02/11/2002. Remarks by Earl Hodges: "This aircraft type is very familiar to me. I was a Navy photographer, attached to VU-5, a Utility Squadron using Douglas JD-1s, on Guam, in 1954. The JD-1 by that time had been outclassed by later improved bombers and because it was still a very good plane it was relegated to utility duties. Our squadron's primary jobs were target towing and aerial photography. At that time, one of the big photographic jobs throughout the Navy was an annual aerial photographic coverage of all buildings and installations.

Each building had to have two types of photos: a 45° oblique from the four cardinal headings, and a strip of at least 4 pin-point verticals from a suitable altitude, preferably 10,000 ft (3,048 m). The obliques we would usually shoot from any handy plane on the station, most often an SNJ "Texan". But the verticals had to be done from the JD-1.

To do this took a heavy aerial camera, (if I remember right, it was a K-18) which we installed in the bomb bay on a system of 2x4 in (5x10 cm) timbers. One photographer straddled these 2x4s, manually keeping the camera leveled by use of a circular bubble level and also setting the intervalometer (timer) for the proper timing between shots. The other photographer manned a navigator's drift sight in the after-station to make course corrections to relay to the pilot over the intercom. We swapped jobs after every flight.

On Guam, we had to get up very early to get the equipment installed and get up to altitude to get shooting before the cumulus clouds started to build up around 0830 or so. It took about 45 minutes to an hour to install the equipment then another like period to uninstall it on return. If the clouds moved on or cleared up we might be able to get some afternoon shooting in after re-rigging the plane. We tried to get Ops to let us leave the gear in the plane but no dice. We had to install/uninstall for every flight.

Except for the cold when in the bomb bay, the JD-1 was a great plane to fly in."

The JD-1s (J=Utility, D=Douglas) were A-26Cs transferred from USAAF stock. Read the type remarks on page 10276.