Cameraman Who Rode in a Fighter’s Fuel Tank #okinawa #davidduncan

By June 1945, the Battle of Okinawa had been raging for over two months and was entering its final, brutal days — it would end just one week later, on June 22, making it one of the last major battles of World War II. To capture it on film, USMC combat photographer David Douglas Duncan took an extraordinary risk: he rode inside a converted external drop tank mounted on an F-5E Lightning photo-reconnaissance aircraft, flown by Major Ed H. Taylor of the 28th Photo-Reconnaissance Squadron out of Yontan airfield. On June 15, 1945, Duncan flew alongside Marine F4U Corsairs as they struck Japanese positions at Kushi Take with napalm and rockets, at an altitude of roughly 75 feet. The tank had no ventilation, and Duncan later described the Plexiglas fogging up from his own sweat — he claimed to have lost eleven pounds of fluid during the flight, and the aircraft had to land at unusually high speed because of the tank’s drag. It’s one of the most extreme lengths any WWII photographer went to in order to document the war from the air, captured just days before one of the Pacific War’s bloodiest battles finally came to an end. #wwii #worldwarii #worldwar2 #history #historyfacts #historyshorts #historia #historical #ww2history #ww2facts #okinawa #pacificwar #corsair #lightning #combatphotography #napalmdeath #aviation #aviationhistory #documentary #education #warzone #militaryhistory #historylovers #fyp #edit #warthunder #phonk #memes #didyouknow