacity is now such," he
said, "that if a camera is so badly
damaged that our men can't repair
it, the only person who can is the
manufacturer."
Film storage and distribution has
also been decentralized. At first,
stocks for the entire Vietnam theater
were kept in the 4,000-cubic-foot
reefers at the Karat and Tan Son
Nhut bases.
But when an order came in from
one of the outlying bases, the film
sometimes had to sit for two to four
days on a loading ramp. Outside,
temperatures normally averaged 100
degrees Fahrenheit, Colonel Warndorf said. Worse yet, when plastic
bags were thrown over the skids to
protect the cargo from monsoon rains
the heat inside would rise to 130°.
The colonel described the resolu¬
tion of this problem as having been a
matter of finding friends in logistics.
"Now each base has its reefers and
our local unit is entirely dependent on
the normal Air Force supply system
for fresh stocks of film. It is working
quite satisfactorily."
Besides the five color-processing
trailer complexes, men of the 600th
Photo Squadron also operate much
smaller units at each outlying air base.
These process color slides and blackand-white stills. Daily output from the
Tan Son Nhut lab alone is 1000 8 x
10" projection prints a day.
One of Warndorf's most vexing
Vietnam experiences occurred in con¬
nection with an early installation for
these outlying bases.
"We'd designed a trailer to house
the equipment and had ordered it

Aerial view of the U.S. Air Force 600th Photo Squadron complex at Tan Son Nhut Air Base,
South Vietnam-(1) Command and Administration, (2) Operations, (3) Editorial, (4) Motion
Picture Lab, (5) Film Control, (6) Comdoc, (7) Project Officers, (8) Sound, (9) Still Lab, (10)
Still Services Office and Slide Library, (11) Type I Still Lab, (12) Old Production Lab, (13)
Old Production Lab, (14) Refrigerator, (15) Machine Shop, (16) 402X0 Maintenance. (17)
402X0 Maintenance, (18) Maintenance Office, (19) Maintenance Storage, (20) Maintenance.

built by an Eastern manufacturer," he
related. "Apparently, after testing at
the New England factory, they forgot
to drain the water out of the puc pip¬
ing and it later froze and ruptured all
of the lines.
"When we took delivery in the field
in Vietnam, we scheduled a big in¬
auguration day show, with all of the
brass invited. When everyone was as¬
sembled and after appropriate fan¬
fare, we started a test run.
"Well, we had cracks 10 feet long
in the piping. Water cascaded every¬
where, from the ceilings, from the
walls. Everyone got drenched.
"As if that weren't bad enough,
when we started to patch up the
thing, we found there wasn't an inch
of puc piping anywhere in Vietnam.
So we had to make do with castiron water pipe and copper tubing.

anything we could scrounge."
While, in World War II, fighter pi¬
lots loaded their own magazines into
the film for N-6 gun cameras, that job
is handled in Vietnam by men of the
600th Photo Squadron. This ensured
proper film threading, Warndorf said,
but it didn't overcome the problem of
color film which "spoiled" when
planes scheduled for morning missions
were held back for one reason or
another.
For its color work, the Air Force is
using two basic types of motion pic¬
ture cameras in Vietnam. The most
common one is the N-9 (or KB-3 and
KB-17, incorporating minor modifica¬
tions), which dates from the late
1950's.
Basically, this is an updated ver¬
sion of the World War II N-6 camera
Contirtued on Page 699

(LEFT) Tactical military aerial photography was born in World War I. Bombardier aims box view camera to record target hit of bomb he has just
dropped. (CENTER) Mounted under the wing of an F-4C Phantom in Vietnam is a Type IV camera pod (between bombs), which contains two
16mm Milliken motion picture cameras and one P-2 70mm still sequential camera. Photograph was taken in 1965. Since then, pods, which create
drag, are bypassed whenever possible in favor of mounting cameras in more compact housings or in whatever recess of the aircraft itself may
be available. (RIGHT) Sgt. Thomas M. Robbins, a combat cameraman of the 600 Photo Squadron, prepares to fly a mission over Vietnam in
the back seat of a U.S. Air Force F-100 Supersabre.

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AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, SEPTEMBER 1968

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American Cinematographer - September 1968

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