Bourbon Boxcar was F-7A serial # 42-73078, one of the original F-7As assigned to the New Guinea theatre with the the 20th Combat Mapping Squadron. They conducted their first operations out of Nadzab.

The unit was deployed to New Guinea in early 1944, arriving as the first multi-engined reconnaissance unit assigned to the Fifth. Their F-7A Liberators were factory-converted in Minnesota by adding two 600-gallon fuel tanks, securely bolted into the forward bombay. The rear bombay was equipped with three 'Tri-metrogon' 2x18-inch cameras. For oblique perspectives, other cameras of varying size were positioned throughout the aircraft's nose, removing the bomb racks and adding two fuel tanks in the forward bomb bay.

The aft bomb bay was converted to a photographic compartment with mounts and windows for two vertical reconnaissance cameras. Three mapping cameras, in a trimetrogon array, were mounted in the nose to provide horizon-to-horizon photographic coverage.

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