Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/23

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Re: Contax in W W 2 service
From: "Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 11:57:11 -0000

Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net> wrote:

>SUPPOSEDLY, ever U-Boat had a complete periscope-camera kit
consisting of a
Contax camera and adapter and various related doo-dads

>While we have a slew of pictures taken with this gear, we
do not have a single surviving example of such a camera kit, making me
suspicious that these puppies were quite rare.

The massive casualty rate which the Allies inflicted on the U-boat
fleet presumably means that most of these kits are at the bottom of
the Atlantic in "iron coffins".

I would have expected that significant numbers of kits were captured
by the Allies at the end of the war (I can remember when the heavy
U-boat binoculars came onto the surplus market around 1960 - Leitz or
Zeiss - $400 each.) Perhaps the cameras were taken into military
service and the rest of the "adapter and various related doo-dads"
scrapped.

Regards,

Doug Richardson