The first photo is real. However, the second photo I don’t know. I have no evidence and the source of its origination was taken from a video game forum. Does anyone know more about this photo?
Looks photoshopped to me. The focus is a bit too clear compared to the rest of the photo. Also, none of the people in the photo are looking at the MG…it seems that they would be if it was really there. I don’t see any other damage indicating a kamikaze attack. So IMHO, I would say fake.
Concur. That machine gun would have to be going at a hell of a speed to penetrate both sides of that flash hider, but at the same time because it’s bent if it had been going at any speed then it would have twisted the flash hider and probably gun barrel mountings badly. Furthermore, there is no sign of any other damage to the ship so this kind of implies that the MG attacked the ship by itself.
It might also be worth checking what type of machine gun that is - I wouldn’t be surprised to find it’s actually something like a .30 Browning. If you identify it as something non-Japanese that’s a smoking gun…
<apologies for the unintentional pun!>
It is indeed some flavour of Browning.
Good find…it looks better in your link. There is a shadow on the ship that I didn’t see the first time.
I’m still not convinced - and that link you found certainly doesn’t count as proof.
Couple of points:
- Not all that many Japanese aircraft used machine guns derived from the Browning type - there was one (The H0-103/Type 1), but this was not used on the Zero, which was armed with a derivative of the Vickers instead - and that is a Zero attacking the Missouri in this photo.
- Look at the position of the shadow of the machine gun relative to the shadow of the barrels on the turret. Then look at the position of the machine gun relative to the barrels in 3D space. The shadows overlap but as far as I can make out the parts don’t in 3D. That suggests they couldn’t quite get the raytracing right when photoshopping the machine gun in.
- Just noticed this, and IMHO the clincher. Look at the shadow of the machine gun barrel - it isn’t bent downwards. The barrel itself is. Hence this MUST be a fake.
Note also that the shadow of the breech looks more like the shape of a weapon with an open frame butt much smaller than the MG’s breech.
EDIT: I’m so clever, I didn’t notice the shadow to the left of the left gun port. Which appears to be the breech. DER!
Its is a rather puzzling photograph … however with out doing optical analysis…I would say its real. The shadows are odd but that is due to the position of the sun.
It is very possible … we dont know if the plane in the pic is the same that hit in this instance or do we…maybe I missed something.
The downward bend of the barrel makes sense if it became lodged under the cone of the second gun and bent at an angle. Also appears there is a slight lifting of the farthest barrel.
The only thing … and one would need to study the layout…is that the angle at which the picture is taken seems to be a bit far out. However if it is photoshoped im sure its based off a real pic. So the angle must be right.
We have all probably see alot of odd things happen but in this case it looks like the MG sliced more thru the end of the barrel then punctured it.
The detail is great…almost to good … yet it is in the foreground.
Also for this to fly out of a plane…the ass end (lack of a better word) looks really undamaged. Not sure how it was mounted but you would expect to see some stripping … maybe in the middle there is some damage.
I think its real … but if its photoshopped then someone put a great deal of time and effort into it.
JMO
I just puzzled - what someone would want to false this photos for?
What could be the aim of falsification.
Is this the Moon landing?:)
Hello,
This is a real photo, most ceetainly not faked–why would it be?–and widely reproduced in histories of the battleship in question. There are also photos in the same series of the young IJN pilot’s body lying on the deck of the ship…
Where can we see these photos?
Hello,
I have it in at least one BB book–probably more than one–and the Malcolm Muir book on the IOWA-class BBs (IIRC) has the photo of the young pilot’s remains. The MG was ejected when the ZEKE hit USS MISSOURI’s side and embedded itself in the 40mm Bofors barrel as shown…The Japanese pilot’s body was ejected too, but not in one piece. He was given an appropriate military burial at sea as I recall.
HTH
The point of impact shows the cone of the barrel going out and not inward and there is no bending of the AA barrel due to impact .
Weren’t the guns removed from a lot of Kamikaze planes?
It was quite (I beleive) normal for the planes to be stripped of items not deemed needed, ie the undercarriage lowering switch :p.
Likewise the part of the bofors that the machine gun has penetrated is quite weak. It is not designed for the stresses of firing rounds, merely to hide the flash from the firer. I feel a bit more damage would have been caused (ie bending of barrel and flash eliminator) had a 15 Kg - 20 Kg javelin travelling at speed hit it.
I agree; Japan was running out of stuff like MGs and it is obviously Photoshopped.
Hello,
Did photoshop exist in the 1940s/50s/60s/70s? The picture is an official one and a copy is undoubtedly available through NHC or NARA II. Take the time to examine Malcolm Muir’s work on the IOWA-class BBs and see if it helps…It was published in 1988. Photoshopped then?
Many MGs were retained on these planes, and for obvious reasons. They did not want them destroyed before reaching their objective. Also a lot of Tokko missions were last-minute affairs, with little or no time for stripping the planes down that thoroughly.
A Bofors 40mm weapon weighted some 1200lbs; a quad mount weighed almost 11-12 tons. The 7.62 mg shown embedded in the barrel would have weighed something less than 90lbs.
Just some food for thought.
I don’t know enough to dispute or confirm the authenticity of the picture, which I’m happy to accept is genuine, but I’m reasonably sure that Japan didn’t use 7.62 mm as its aircraft armament in WWII. I thought their nearest calibres were 7.7mm upwards.
Having once briefly been an M60 7.62 mm machine gunner, I agree that a 7.62mm MMG would have weighed less than 90 lb. Under 20lb is my recollection. Much more and I couldn’t have carried it. At 90lb, I couldn’t have dragged it, unless it was on wheels and then not for long.
It couldn’t have weighed much more than 20 lb in an aeroplane when it’s shorn of mounts like the one stuck in the gun.
Not least because at around .30 for 7.62 / 7.7 the maximum weight for a Japanese aircraft gun was less than a third of 90 lb. http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/hangar/8217/fgun/fgun-pe.html
I’ll allow more weight for a 7.62mm for a heavier barrel for sustained fire in an aircraft, but I’m struggling to understand a gun which has a barrel about 8 to 10 times heavier than the breech.
My bad. I thought you got it from a website.