Hello,
Yes MILPHOTO means MILitary PHOTO, but It wasn't an abreviation; just MILPHOTO.
And as I explain MILPHOTO was a data bank to dispatch (against money) pictures comming from other sources (Including US National Archives, Boeing, USAF, US Navy, Marines ...).
Working - free lance - for a french mag in late seventies I still have "original" prints from MILPHOTO.
Just imagine that today you want an original Bundesarchiv picture; asking MILPHOTO for a Me262 picture; you'd get it without knowing the source and you'd print MILPHOTO as source!
That's exactly the way it did work.
Especially in Air Power and Air Classics publications.
Hence, it's better to trace the picture through US National Archive (for example) than to trace MILPHOTO.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kemon01/
and try to ask him ...
Tschüss, Franck.