Vietnam Bao Chi by Marc Phillip Yablonka

Author:Marc Phillip Yablonka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Vietnam War
ISBN: 9781612006888
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2018-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

MoPic Photog’ Wearing the Blue: Joe Montgomery

Joe Montgomery graduated from Philadelphia’s West Catholic High School in June of 1955 and immediately tried to join the US Air Force. But there were so many enlistees trying to do the same that even his having been in the Air National Guard since his junior year in high school, he was not able to wear the blue until September of that year; he was sent to Sampson Air Force Base in upstate New York for basic training.

In addition to being surprised that he was not able to enlist in the USAF immediately after graduation, he was further surprised when he received orders to be trained as a motion-picture photographer. It was something he had absolutely no experience in.

“I was assigned to Eglin AFB Air Force,” he said. “The Air Force had no school for motion-picture photographers at that time. All my training was On the Job Training (OJT). I always seemed to be in the wrong place for advanced courses like those they offered at Syracuse University and other colleges. However, the OJT provided training in studio work, animation, documentary, and engineering photography,”

Being a mopic photographer in the Air Force carried with it a lot of different responsibilities, according to Montgomery, who pointed out that the term MOS does not apply in the USAF, which uses AFSC (Air Force Specialty Code) instead. He further stated that up until the Vietnam War, if you were a motion-picture photographer, there was an invisible line separating documentary mopic and technical mopic.

“My Eglin and Edwards assignments meant I fell under the technical side. I was in Systems Command and most of our photography was done with high-speed cameras (200 to 1000fps). At Eglin they primarily tested weapons and ordnance, and how these worked from different aircraft.”

There, they photographed cold-weather testing in the climatic hangar at temperatures as low as -40. At Edwards, Montgomery primarily photographed flight testing of experimental airplanes such as the X-15, XB-70, SR-71, and others.

“So, I did a lot of flying at both bases,” Montgomery said. “I witnessed the testing of a missile called Bomarc, which was designed to intercept enemy aircraft—for which we used a series of remote cameras. I also filmed numerous drops of an X-15 from a B-52, the rollout and testing of the XB-70, and the testing of using a C-130 for picking up a man from the ground who was tethered to a balloon.”

“One of our photo chase pilots at Edwards, Joe Engle, became an astronaut. Flying with him in a jet was like being with a kid in a hot rod.”

Montgomery is quick to point out that when the Vietnam War took over the news, things changed for Air Force still- and motion-picture photographers.

“Due to Vietnam, in 1965, the line between technical and documentary disappeared. From that point I was strictly documenting the Air Force at Ubon, Thailand, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Hickam Army Air Field, and Norton AFB in San Bernardino, California.”

But Montgomery’s missions as an Air Force photographer were far from mundane.

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