Jim Flemming recalls filming an attack mission in South Korea, 2007

Transcript of interview

The Cinesound people wanted some way of getting actual combat films without flying. We had no aeroplanes they could fly, and of course the Mustang is a single-seater. So the 77 Squadron airmen designed a window in the front leading nose of one of the main drop tanks. And the drop tank is a fairly big one. It'll hold a fully sized human if you wanted to. Anyway, the Cinesound cameraman thought it would be a good idea if he got his camera, and up the front, and pointed it through the window, and he got in the tank with it. And he was quite happy to do that, which I think he had more guts than brains because he suddenly realised when I showed him the jettison button on the stick that I was flying, that if ever I got into trouble and got hit, which was quite likely in Korea, I would jettison the tanks, and he'd go with it. He immediately lost all interest in doing that. So the 77 Squadron airmen designed a remote stand to put his camera on, with a control button in the cockpit which, when I pulled the trigger, the camera would flow from thereon in. So we took off from Iwakuni, climbed up, went over to Taegu, landed with the Americans and we were re-armed and refuelled by the Americans, as we always were, and we then took off and did a normal four-airplane strike on dug-in North Korean troops. But as they carried out the attack, I flew as number four, and filmed all the way in, and on the way back. And each time that I pulled the trigger, my guns fired as well as taking pictures of the people in front. There was a two pressure thing on the trigger, so rather than shoot my own people down, I was taking pictures of them, and when the pictures would finish I would revert the other trigger the other way, and I would then fire my own guns. We were on the target for, oh, I suppose an hour and a half. We had dug-in troops, vehicles in buildings, a bridge with North Korean troops crossing it. And we came back and eventually got back to Iwakuni. They just took it out and ran it through and it was pretty good. They were all very happy with it, so it became a newsreel item.