Air Spy - The Story of Photo Intelligence in World War II

AIR_SPY THE STORY OF PHOTO INTELLIGENCE IN

WORLD WAR

II

Constance Banin^ton- Smitn

Illustrated

HARPER

&

BROTHERS

NEW YORK

PUBLISHERS

'3^^ ,0^^ C'^"

AIR SPY Copyright

©

1957 by Constance Babington Smith

Printed in the United States of America

All rights in this book are reserved. book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations

No

part of the

embodied

in

critical articles

and reviews. For

information address Harper & Brothers 49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N. Y.

FIRST EDITION I-G

Library of Congress catalog card number: 57-8194

906971

TO THOSE

WHO ENCOURAGED ME TO WRITE THIS BOOK

CONTENTS PREFACE I

XI

FASTER AND HIGHER

1

TRIAL AND ERROR

29

in

THE INVASION THREAT

55

IV

THE START OF THE BOMBING

83

II

V VI VII

Vin IX

X

THE SEA WAR

109

THE MEDITERRANEAN WATCH

128

COMBINED OPERATIONS

145

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE

169

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS

203

THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE

239

INDEX

261

((VID)

.

ILLUSTRATIONS The following photographs

will

be found

in

a group after page 114:

1.

Fred Winterbotham

2.

Sidney Cotton and the Lockheed in 1939

3.

Shorty Longbottom

4.

Sidney Cotton adjusting Longbottom's parachute

5. 6.

The great oil fires at Dunkirk Wing Commander Geoffrey Tuttle

7.

Squadron Leader Peter Riddell and the author

8.

Sidney Cotton with Air Marshal Sir Arthur Barratt

9.

The German advance on

10.

Paris

Michael Spender

1 1

German

12.

Autobahn junction

invasion barges at Dunkirk

13.

Oil storage tanks under construction

14.

Bernard Babington-Smith

15.

Pat Ogilvie

16.

What

17.

Ann McKnight-Kauffer

flak looks like: night

photograph

18.

Sarah Oliver, daughter of Winston Churchill

19.

Eve Hohday

20.

Michael Suckling, who found the Bismarck

21.

23.

Gordon Hughes and intelligence The Tirpitz in Aas Fiord The Admiral Hipper in dry dock

24.

A

25.

AUstair Taylor

22.

Mosquito

((ix))

officer

Edward Hornby

ILLUSTRATIONS 26 and 27. Adrian Warburton and the plane he crash-landed 28.

29.

German R-boats minesweeping Lieutenant Commander (now Captain) Robert bush,

Jr.,

S.

Quacken-

U.S.N.

31.

Major (now Colonel) Harvey C. Brown, Jr., U.S.A.F. Colonel Elliott Roosevelt and General Eisenhower at La Marsa,

32.

President Roosevelt at

33.

The Lightning

34.

North African landing ground plowed up

35.

KarlPolifka

30.

Tunis

La Marsa

W. Gray and

36.

Colonel Leon

37.

Tony

38.

Claude Wavell

his Lightning

Hill

The Focke-Wulf fighter assembly factory at Marienburg Major James G. Hall 41. Peenemiinde: the photograph on which V-2 rockets were 39.

40.

seen.

44.

Wing Commander H. Hamshaw Thomas Wing Comander Douglas Kendall The V-1 on the launching ramp at Peenemiinde.

45.

John Merifield

42. 43.

46.

The author examining

47.

Modified V-1 launching

48.

"Ski site" at Bois Carre

aerial

photos with stereoscope

site at

Vignacourt

V-2 launching site at Wizemes 50. Germans setting up landing obstacles on French beaches 51. British ghders after landing near Caen 52. Bielefeld viaduct after attacks in March 1945 53. Frenchman waves to Allied reconnaissance plane 49.

((X))

first

PREFACE MANY

of us

World War

who were

II

hoped

in Allied Photographic Intelligence in

that in time there

would be a book

to

put on public record the outstanding achievements of the reconnaissance pilots and photographic interpreters, as well as the contribution of the

many

never expected that

an account, but

As

I

I

others

who made

their

work

possible. I

myself would be called upon to write such

am very

glad that the opportunity came.

have checked

far as possible I

all facts

and dates with con-

temporary records. The Air Ministry kindly gave

me

permission

to study relevant documents, including Interpretation Reports,

and

I

would

like to

thank Mr.

J.

C. Nerney and his

Air Historical Branch, and also Squadron Leader T. for their assistance in this matter. I

Marshal

Sir Geoffrey Tuttle,

his personal interest in the

am

Deputy Chief of the Air

book and

Information Services, terial to

The

Staff, for

his helpful advice. I its

am,

in

co-operation,

James F. Sunderman of the

who

the

W. Oakey,

also indebted to Air

addition, very grateful to the U.S. Air Force for particularly to Captain

staff at

Office of

arranged for certain documentary ma-

be made available to me.

material for this

book has been

collected primarily

by

my former colleagues, both here and in women who actually took part in the events

talking with scores of

America

—men and

I describe.

My gratitude to them is beyond words. <(xi))

The memories

PREFACE they have shared with

me

are the flesh and blood of the story.

A number of them have also given me invaluable help by reading and this

I

criticizing

book

I

my

draft.

My

only regret

is

that in the space of

cannot pay tribute to more than a few of those

would have

whom

liked to mention by name.

C.B.S.

Cambridge, England July,

1957

((XU))

AIR SPY

I

Faster and Higher

1 HE photographs showed. the Second

.

."

In ahnost every account of

World War, whether from the viewpoint

Force, Navy, or

during the

.

last

became, to the

Army,

of Air

and again. For

these words recur again

war, the searching eye of the aerial camera Allies,

much more than an

important tactical

adjunct to military operations, which had previously been

its

accepted wartime role. During the years between 1939 and 1945, a

new kind

tactical,

of photographic reconnaissance, strategic as well as

came

into being, carried out

first

from

from AlHed bases aU over the world. The

Britain,

intelligence

and then it

yielded

gave answers of a rapidity, scope, and accuracy which had never before been envisaged.

Behind the words "the photographs showed story

which

is

essentially twofold; for this

new

.

.

."

there

intelligence

is

a

was

the product of two extremely different activities: the taking of the pictures and the reading of their meaning. In the records of flying achievement,

ceived

little

the photographic pilots have hitherto re-

acclaim; but in

many ways (d))

their

work was even more

AIR SPY

demanding than

bomber and

the

of

that

normally they flew alone and unarmed after the

fighter

pilots;

photographs were taken, often from

for

and even

to their targets,

five miles up, the

job was only half done: the sortie was wasted unless they got the pictures

back

Even when

safely.

the pilot

was back, however,

ing without the interpreters.

Many

book may arouse the comment,

"I

meant noth-

his films

of the illustrations

in this

can see for myself what

is

of military interest without having to be called an interpreter";

and

is

it

quite true that certain things of mihtary interest can

be recognized by anyone in certain pictures. But the vast majority of the war's aerial photographs were taken

from great heights

and from immediately above, and the wealth of information they hold has meaning only for the initiated. Indeed, their secret

language

may be compared

which can be

fully

old

—

ago

it

X-ray photographs,

understood only by an eye which

and a mind that has been

The

to the language of

is

idea of taking photographs from the air

or as

young

began

—

as aviation itself;

to inspire a

experienced

specially trained.

number

and

just a

of aeronauts

in several different countries. Earliest of

them

is

nearly as

hundred years

and photographers all

was the famous

French pioneer photographer Nadar (Felix Toumachon), who fixed a

camera on the basket of a balloon and took the

cessful aerial

first

photographs near Paris in the spring of 1856.

followed this up by obtaining

many excellent views of much pubhcity and

those he got in 1858 received

alluded to as the

first

aerial

decHned the opportunity

to

Paris,

suc-

He and

are often

photographs ever taken. But Nadar

make ((2))

yet

more

history.

In 1859, he

FASTER AND HIGHER was invited by the French Minister for ments to the mihtary

field,

War

to apply his experi-

but his politics restrained him and he

evaded the proposal.

A

year

later, in

1860, a successful photograph of Boston was

taken from a balloon by

J.

W.

Black; and only two years after

according to some historians, aerial photography was

this,

first

used for a military purpose in the American Civil War. The story

McLennan,

goes that in 1862 General ern

Army

in

command

of the North-

besieging Richmond, Virginia, sent up a photographer

in a tethered balloon to take a picture of the Confederate troops

and

batteries.

Two

were made, and each was marked

prints

into sixty-four squares. General loonists took the other feet

over the

McLennan had

and ascended with

battlefield.

From

this

to fifteen

it

off

one, and two bal-

hundred

point of vantage they tele-

graphed to the General the exact movements of the enemy troops

on the numbered squares.

It

worked

splendidly,

and the Con-

federate attempts to break through the besieging lines were

countered by reinforcements. In England in 1863, Henry Negretti and James Glaisher took

photographs successfully from free balloons than Nadar, and from

this

at higher altitudes

time onward there were

many

experi-

ments, both in Europe and America, with cameras attached to balloons

and some

to kites

and

rockets.

By

the eighties,

balloon units for reconnaissance were being started up on both sides of the Atlantic.

Photographs were

first

taken from actual airplanes in 1909,

and again America and France led the way.

On

April 24, 1909,

Wilbur Wright himself, accompanied by a photographer whose

name

is

unrecorded, took off from Centocelle, near Rcme, and ((3))

AIR SPY

succeeded in obtaining a series of cinematograph pictures. At about the same time French photographers started experimenting on similar lines, and the

by M. Meurisse the

work of

in

December

first

effective

stills

were those taken

of 1909. During the next five years

the pioneers continued apace, and the

way was

soon open for the successes of the First World War.

When August 1914

came, however, aerial reconnaissance was

primarily visual, and such were the

still

flights of the

first

reconnaissance

Royal Flying Corps, made on August 19 by Captain

W. Mapplebeck. But the supplement the human eye was

Joubert de la Ferte and Lieutenant G. idea of using the camera to

already being pursued by both sides.

ahead

in this field, but the British

lead and in due course Lieutenant

was put

At

first

J.

map

their

T. C. Moore-Brabazon

in charge of a small photographic unit.

a trench

the French were

were soon following

By March 1915

prepared chiefly from aerial photographs was

used with great success by Sir Douglas Haig in the attack at

Neuve Chapelle, and from then on there was a continual urgent demand for photographic reconnaissance, both for making maps and

for checking

At it

enemy

the start of the

was unsporting

to

activity.

war some of the Army diehards had

these scruples were soon forgotten.

hard

at

it,

felt

photograph the German rear positions, but

and both

sides

By mid-1915 both

sides

were

were realizing that steps must be

taken to prevent the enemy from recording their secrets from above. This need stimulated the rapid development of aircraft

equipped with guns, for the work of the reconnaissance planes ((4))

FASTER AND HIGHER was SO

vital that

they had to be protected

—by an

escort of spe-

cialized fighting aircraft.

Later in the war, photography also proved of decisive value in

Egypt and Palestine;

firstly

for mapping, because in

maps were no

the existing

use.

was

It

work. Lieutenant

this

interested in studying

and thus he gradually accumulated a

fund of knowledge about what military

from above.

areas

But one of the photographic

oflBcers of the R.F.C. who took part in Hugh Hamshaw Thomas, became much

the photographs further;

many

largely thanks to

him

installations look like

much

that

invaluable

data on the Turkish fortifications and batteries was available

when General Allenby came

By

to plan his attacks.

1918, photographic reconnaissance was being used to a

lavish extent.

There had been great advances in camera design

and photographic techniques, as well riving

as in the

information from the pictures

became known

traditional

—methods

in the

whole

field of military intelligence.

methods of obtaining information

secret agents, censors,

which soon

A great revolution

as photographic interpretation.

had taken place

methods of de-

and interrogators

—

The

the reports of

—were not

superseded,

but they were supplemented, in the same revolutionary manner that the traditional

methods of communication had been sup-

plemented by the telephone and wireless telegraphy. By the time of the Armistice, photographic inteUigence had indeed

proved

itself,

and was recognized on every hand

as tht

indis-

pensable eye of a modern army. But largely because; rf the technical limitations of the day

—

the performance

the aircraft and the scope of the cameras ((5))

—

it

and lange of

had come

to

be

AIR SPY

regarded as essentially of tactical value, and after the war

concept became frozen

stiff

this

in the thinking of the staff colleges

of the world.

Such was the background when

many

that

a Second \\'orld

in

1938

War was

it

became

inevitable.

clear to

During the

twenty years of peace there had been steady development in the civil

applications of aerial photography; but the precedents of the

1914-18 war

still

dominated the mihtar}' scene.

new Luftwaffe

In Germany, where the vast expansion of the

was forging ahead, much thought had been given

to providing

for photographic intelligence, particularly in relation to the needs

of the is

Army. The whole matter was taken

alleged that General

von

Fritsch, not long after

Nazi favor and was dismissed from Chief of the

ver}- seriously,

German Army, went

as

ofiBce

he

fell

and

it

from

Commander-in-

so far as to forecast that the

side with the best photographic reconnaissance

would win the

next war. But his death in 1939 was to prevent him from seeing his

prophecy

fulfilled.

During the anxious years before war actually came, a member

named Frederick Winterbotham was Germany. He had a number of acquaintances

of the Air Staff Intelligence a frequent visitor to in

important positions, and

this

gave him chances to collect

a lot of useful "unoflBcial'' information for Britain

September 1938. But

after

—up

until

Munich, the Nazi and Fascist security

systems were drastically tightened, and "information" became

much to his

the

harder to

own

get.

In this predicament his

experiences in the First War,

mind turned back

when

as

a pilot in

Royal Flying Corps, he had often escorted photographic ((6))

FASTER AND HIGHER aircraft,

and had

first

seen what valuable information aerial

photographs could provide. in keeping track of the

course, have to be pletely secret.

Why not use the same method to help

German war

done very

He knew

preparations?

discreetly; in fact

it

It

would, of

must be com-

Deux-

that his colleagues in the French

ieme Bureau had already resorted to taking photographs from planes whenever opportunity offered. Soon he had evolved

civil

a plan and obtamed the necessary approval to go ahead.

next thing was to find the right

man

for the job. It

The

was indeed

fortunate for the whole future of British photographic intelligence that just at this point

Winterbotham was introduced

to a remark-

able Australian called Sidney Cotton.

Frederick Sidney Cotton had lived a few centuries

If

he would have made a splendid buccaneer. for

adventure's

sake,

continually

had a notable record for crook.

He

also

had a

getting flair

defied

He

loved adventure orthodox,

the

his

name

a household

and

what he wanted by hook or by

for mechanical things,

naturally inventive: in fact one of his inventions

made

earlier,

word

and was

had long since

in aviation: during his time in

the Royal Naval Air Service in the First

War

he had invented

the windproof "Sidcot" flying suit, forerunner of the one-piece "siren suit."

Between the wars he was busy with various and developed airmail also tried his

hand

flying ventures,

in

Newfoundland, where he

at aerial survey.

Later he became interested

services

was

in color

photography, and

summer

of 1938 he was back in England, establishing business

contacts in right

man

Germany for the

it

in this

for his color-film

connection that in the

company. Here was the

scheme that Winterbotham envisaged. ((7))

AIR SPY

Without delay the plan was

was

to be strictly

on a

Chief of the Air

Winterbotham

jfinalized,

and the

project,

which

civilian footing, received the blessing of the

Staff, Sir

Cyril Newall,

who

also authorized

to purchase the necessary aircraft.

Between them,

The

success of the

Fred and Sidney worked out the

scheme would depend

entirely

details.

upon evading

detection, so the

photography would have to be done from as high as practicable;

and an airplane of good performance was needed.

An

opulent

twin-engined airplane, a Lockheed 12 A, was selected for the

work, and for security reasons

Then

in dramatic secrecy

it

it

was

registered in Cotton's

name.

was equipped with hidden cameras.

Cotton designed a special frame to hold three cameras below the passenger cabin.

The

central

camera was mounted

graph directly downward, and the other two side

—were

at

to photo-

—one

on

either

an angle to take obliques; the three together thus

covering a wide area.

Each camera operated

in a continuous

sequence, so that the photographs would overlap, giving a view of long strips of country.

there it

was a

And

underneath the whole installation

sliding panel, fitted so perfectly that

was more or

less invisible. Finally, the

an exquisite duck-egg green.

It

when

closed

Lockheed was painted

was nothing unusual

an apparently private airplane in some gay color; but

it

to paint

was not

by chance that Cotton chose a color which would make

his

plane practically invisible from far below. It

a

was nothing unusual,

new venture

a small

in aviation;

company

formed, with

either, for

and early

Sidney Cotton to start up

in

1939

it

was arranged for

called Aeronautical Research

offices in St.

and Sales to be

James's Square. The activities of this

company, combined with the color-film business, were going to ((8))

FASTER AND HIGHER

mean an

intensive

program of business

A

excellent excuse for a lot of flying.

Niven,

who had

trips,

and provided an

young Canadian, Robert

reached the end of his short service com-

just

mission in the R.A.F., was engaged to help with the Lockheed,

and together Cotton and he went the plane capitals

So

was kept

and

—time

off

from Heston

airport,

where

many

of the

—

and time again

to

industrial cities of Europe, but especially to Berlin.

far so good; but although the innocent-looking civil air-

craft flew happily

on

its

travels,

so passed unobtrusively over

and

many

at

twenty thousand feet or

interesting places,

it

was not

a simple straightforward matter to take photographs from such heights, for the lenses of the

cameras reacted to the extreme cold,

and got badly frosted up. Cotton was not

to

be defeated, however,

and he worked out a way of deflecting the intensely cold from the

lenses,

which meant that for the

first

air

time aerial photo-

graphs could be reliably taken from high altitudes. After hurdle had been surmounted, extra fuel tanks were

fitted

this

which

gave the Lockheed a greatly extended range; and in the spring of 1939 Cotton and Niven went off on a long "Mediterranean tour," flying direct to

of photographs

Malta from Heston, and took

over Libya,

Eritrea,

Sardinia,

roll after roll

and the Do-

decanese. While Cotton was at Malta, taking photographs of

some

of the Sicilian airfields, a fateful meeting took place; for stationed at

Malta

at the time

was a young man

Maurice Longbottom, who was

called Flying Officer

later to join forces with

Cotton

in developing photographic reconnaissance.

The Lockheed landed back films,

and

this

brought up in a

at

Heston with a great cargo of

critical

to get the information out of them. ((9))

form the question of how

For although the

art of

AIR SPY interpreting air photographs

way

War,

in the First

in

had been developed

one experienced interpreter

at the

Walter Heath. Between the wars

Air Ministry, Flight Lieutenant it

had not been considered

would be needed,

specialist interpreters

for interpretation

supposed to be a job that any station intelligence be trained for in

quite a long

the summer of 1939 there was precisely

officer

that

was

could

a week or two, and Heath's job was organizing

courses for them. For a time Heath struggled to keep up, and

one or two intelligence there

was inevitably a

later in

officers

helped as best they could, but

serious time lag. It

was not

until

much

1939, however, that another solution was found for

this

particular problem.

During the private

last

flying

months before war began there was

for pleasure

as

still

well as for business,

international flying meetings were the great events of the

season.

On

July 28, 1939, the

first

day of the special

much

and the

summer air rally

put on by the Nazis at Frankfurt, the elegant duck-egg-green

Lockheed

up

circled in to land at the large

to join a motley

crowd of

colors. In Cotton's party

little

new

airport,

and taxied

aircraft of all shapes

and

were Charles Grey, the editor of The

Aeroplane, and Margaret Gilruth, an Australian journalist.

The Berhn agent

who had been

for Cotton's color-film business, Herr Schone,

in Richthofen's

squadron with Goering in the

First

War, was waiting to meet the

them

to everybody, including

some

party,

of the

and he introduced

many

Luftwaffe officers

who were present, from General Milch downward. Cotton recounts how the conversation invariably turned to the "kolossal Lockheed." Soon one of the generals, ((10))

who was

chief of the

FASTER AND HIGHER Tempelhof airport

much

like to

oblige. his

On

made

at Berlin,

go up for a

flight,

it

would very

clear that he

and Cotton was delighted to

a sudden impulse he recalled that a favorite aunt of

had always raved about the beauty of the Rhine

Mann-

love to

fly

the General over this beautiful region

could be permitted.

It

was permitted; and the following day

heim. if it

He would

at

many more

similar flights

were permitted. In

fact,

there

quite a bit of competition for joyrides in the Lockheed.

was

Accom-

panied by a series of Luftwaffe generals and colonels. Cotton flew hither airfields

And

and

thither at a couple of

and ammunition dumps, the

while his passengers

thousand

over the

and

fortifications.

interest

on the Lock-

factories

commented with

feet,

heed's performance, Sidney casually flicked a

little

switch,

and

down below the cameras went clicking away. As day by day the summer of 1939 led toward war, Cotton's business trips to Germany became more frequent than ever. Each time he flew between London and Berlin he would take a slightly different route,

swarms of airfields.

and each time he saw with apprehension the

fighters

and bombers

that

were gathering

at the various

Fred Winterbotham's idea was producing some very

interesting results.

About the middle from London

of August,

after taking a

when Cotton landed

at

Tempelhof

more northerly course than

usual,

the control officer asked to see him. "Are you not flying from

London on

rather a roundabout course?"

replied that he always flew officer tried hastily to

bergh," he said.

on a great

he asked. Cotton

circle route,

and the control

conceal his ignorance. "Oh, like Lind-

"Thank you.

I

beg pardon for having to ask

you." ((11))

AIR SPY

But things did not always go

week

as easily as that,

and in the

of

August 1939, during the days of agonizing suspense

after the pact

between Germany and Russia had been announced.

third

Cotton was actually in Berlin, and for a short time as

he might be trapped there; for suddenly

if

looked

it

all civil flying

was

stopped. But finally he was given clearance, and he took off for

England, with

was

to

much

trepidation,

be allowed to

fly to

anti-aircraft guns, but

arranged course

it

if

the

it

a great number of

German

were silhouetted

frontier unchallenged

from

its

by

pre-

at.

him near Wilhelmshaven, where he saw ships.

frontier, with a sigh of relief,

ships

Dutch

strayed even slightly

would be shot

Cotton's course took

on August 24. The Lockheed

As he

crossed the

Dutch

he turned to look back, and the

in the distance.

They looked

like little

dark gray pencils, and with them there was a tiny white glimmer

—

Hitler's

yacht Grille,

Eight days later Hitler invaded Poland.

matter of a day or two before Britain and

So to

It

Germany were

was suddenly of the utmost importance

it

know

for certain

war had not

which ships were

could only be a

in

to the

at war.

Admiralty

Wilhelmshaven. Since

actually been declared, however, the R.A.F. could

not be asked to send out a reconnaissance plane, and instead the

Admiralty appealed to Fred Winterbotham.

who

said he

in his

would be dehghted

mind was

the

memory

him

at the time that

put

it

to Cotton,

to try for photographs.

Fresh

of those distant silhouettes he

seen as he crossed the Dutch frontier, and to

He

it

had

had actually occurred

an oblique photograph of the great ((12))

FASTER AND HIGHER naval base could be taken from inside the Dutch frontier,

were

you

if

at the right height.

By

time a second airplane had been acquired, a

this

Beechcraft, and as

Cotton agreed to

whom

tographer

Bob Niven was let

him go

make

very keen to

off in

it,

little

the flight,

accompanied by a pho-

Winterbotham had brought along. From high

above Groningen the gray pencils

at

Wilhelmshaven were photo-

graphed, and Niven and his companion were soon back at Heston.

Cotton was on tenterhooks his eyes

lit

up when he saw the

silhouetted in the distance.

would be

the films were processed, but

till

negatives.

Some

big enlargements, though they

He

waited impatiently while the

enlargements were made, and then tore the following day,

new

First

the

reins

ships,

grainy, should enable the experts at the Admiralty to

identify the individual units.

On

There were the

Lord

when war was

of the Admiralty,

off to Whitehall.

declared,

and when the

Winston Churchill, picked up

again after almost twenty-five years'

absence,

the

Director of Naval Intelligence was ready for questions on the

whereabouts of the German Fleet.

Less than an hour after the declaration of war, a Blenheim of

Bomber Command took

official

off

photograph the German Fleet

Command was

at

Its

Wilhelmshaven, for Bomber

managed

to bring

the next

morning to recheck

pilot,

back news that

of the ships were emerging from the naval base;

when he went

and again

their positions

succeeded in photographing the ships in the Schillig Roads. ((13))

first

purpose was to

planning to stage an attack. The Blenheim

Flying Officer A. McPherson,

some

from Wyton on the war's

photographic sortie from Britain.

he

AIR SPY

But the raid which ensued brought shocking proof

Blenheim was not suitable for daylight bombing against

excellent

heavily defended spite of

that the

targets,

McPherson's

and there were

tragic losses.

And

success, the fact that neither the

initial

as they

were then

for reconnaissance

under war

Blenheim nor the current R.A.F. cameras, being operated, were any use at

all

conditions emerged mercilessly during the next few weeks.

Blenheims were an easy prey to both fighters,

and except

at

15,

Staff

anti-aircraft

The

guns and

dangerously low altitudes the cameras

froze up, the films cracked,

The Air

and the

was not slow

lenses frosted over.

to seek a remedy.

On

September

Fred Winterbotham told Cotton that Air Vice-Marshal

Richard Peck, the Director-General of Operations, would to

in

meet him

to discuss the

problems of

Next morning Cotton was

at

aerial

like

photography.

the Air Ministry,

and Peck

explained the trouble they were having with the R.A.F. equip-

ment. Cotton outlined his ideas, but they seemed too simple

and were not accepted. The following day they met again, however, and

this

time the Deputy Chief of the Air

Air

Staff,

Vice-Marshal Richard Peirse, joined the discussion, and explained that there

were two particular targets of which photographs were

very urgently needed.

The

First

Lord of

the Admiralty,

and

indeed the Prime Minister himself, was most disturbed at the R.A.F.'s failure to photograph them during the previous ten days. Sidney

remarked

that

if

he could borrow a Blenheim he

could get the photographs right away, but

once that

this offer

would not be accepted.

could not be "loaned" to a it

was agreed

civilian.

But

that the matter should ((14))

it

An

at the

was obvious

at

R.A.F. airplane

end of the morning

be looked into further the

FASTER AND HIGHER following day,

when an Air Force camera

operational pilots would be called

Cotton

left

expert and

It

window, groping for a solution

He

came

gazed out of

An

floating by.

and he phoned Bob Niven

to him,

on

office,

to the morning's problems.

was a lovely warm day, with big white clouds

idea suddenly

of the

in.

the Air Ministry and returned to his

the top floor of a building in St. James's Square. the

some

at

Heston

to ask for the weather report for Holland. Within a few minutes

Niven called back to say the weather was good, and Cotton

warm up

immediately told him to off.

Next he telephoned

to

the

Lockheed ready

for take-

Fred Winterbotham and asked

if

he

could arrange for some photographs to be processed later in the day, and then he hopped into his car and was at Heston half

an hour

later.

Winterbotham had arranged some time planes registered in Cotton's

earlier that the

name should be allowed

two

to fly any-

where with no questions asked, and the Heston control tower merely notified Fighter

Command

that the

Lockheed was pro-

ceeding out to sea over Ramsgate for several hours on a

and returning the same way. So there was no delay, and

flight,

when had

test

the

in

Lockheed was

mind.

A

in the air

Cotton told Niven what he

mischievous grin spread across Niven's face as

they climbed to the top level of the floating clouds, and dodging

from one

to another

made

swiftly for the

Dutch

coast.

of hours later they were back. Both of the targets

photographed without any enemy interference

By

the next morning. Cotton

had an album

A

couple

had been

at all. full

of magnificent

enlargements, each with an overlay trace showing features of special importance. In Peck's office at ten o'clock the meeting ((15))

AIR SPY

assembled as planned, and after half an hour's talk Cotton

mentioned that he had some samples with him, and he would like to

know

if

He produced

these were the sort of pictures that were wanted.

was handed round and much

the album, which

admired. Everyone seemed to assume that the photographs had

been taken somewhere before the war, and Peck remarked that they would not expect such good quality under war conditions.

At

someone asked when they were taken.

last

"At

three-fifteen yesterday."

"What

demanded

are these pictures?"

several voices at once.

"The places you wanted photographed," was a moment's astounded protests,

silence

said Cotton.

There

and then an explosion of

and before the commotion had subsided Cotton was

out of the room.

That evening Peck phoned Fred Winterbotham and asked he would be willing to hand over the "Cotton the R.A.F.,

if

they could find

gladly agreed, and told

some way

Peck that

to

outfit" to

work

if

for

Winterbotham

fit it in.

in his view Cotton's technique

of high-altitude photography ought to replace the existing Air

Force methods.

So next day Cotton was asked twelve-thirty

and

Chief of the Air

to

come

to Peck's ofl&ce at

few minutes they were joined by the

after a Staff, Sir

"So you are the person

NewaU.

Cyril

who

is

giving us

all this

trouble," said

Newall.

"No,

sir,"

replied Cotton, "his

Newall smiled. "In said, "I

want

spite of

to congratulate

yesterday. I'm glad to

tell

name

is

Hitler."

your unorthodox behavior," he

you on the pictures you produced

you they have served ((16))

their purpose."

FASTER AND HIGHER

Then suddenly he asked, "What's wrong with the Air Force's photography?"

"Do you that I'm

man

really

want the

truth, sir? If so,

you must remember

an Australian, and someone once said that an English-

calls

a spade a spade but an Australian calls

it

a bloody

shovel."

Newall smiled again, and asked Cotton

if

he was free for lunch.

Over lunch at the United Services Club they discussed the

why

reasons

the R.A.F. photography

had succeeded. Cotton

him

if

right

had

recalls that almost at

its

existing photographic setup. life,"

quickly enough."

replied Cotton. "That wouldn't get results

He knew

this

was the moment

plunge, and he went on to suggest that to

once Newall asked

he would be prepared to join the R.A.F. and help to put

"Not on your

him

failed while Cotton's

form a special

unit,

if

to take the

Newall would allow

and give him carte blanche as to the

choice of men, machines, and equipment, he would take the

job on, provided he could do

you want

it

as a civilian. "It's the only

if

results."

Newall did not hesitate for a moment.

on the

way

spot, carte blanche

any suggestion as

to

and

all,

at a

and asked Cotton

he had

work

commercial airport."

Cotton could hardly believe

it

was

haps the time had come to soft-pedal a his best to

the Air Force.

if

will suspect that secret

"Yes, you've got something there. Heston

he would do

agreed to the idea

where he should work from.

"What about Heston? No one would be done

He

it

all true, bit,

is."

and thought per-

so he assured Newall

keep withm the channels and routine of

But the answer was an unexpected one. ((17))

AIR SPY

"No, for God's sake don't do is

that

you

will continue to

that,

Cotton.

do things

in

your

Your value

own way.

to I

me

want

results."

So a few days partnership

later,

on September 22, 1939, the

Sidney Cotton

of

"unofficial"

and Fred Winterbotham was

brought to an end, and Peck initiated Sidney into the mysteries of starting

up a

At once

special secret unit within the R.A.F.

became apparent

that there

it

was no machinery by which Air

Force planes and equipment could be handed over to a

civilian,

so Cotton reluctantly agreed to accept a commission, but only

condition that he had a free hand.

He was

on

thereupon commis-

sioned as squadron leader, with acting rank of wing commander,

and Bob Niven became a pilot

and

Malta

A

while as an additional

Cotton asked for Flying Officer Longbottom, whose

ligence at

flight lieutenant,

interest in

intel-

photography had so much impressed him

earlier in the year.

squadron leader named Lionel Stubbs,

whom

Cotton

later

found to be exceptionally knowledgeable, was then brought

and he helped Cotton

in,

to chart his course along the unfamiliar

channels of R.A.F. procedure. Stubbs told Cotton to

name

the

people he wanted, and he would have them posted to the unit,

which was

to

be known as the Heston FHght. Cotton cabled to

America, to one of the top technicians in Paul Lamboit,

whom

he wanted to run

and Stubbs helped him to

his color-film

his

company,

photographic section;

find other personnel including a red-

headed ex-policeman named Belcher

as

equipment

officer.

As

regards accommodation, the Flight took over one of the Heston ((18))

FASTER AND HIGHER hangars, and also the flying club premises and part of the Airport Hotel.

now beginning to Command, to which

All the various administrative wheels were

Air Ministry and at Fighter

turn, at the

the Heston Flight

was attached.

that the

by Fighter Command, on the grounds

unit should be administered that, as they

was Stubbs's idea

It

would not be a

would

"client" for photographs, they

probably not interfere. Cotton's most serious worry was about suitable aircraft.

already

and

knew

his ideas

exactly

which was the

envisaged. a to

new

for the job

fastest fighter in the

world

the R.A.F.'s precious

Speed and altitude ahead of anything

Spitfire.

The time was and

it

new technique he

ripe for aerial reconnaissance of quite

was providential that

this realization

Sidney Cotton, as well as to a few others

well equipped to bring

to

it

aircraft

—

sky would be the essence of the

order,

ahead of him,

were more than ambitious: he wanted the

new Supermarine else in the

what he wanted

He

consummation. There

who were is

it

less

a saying that

although Icarus and Leonardo da Vinci thought of flying, the Wright brothers to put

came

it

took

across.

In 1939, the Air Ministry's department concerned with the supply of aircraft had been evacuated to Harrogate, so Cotton

went

off there at

once with what he thought was a simple request

for a couple of Spitfires.

carte blanche as to

not expect any

The Chief

of the Air Staff

had given him

men, machines, and equipment, so he did

difficulty.

But he

still

had a

lot to learn

about the

Royal Air Force.

He was

ushered into the office of Air Vice-Marshal Tedder, ((19))

Am and

SPY

enthusiasm he presented his case. The "eyes" of the

full of

three services were going to play one of the most important roles in the war, he explained with animation. Photographic intel-

must be

ligence

up on

built

same time

of action and at the

new

unit

which

must always get

as fighters

lines

its

which would give

limit losses to a

pictures

back

were already the

full

freedom

minimum. The

to base. If the airplanes

fastest in the

world were

stripped of guns and fitted with cameras nothing could possibly

catch them as long as they operated from

Cotton

still

remembers how Tedder Hstened with

made few comments, and nicalities

maximum

in

altitude.

interest,

but

due course suggested that the tech-

should be discussed with two of the Ministry's experts.

Cotton was

left

with them, and they proceeded to explain at

some length why

was impossible

it

to equip the Spitfire with

cameras. They insisted that the Blenheim was the only suitable aircraft.

Back "If I

in Tedder's office

prove that

it

will not do,

Cotton protested "I if

Cotton reported what had passed.

were you," said Tedder, "I should take the Blenheim and

am

and then have another

at the

shot."

waste of time.

very used to service methods," answered Tedder, "and

you take

my

advice you will save a lot of time in the long run."

So the Blenheim couple of days

it

was, and two were dehvered to Heston a

later:

one on which to practice and the other

for conversion.

Tedder had also given Cotton some helpful advice about arranging for modifications at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at

Farnborough, and there he found a friend

in

Mr. A. H. Hall,

the Chief Superintendent. Hall was extremely interested ((20))

when

FASTER AND HIGHER Cotton expounded increase speed,

ment

his ideas

about streamlining and polishing to

and agreed

to give the

Blenheims the

way

their speed

was improved by about

at once. In this

eighteen miles an hour, but this was

still

full treat-

nothing approaching

was

the performance that Cotton needed. Within a few weeks he fighting for Spitfires again.

By

this

Flight,

time Maurice Longbottom had joined the Heston

and Cotton found

him a very

in

"Shorty" Longbottom's slide-rule possibilities of using really

enthusiastic collaborator.

mind became absorbed with

the

high-speed aircraft for photographic

reconnaissance and he was soon deep in performance figures.

Together Cotton, Niven, and he thrashed out the whole project,

and Cotton asked him

new

tionary

concept.

document of great

to set

down

the arguments for the revolu-

The memorandum which he produced

historic interest. His

is

summing up reads

a as

follows:

The

best

method appears

machine, relying on destruction. fly

its

A machine

to

be the use of a single small

speed, climb and ceiling to avoid

such as a single-seater fighter could

high enough to be well above

rely

Ack-Ack

upon sheer speed and height

enemy

fighters. It

to get

would have no use

for

fire

and could

away from

armament or radio

and these could be removed to provide room for extra in order to get the necessary range. It

machine painted so as

to reduce

its

the

fuel,

would be a very small visibility against the

sky.

Thus, with an accuracy which in retrospect foretold the secret of the successes ((21))

is

startling,

which lay ahead.

was

AIR SPY

Although the Heston

Flight's

speeded-up Blenheims were

still

not in the least up to Cotton's needs, they were soon being talked

Command, and news

about at Fighter

of

ears of the Commander-in-Chief, Air Chief

Dowding. The

them came Marshal

to the

Hugh

Sir

Blenheim that was being

fighter version of the

used for long-range patrols could do with some additional speed.

So Dowding came over were made

Heston

to

and arrangements

in person,

to "Cottonize" eight of the fighter Blenheims right

away. The work was rapidly completed, and the Commander-inChief was delighted: the performance of the long-range fighters

was improved beyond at his headquarters at

how

satisfied

Cotton says

one

thing,

sir.

Stanmore. Over a cup of tea he told him

at

his throat

Do

me know

went dry

you think you could lend

is

any-

me two

Spitfires?"

When

new concept

of

he had finished Dowding

lend you two Spitfires; though you

they are beyond price to me.

is

for?"

photographic reconnaissance. I'll

there

he answered, "There

as

earnestness. Cotton explained his

said, "All right,

if

any time."

"What do you want them With much

and he asked Cotton to see him

he was, and added, "Let

do for you

thing I can

his hopes,

When would you

like

know

them?"

"Yesterday!" exclaimed Cotton.

Dowding

smiled.

"Would nine

And, sure enough, Spitfires

tomorrow morning do?"

nine o'clock the next morning two

landed at Heston.

The next off

at

o'clock

thing

was

to get

cameras

installed,

and Cotton

set

immediately to see Hall at Famborough. As at Harrogate,

the experts

who were

first

called in threw cold water ((22))

on

the

— FASTER AND HIGHER whole project; but

after they

Harry Stringer about

to

had gone Hall

this."

Soon Cotton was closeted with

Stringer, Farnborough's top

expert on aerial cameras, and the two of detail. Stringer

on

said, "We'll get

was very

enthusiastic.

them talked out the

He was an

old

hand

at the

game, in fact he had been one of Moore-Brabazon's team of pioneers,

—"he

and he was a natural technician of the highest order

always knew where to

admirers put

camera using

it.

At

the

drill

end of the

film instead of plates

Harry Stringer had helped

to

the holes," as one of his

First

War, when an automatic

first

came

one into a

fit

into general use,

single-seat aircraft

an omen for the future which between the wars was forgotten completely, except by Stringer himself and a very few others. Shortly before Cotton's Stringer

first

visit

to

Farnborough, however,

had salvaged the remains of a crashed

been experimenting with camera

Spitfire,

installations, to see

and had

what could

be done. Before Cotton arrived on the scene the idea had received little

set to

encouragement, but

work with a

Longbottom was

now he

could really go ahead.

He

will,

and within a matter of days "Shorty"

flying a

duck-egg-green Spitfire back to Heston

from Farnborough.

Its

guns had been removed, and there was

a camera installed in each wing, in the

manner which Cotton

had found prevented them from freezing

at high altitudes.

The moment was approaching and Peck gave Cotton permission ments. So during the in

week

first

operational sortie,

make the necessary arrangeNovember 1939 he was over

to

of

France conferring with the R.A.F. chiefs in the British Ex-

peditionary Force. the

first

for the

He

strongly believed that the headquarters of

Heston Flight should remain

at Heston, largely

((23))

on

security

AIR SPY grounds; and he planned to send to France a completely mobile

which could be moved

unit

at a

moment's notice

tional base nearest to individual targets, thus

overcoming some of

For the time being,

the limitations of range.

to the opera-

until

photographic

could be organized, the films would be flown back to

trailers

England for processing.

The

airfield at Seclin,

starting point,

over,

had

near

was chosen

Lille,

and without delay

Spitfire

as a suitable

N-3071 was brought

accompanied by Longbottom and Niven. The detachment have some

to

sort of

title,

so

it

was named the Special Survey

Flight, but every possible precaution activities.

At

was taken

the airfield the Spitfire was kept in

to conceal its

own

its

private

hangar under lock and key; and Cotton insisted that the two pilots

should not mix with the R.A.F. units in France, so Niven

and Longbottom kept

to themselves in a local hotel.

The

pilots

of the squadrons at Seclin could catch a glimpse of the solitary

pale green Spitfire as

it

wonder and guess what

On November bottom took Aachen. The

off

landed and took it

was up

off,

but they could only

to.

moment came. At 1 p.m. Longbound for the German border and

18 the great

from

sortie

Seclin,

was unsuccessful

in the sense that

he did not

reach his targets; but he did take several runs of good photographs from thirty-three thousand feet over Eupen country just west of the frontier

itself. It

was a

time successful exposures had been

made

for the

first

altitude

under war conditions by cameras mounted in a

Hopes were

fast turning

into facts,

and the

historic occasion:

high

Spitfire.

and the dream of taking

photographs unseen and unchallenged in wartime was ((24))

at

now

a

FASTER AND HIGHER

The new photographic

reality.

on

its

intelligence

meteoric course.

Two

days later Longbottom photographed actual

ground, but then the weather closed of

had been launched

November

mid-December not a

till

because of fog and snow. During the

and the

first

week

of the

days and the two pilots

were flown from

Lille

new

last

sortie

could be

made

days of 1939, however,

were a few cloudless

year, there

made good

German

and from the third week

in,

use of them.

and from the Essey

Many

sorties

near Nancy;

airfield

Cologne and Dusseldorf were photographed, and large areas of the Siegfried Line were "covered" for the

first

time.

Cotton was constantly coming over from Heston, for there

was much

to discuss

and arrange. The

flights

were always planned

with meticulous care, but in certain ways the pilots had to discover

what planning was needed working

as they

in circumstances without precedent.

for instance, that condensation trails as they called

them

—

pilots

They soon found,

—

the long "white plumes,"

were going to be a very serious matter for

"invisible" photographic planes;

on the

went along, for they were

and the

effects of

many new

themselves raised

high altitude

problems. Cotton

hastened to ask for a medical officer to be attached to the Heston

Fhght

for, as

he put

it,

"What we

are doing today the fighters will

be doing tomorrow, the bombers the day after tomorrow, and civilian aircraft after the war."

As Longbottom and Niven ficulty

acute,

flew sortie after sortie, the dif-

of getting their photographs

and Cotton looked around

interpreted

for a

((25))

new

became very

solution. Obviously

AIR SPY

Walter Heath and his few helpers

at the

Air Ministry could

not be expected to cope with this influx, and Sidney turned to

who had worked

a friend of his

in the eariy twenties,

Major "Lemnos" Hemming, who was

in the aerial survey business

company an

Company. Cotton knew

that he

aerial photographs,

and

this

well provide an answer, or at least a partial one.

December 1939, Cotton explained together they agreed to experiment.

might

Early in

the situation to him, and

The whole

to be completely unofficial, for although his firm

had

elaborate Swiss machine for record-

ing precise measurements from

aware what

still

and was managing director of a firm

called the Aircraft Operating

acquired for his

with him in Newfoundland

thing

would have

Hemming had been

well

might contribute to British intelligence, and

had, in fact, already been in touch with the Air Ministry, nothing definite

had come of

On December set

7,

it.

1939, Cotton handed over to

of five-inch-square photographs,

information as to where, when, or "See

just said,

Hemming expert,

how much

how

took them at once to his

without vouchsafing any they had been taken, and

brilliant

photogrammetric

Michael Spender, brother of Stephen Spender the poet artist,

on them. Spender was thus brought inteUigence, as distinct to

a

information you can get out of them."

and Humphrey Spender the

was

Hemming

become one of

from pure

who was soon hard

at

work

into touch with photographic aerial survey.

the greatest influences

Before long he

on the development

of interpretation in the early part of the war. Aerial photographs

had

first

deeply interested him when, after leaving Oxford, he

—

took part in several expeditions as a geographer ((26))

first

in

Green-

FASTER AND HIGHER and then on a preliminary Everest survey. Later he learned

land,

how

to operate the

photogrammetric machines of the Swiss com-

pany named Wild (pronounced "Vilt"), and shortly before the

war he had joined Hemming's

On

staff.

the day after the photographs

had been handed

in the afternoon, a powerful-looking red car little

factory at

Wembley where

drew up outside the

the drawing offices and dark-

rooms of the Aircraft Operating Company were the chauffeur,

—

tall,

over, early

jumped out and opened

installed.

Kelson,

the door for Sidney Cotton

quick, wolflike, with horn-rimmed glasses and thick gray-

white hair. In the managing director's office he was greeted by a thickset

man

with a slightly piratical look; "Lemnos"

had blinded one eye

in

eye patch. Cotton produced a

more," he

said.

"How

Hemming

an airplane crash and always wore a black

are

you

roll of film. "I've

getting on?"

brought some

"Come and

see," said

Henmiing.

The small room where Spender was working was dominated by the huge Wild machine. like

the

was

Its

massive gray-green frame, shaped

an arch and higher than a man, supported the

main mechanism; and Michael Spender, sitting

on a high

stool in front of

it,

intricacies of

in his shirtsleeves,

gazing intently at som^e

transparencies through an apparatus that looked something like binoculars.

the

same

Through

the viewing mechanism,

which worked on

principle as a simple stereoscope, he could see every-

thing in three dimensions; pointer, he

was touching

and with the machine's

—

carefully, deliberately

infinitely fine

—

the points in

the image which he needed to record in order to

make

his

measurements. Meanwhile, on a paper-covered table alongside, ((27))

AIR SPY a pencil on a long arm, connected with the pointer, was recording the relative position of every point precisely to scale.

"How's

going?" asked

it

Hemming.

Spender looked up. "The

"which

scale's

isn't surprising, as I find

thirty-four

thousand

feet. It's

the photographs were taken

its

"The Wild

from

a fantastic height. But I'm getting

quite a lot out of them. I can plot as I can see

absurdly small," he said,

and measure anything

as long

outline."

gives nine times magnification," put in

Hemming.

"Don't worry about scale just now," said Cotton. "We've got to use the tools that are available.

The cameras

photographs were meant to be operated it

at eight

that took those

thousand feet. But

we have something better. New lenses and He looked at the penciled marks on the

won't be long before

new cameras

too."

paper-covered table. "I see you can measure some of the buildings all right,"

"and

he

there's

said,

and then

after a

moment's pause he added,

no reason why you shouldn't measure

"No," replied Spender,

"if I

ships."

could see their outlines

I

could

measure them." Ships!

That was what Cotton had been hoping for most of

all.

Something for the Naval Intelligence Division. As soon as he could put long-range tanks into one of the the

German

fleet at their

Spitfires, the ships

home bases could be

identified.

((28))

of

counted, measured,

II

Trial

IN o PROPHET

is

and Error

own

accepted in his

good, in an interservice context, even

country." This truth held

when

the prophet was a

consummate schemer and an inexhaustible worker Cotton.

It

for

From

facts.

certain Air Force

Cotton received heartfelt sympathy as he battled ahead

equipment and

facilities

and personnel; but on the whole

was from outside "the family"

that help

came: from the Admiralty, from the the

Sidney

held good even when, early in 1940, his prophecies

were being transmuted into hard officers

like

Army

it

and encouragement in France,

and from

French themselves.

Very

early

on Cotton had discovered

"free hand," the condition

the R.A.F.,

that the assurance of a

on which he had agreed

was not a magic formula

to

work within

that could ehminate the

creaking and grinding of a big administrative machine being forced into wartime expansion; nevertheless, he was so utterly

convinced of the importance of his work that he rebelled against the slightest delay.

He

always thought of every

demands were unceasing, but equipment ((29))

detail,

and

his

of every kind was, of

AIR SPY course, in very short supply. "It's worse than trying to extract

diamonds from the Crown Jewels," Cotton wrote

whose help he was

friend

tial

Results did come, however,

Cotton would have

as

liked,

to

an influen-

Never

as quickly

trying to enlist.

by

little

Uttle.

and not always

in the

way he wanted,

but they came. For instance, in the matter of the pressing need

cameras and

for redesigned

mander Victor Laws, then ish

lenses. In

January 1940 Wing

Com-

chief photographic officer with the Brit-

Expeditionary Force, was brought back from France to form a

new Air Ministry department,

especially to steer photographic re-

search and development, and to organize supplies.

Laws had been

thirty years, for in

1912

he had taken photographs from airships and man-carr>'ing

kites,

working with

aerial

and during the

First

cameras for nearly

War

he was one of Moore-Brabazon's fore-

most helpers. From 1940 onward throughout the war he was in a position to take a lead in pushing for better photographic quality

and

for

an adequate supply of equipment.

Cotton was always in and out of the Air Ministry for

visits

and meetings, and he followed them up with a non-stop barrage of letters (he in his car,

had three Dictaphones: one

and one

at

Heston).

commander were appointed sive,

and

to act as a buffer

There was no

ill

feeling,

A

in his

Lockheed, one

group captain and a wing

to deal with this typewritten offen-

between Cotton and the Air

but quite a

Staff.

lot of plain speaking,

one of their rephes, bearing the date February

5,

and

1940,

worthy of record.

Nobody has

yet questioned the excellent

your unit has carried out with ((30))

its

work which

very limited equipment.

is

TRIAL AND ERROR

One

mitted early in

was

that

it

Finally, I

to

be warranted by the work you were

man you

business

no corporation

that

cheque" on

is

are just as well aware

in a position to give a "blank

occasions!

all

would remind you

that

we

are

all

machine, which has gathered considerable

though

it

may is

faced with an

of us part of a

momentum

(al-

not have appeared to you to have done so)

since the outbreak of war;

exception,

you sub-

December was not immediately approved

As a

undertaking.

am

the establishment which

contained certain items which Air Vice-Marshal

Peck did not consider

as I

why

reason, however,

and every member of

how

very fully aware

enemy who

is

without

it,

valuable time

is

when

quite prepared to take advantage

of our delays.

This

last

may sound

that, considering the

like a platitude,

which

it

I

can assure you

somewhat unusual manner

Number 2 Camouflage Unit priority

but

^

was

which

in

brought into being, the

has received compares most favourably

with any other unit which

I

know

in the

R.A.F. Even today,

you know, you are receiving quite exceptional treatment

as

in regard to the supply both of personnel

and

also of mate-

rial.

At

the end of the letter there

"You need not bother It is

'God save the

ever,

was a

postscript as follows:

to send your answer to this

rest of the

Air

Cotton did send an answer

—

know

^I

Force.' " Needless to say,

—

^pages of

it,

—

by return

it.

how-

stress-

^ In November 1939, the Heston Flight's name was changed to "Number 2 Camouflage Unit," for security reasons; and in mid-January 1940 the name was again changed, to "the Photographic Development Unit."

((31))

SPY

.\IR

ing once

more

no uncertain terms

in

that the impossible ryiusi be

achieved: that during the months of procrastination more and

more Blenheims and

their

crews were being

He wound up

lost.

with the comment: Yes. the unfortunate birth of the Unit

do with the delays, but now that we have a kicking

to let

us feed

One

a lot

child,

properly.

it

most trusted and helpful friends

of Cotton's

was Air Marshal in

may have had

Sir

Arthur Barratt.

w::l:

'.•.::

in the

cm

R.A.F.

he had been

touch since the early days of the Heston Flight, and

Commander

beginning of 1940. "Vzly" Barratt's position as

made him

the British Air Forces in France

was

to Barratt that

second-in-command, a regular Air Force

on

in France,

routine.

run things wisely and

to

and would know how

With

found, but

it

fight to get

and eventually succeeded

officer

really

who

efficiently while

his

good

could be

he was over

to cope with all the sen-ice

Barratt's help, the perfect

was a

of

a povserful ally. It

Cotton turned for advice about one of

most urgent problems: he desperately needed a

relied

at the

man

for the job

was

him. Cotton persevered, hcveve:. arranging for Squadron Leader

in

Geoffrey Turtle. D.F.C.. to be posted to Heston. Barratt and Cotton had to operate the

discussions

many

new photographic

emerged a plan

units in France. carr\' spares

Each

Flight

for

long talks about the best

way

reconnaissance, and from these

expanding the system of mobile

would have a

Spitfire, a

Hudson

to

and servicing crew, and several vehicles including a

mobile wireless unit; and thus would be completely mobile and self-contained. This plan

^as put

to the .Air

((32))

Sta5 and accepted;

TRIAL AND ERROR

and

later,

when

the setup

began

to take actual shape,

Number 212 Squadron.

official status as

It

was

it

was given

also agreed that

Cotton should have an advanced headquarters near Barratt, who

was

Coulommiers

at

At Tlgeaux,

thirty-five miles east of Paris.

a quiet httJc village twelve minutes from Barratf s

headquarters, Cotton found just what he wanted: the Old Mill,

He

a good-sized but inconspicuous villa. to

be "independent," and protected

up notice boards rest

home

because

it

to

announce

that

it

it

privately so as

from the curious by putting

had been taken over

it

was

for convalescents. Tigeaux

was near Coulommiers;

rented

was

it

as a

his choice not only

also only a

few miles

from Meaux, the headquarters of the French Chief of Air

Staff.

During the early weeks of 1940, Sidney's splendid Hotchkiss saloon,

which

RAF-X,

lit

up

with a small Union Jack on

at night,

was often over

a "carte blanche" letter

interpretation,

also the

ar}'

Meaux; and soon he had

at

from the French Air Force.

main center

of

French photographic

and Cotton immediately got into touch with

Colonel Lespair, the

him

numberplate

from General Vuillemin, assuring him

of all possible co-operation

At Meaux was

its

officer in charge.

1940, he was at once very

much

On

his first visit, in

Janu-

impressed. Lespair showed

the beautiful dossiers full of photographs of the Siegfried

Line, annotated in white ink, and as Cotton glanced through

some

of the interpretations

he realized that there was

and noticed the

much

to learn

detail of the analyses,

from the French.

When

Lespair offered to give him any help he might need he jumped at the

chance, and within a few days a young pilot officer

named

Douglas Kendall had been sent out from Heston and was taking the

French interpretation course. Like many of Cotton's moves, ((33))

AIR SPY

arrangement meant more for the future than was obvious

this

at the time.

Douglas Kendall, who before the war had been in

aerial survey,

Company

working for a branch of the Aircraft Operating

in Africa, later

became one of the foremost

interpreters

of photographs in the whole war, and that early training at

Meaux may have had something

to

do with

it.

But Kendall's

natural ability for deductive reasoning and analysis, along with his

calm persistence and capacity for unending work, were the

things that really counted. Cotton

had backed yet another win-

ner.

soon proved that the French were also going to

It

the Haison at Meaux, for

showed

some

first

somewhat dismayed by the small

scale,

but they quickly realized to them. Small scale

in point of fact, a definite advantage in the very

any

area, for

viewed

it

means

that the

had never

the French interpreters were

was invaluable

that this "basic cover"

from

of the early Spitfire photographs

parts of the Siegfried Line they themselves

succeeded in covering. At

profit

whole

lie

first

is,

cover of

of the land can be re-

—

provided that later sorties can be flown to get larger

scale photographs for investigating detail

and

activity.

Lespair was genuinely keen to help Cotton along, and he had a very impressive chart case in London. since

war began

It till

made

in order to help

showed the following

him present

statistics for

his

the period

the middle of January 1940:

The R.A.F. had photographed 2,500 square miles of enemy territory with a loss of 40 aircraft. The French had photographed 6,000 square miles with a loss of

60

aircraft. ((34))

996971 TRIAL AND ERROR

The detachment from Heston had photographed 5,000 square miles without losing the one and only Spitfire that

had done the whole

On

job.

January 26, 1940, when Cotton produced

the Air Ministry, he expatiated

this chart at

on the theme: "The Messer-

schmitts haven't a chance against the Spitfire because of

and

altitude.

And

all

that

occasional condensation

on these

lines for

Air Council

the Photographic

speed

can be seen from the ground

trail

very high up."

He had been

it

helped to

at last

an

is

arguing

weeks, but the French chart certainly put

a nutshell, and perhaps later the

its

it

in

few days

tip the scale; for a

accepted the proposals to expand

Development Unit.

Although much of Cotton's time was spent nipping over to France

Lockheed,

in the

flying in

any

sort of weather, dressed

sometimes as a wing commander and sometimes as a there

was

also

London, not only

at the

Air Ministry. In the Naval Intelligence

Division Sidney Cotton was always a welcome visitor. not, of course,

and

policy,

civilian,

much of the utmost importance to be done in

He

did

have to battle with the Admiralty about equipment

and he found the naval

intelligence officers ardently

encouraging, and only too willing to help him in any

way

they

could.

The Admiralty had

to

depend

entirely

on the R.A.F.

for

photographic reconnaissance, for although control of the Fleet

Air

Arm

laid

down

So the

had been transferred that the

Navy should

tragic failure of the

to

them

in

1937,

it

had been

not operate land-based aircraft.

Blenheims was an extremely serious ((35))

AIR SPY

matter to the Naval

boy who could be In February

Staff,

relied

on

and Cotton became

their blue-eyed

to dehver the goods.

1940, the whole thing

came

The

a head.

to

Admiralty was clamoring for cover of Wilhelmshaven,

as they

were very anxious to know whether the Tirpitz was really out of graving dock, as reported by other intelligence sources. But the

Blenheims had failed to provide the answer. By

this

time the

Photographic Development Unit had a total of four

Spitfires,

and one of them had been

fitted

with an additional tank, giving

range enough to reach Wilhelmshaven.

February 10 was a cold, clear day, and o'clock "Shorty"

new

Longbottom climbed

just before eleven

into the cockpit of the

In the converted fighter, which was stripped of

Spitfire.

non-essentials,

and polished

to a nicety,

all

he could climb to nearly

twice as high as the Blenheims, and his top speed was

more than

one hundred miles an hour better than

after three

theirs.

o'clock he was back at Heston, safe but frozen

graphed both

Soon

having photo-

stiff,

Emden and Wilhelmshaven from more

than

five

miles up.

The

eagerly awaited

moment had now come

Wild machine for measuring

By

this

sorties

ships

on the

to try out the

Spitfire

time there was a regular arrangement that

photographs. all

the Heston

Wembley for interpretation, but the venture." As soon as the transparencies

should be sent to

work was

still

a "private

were ready Michael Spender was busy on them, and almost once he could report that the Tirpitz was after

all.

He

still

in graving

at

dock

could also discern important details concerning the

layout of the battleship.

Spender had always been fascinated by ((36))

ships.

Even

as a

boy

TRIAL AND ERROR he used to think of them in terms of structure related to form,

and

came

it

work

for

naturally to

Hemming began

him

to pursue this interest

him

to involve

when

in Intelligence.

his

But the

value of >lichael Spender's early research in shipping interpretation

—

would not have been

right

as great as

from the beginning

it

—with an

was had

it

not been shared Admiralty's

officer of the

Naval Intelligence Division, Lieutenant Commander "Ned" Denning,

who

could bring to the work the approach of the trained

intelligence officer, as well as a speciafized ships.

He was

often at

began to discover,

little

knowledge of enemy

Wembley and he and Spender by

little,

together

what a vast amount of informa-

tion about ships can be derived

from

aerial photographs.

But the detailed interpretation of the ships themselves was not the

main undertaking on the photographs

Longbottom

that

brought back on February 10. The sort of work for which the

Wild machine was primarily designed was the making of maps and plans, and within forty-eight hours Spender had produced superb plans of the port of Emden, and of the naval base at

Wilhelmshaven, with

the ships delineated to scale.

all

When Admiral Godfrey show them

at

received these plans he decided to

once to the Chief of Naval

Staff,

and presently

they were being shown to the First Lord himself. Mr. Churchill

was very much

interested,

and was surprised

been necessary to do the work

to learn that

"unofficially."

it

had

His comments

started off a rapid chain of events.

Cotton was immediately summoned to the Admiralty and told that the Chief of

Naval

Staff

Dudley Pound explained tion

depended

entirely

wanted

to see

him

personally. Sir

that certain plans for an urgent opera-

on knowing where various ((37))

units of the

AER SPY

German

He

N'a\y were stationed.

the ships might be,

pointed out the places where

and asked Cotton

if it

was possible

to photo-

graph them. "Yes.

could easily cover

Pound was the

all

Spitfire

with extra range

those points in one flight."

and said he wanted Cotton to attend

delighted,

War Room

"The

Cotton.

replied

six/'

meeting that evening, as he planned to take up

the whole question with the Air Staff.

•*Do you really think

and take over

I

my

unit,

moving

my

me

to

be present?" asked Cot-

being there, they could post

and then you'd be

would be a

I started. It

to be

wise for

Air Staff resent

ton. "If the

seem

it

pit\'

at last.

me

as badly off as before

to antagonize

them when things

The Air Council has

just

agreed that

should have eight more Spitfires." "I*U discuss

who

asked

it

me

with the First Lord," said Pound.

"It

was he

to see you."

Later Cotton was told that he was definitely wanted at the meeting, and at nine-thirty sharp he arrived at the Admiralty

War Room, where later,

he was welcomed by Pound.

A

few minutes

however. Air Vice-Marshal Peirse entered the room.

was naturally amazed

Pound

he was doing.

to see

sent for Cotton in a hurr\-. the Air Staff

if

Cotton

inter\'ened.

there,

He

and asked him what

and explained that they had

and there had been no time

he might attend. "W"e hope he

may

to ask

be able to

help on a matter we're going to discuss this evening." Pound, as Chief of

Naval

Staff,

took the high-backed chair

on

at the

head

of the table,

and he signaled

in the place

which was normally reserved for the senior R.A.F.

ofiBcer present.

to

Cotton

to

sit

his right

hand,

Cotton obediently took the place of honor, but he ((38))

TRIAL AND ERROR

remembers

vividly that he hardly dared to look in Peirse's direc-

tion.

For two hours the sore question of the Admiralty's need

for

photographs of the German Fleet was discussed from every angle, with gradually increasing

new Wild

copies of the

warmth. Cotton had brought

plans with him. and they were duly

produced and handed round. Everyone agreed they were mag-

and Peirse himself asked how such good

nificent,

results

were

obtained.

"With a special photogrammetric machine," replied Cotton.

"Why

wasn't

requisitioned

At

last,

it

I told

about

it?"

asked Peirse. '1 would have

at once."

when

was nearly midnight, and tempers were be-

it

coming frayed. Pound

said he

was not prepared

to accept

further delays, and, looking straight at Peirse, he said, "So

we ask

Cotton's unit to get the information

Peirse agreed,

and Pound then turned

"You have heard what we've been

we need?"

any

may

Reluctantly

to Cotton.

discussing.

Can you

get

the information?"

"Yes,

sir,"

Peirse

replied Cotton, "quite easily."

jumped

to his feet. "I'm not going to accept that just

because Cotton says so."

"The proof of

"May we

is

in the eating, sir," said Cotton.

not try?"

"That sounds

At nine

the pudding

fair

enough," commented Pound.

o'clock the next morning, Cotton was with Peirse at

the Air Ministry. "I

want to know

all

about the photogrammetric equipment you ((39))

AIR SPY

mentioned

last night,"

said Peirse.

"What

is

and where

it,

is

it?"

"The equipment belongs replied Cotton. "It

is

to the Aircraft Operating

Company,"

Hemming

the equipment which

has been

trying to persuade the Air Ministry to take over ever since the

make

beginning of the war. I've had to

use of

it

privately so as

to give the Admiralty the interpretations they need."

"Why

didn't

"Because the

and

you

tell

final

me

that last night?"

minute rejecting Hemming's equipment once

was signed by three senior Air

for all

Stajff officers

including

yourself, sir."

Peirse agreed then and there to requisition the

and

also agreed that the Aircraft Operating

Wild machine,

Company

should be

formally amalgamated with the Air Ministry's interpretation section.

The Admiralty was the

War Room

taking no chances, however. Shortly after

meeting Mr. Churchill wrote to the Secretary

of State for Air, Sir Kingsley lent

Wood, on

photogrammetric work which had

He made

his views

on the subject very

Major Hemming's

the subject of the exceljust

been shown to him.

clear:

organization, including the expert per-

sonnel, should be taken over by one of the Service depart-

ments without delay istry

to

do not wish

do

After

to take

it

If for

over,

any reason the Air Min-

we should be

quite prepared

so.

this the

Hemming would

...

wheels began to turn slowly, and

six

finally received a letter to say that the

like to negotiate a contract. ((40))

weeks

later

Air Ministry

TRIAL AND ERROR In the early months of 1940, the factory at

Wembley and

the

Air Ministry's tiny section under Walter Heath were not the only places in England where the art of photographic interpretation

was being practiced. At Bomber Command's new under-

ground headquarters near High graphic intelligence section fine little array of

map

—

Wycombe

was a photo-

there

well organized

and

racks, interpreters' desks,

neat, with a

and frames for

viewing transparencies. Air Chief Marshal Sir Edgar LudlowHewitt, then Commander-in-Chief, had decided in 1938 to de-

velop first

this

branch of intelligence

hand what

aerial

at his headquarters.

when he was commanding

and 1937. There assistant. Flight

come and organize The plan was

potentiali-

1935

his personal

when he

Lieutenant Peter Riddell, and

Command

its

the R.A.F. in India between

had been shared by

his interest

up the new Bomber

at

photography had achieved in the First

War, and more recently he had been impressed by ties

He knew

started

section he arranged for Riddell to

it.

that the photographs obtained

by Bomber Com-

mand's reconnaissance Blenheims should be sent on to the headquarters after the station intelligence officers had taken a quick

look at them; and the function of the headquarters section was to supply certain target material, in detail.

and

to report

But the trouble was, of course,

not obtain

more than a few

on bomb damage

that the

Blenheims could

of the covers that were needed.

of the early photographs of targets in northwest

Some

Germany bear

witness to the fearlessness and perseverance of the Blenheim pilots;

but

Bomber Command,

like the

Admiralty, was constantly

being frustrated by lack of photographs, while crew after crew

was

lost

and the cameras froze up with ((41))

fiendish regularity. Cot-

AIR SPY

knew all about this; and he also knew the paramount importance Bomber Command attached to the plan for the bombing ton

of the Ruhr.

Toward

the end of February

additional tank it

and Bob Niven took thousand

feet

at last

off

right over,

all

and turned

for a run

back

cameras and

109 anywhere.

back to the Rhine,

run so as to cover the whole of the

kept his cameras on right up to the

fighters

and woods of Luxem-

put in an appearance at felt as if

last,

three of

he'd been given a

as the Spitfire leaped forward.

back the Messerschmitts were out of

German

round the edge of Holland

hills

them. Niven opened right up, and he in the

right,

Dortmund. He

Me

round: not an

and Belgium and so home. Over the

blow

his

valley as far as

frontier; then turned south for the trek

bourg the German

solid cloud kept

on March 2 the weather was

Ruhr

flying parallel to his previous

He

day of

from Heston bound for the Ruhr. At

looked back, and down, and

industrial area.

after

above Duisburg he started

flew eastward above the

He banked

940, a Spitfire with yet another

was ready, but day

on the ground. Then

thirty

1

When

he looked

sight.

Niven's photographs were exactly what Cotton had hoped for,

and he had already made

his plans

how

to use them. This

an occasion when a "mosaic" could best serve cause

when

interpreters

could be displayed with dramatic his great

his purpose, be-

the overlapping prints were pieced together

and rephotographed, the

full

effect.

was

by the

extent of the cover

When

Sidney unrolled

mosaic of the Ruhr before Ludlow-Hewitt, and stood

back triumphantly, the Commander-in-Chiefs long face seemed to

grow longer than

delight.

ever,

and by

silence he

showed

Cotton then hastened to explain what ((42))

his

diflSculties

amazed he was

TRIAL AND ERROR having about equipment, and Ludlow-Hewitt gladly assured him

much made a proposal Air to the Ministry further, for he immediately that Bomber Command should take over the Photographic Develwould do

that he

opment

Unit.

The main

all

he could to help. In actual fact he went

But the proposal was turned down.

issue

was one of

come

graphic intelligence should

and the Air and

if

Staff in

reins.

So the

for photo-

Every day the Admiralty

first?

France were competing for Cotton's

Bomber Command were

have to take a back

Whose needs

priorities.

in charge,

seat. Better for the

everyone

services,

else

Air Ministry to keep the

existing pattern continued for the time being,

the pattern itself

would

though

was one of constant change. At Bomber Com-

mand, however, the idea of

own independent

its

photographic

reconnaissance unit was not abandoned, and eight months later the

Command

did for a time possess

graphic Spitfires

Four days

—but

that

after Niven's

is

its

own

high-flying photo-

a story that comes

Ruhr

sortie,

later.

he and Longbottom were

awarded D.F.C.s, and there was much rejoicing within the Photographic Development Unit. But Cotton was horrified when

he found that The Aeroplane and Flighty in announcing the awards, had quoted the following

Both of the

officers

statement:

have been pioneers in a new method

of aerial photography,

graphs of

official

many enemy

and have taken overlapping photodefences.

A letter protesting about this "most undesirable publicity" went off at

once to Peck; but within the unit Cotton had no cause to

complain of any lack of discretion. At about ferred

upon

certain of his

team a

this

time he con-

secret badge, bearing the cryp-

((43))

AIR SPY

symbols "C.C.I 1." Only the initiated knew that "C.C." stood

tic

for "Cotton's Crooks," a

nickname which originated because the

Heston equipment

was very good

out

officer

gomg through

"eleventh"

official

commandment: "Thou

The handpicked team Geoffrey Tuttle was at

number

First

arrival

War, who

He had

shalt not

be found out."

Heston had been growing gradually.

at

the only R.A.F. regular officer, but a

first

men had been roped

of very useful

An early

at acquiring things with-

channels, while "11" referred to the

in

1939 had been

in

flying for a

airline.

hurried back to England and was soon a squadron leader

arrived safely from

America

appeared somewhat shyly

When

officer.

pilot officer in

Cotton saw him he

my

charge of

told,

Paul Lamboit,

in response to Cotton's cable,

Heston

at

in the

uniform of a

said, "I can't possibly

pilot

have a

photo section. You'd better get some

more braid and put up squadron he was

civil life.

pilot of the

Peruvian

at Heston, acting as Cotton's personal assistant.

who

from

was Hugh Macphail, an adventurous

leader's rings."

Lamboit did

and the necessary formalities were completed

as

at the

Air Ministry "in due course."

Most

of Cotton's

new

pilots

R.A.F. squadrons in France, to

were young

officers

from various

who had come forward

in response

an appeal for volunteers with navigational experience

something very

fast,"

and several of

these,

to "fly

such as Ahstair

Taylor, Spencer Ring, and "Bill" Wise, were soon to

become

out-

standing in photographic reconnaissance. Rather in a class by himself, however,

man who had Force

at the

was Flying

Officer Slocum, a carefree

formerly been an airline

pilot.

He

joined the Air

beginning of the war, and was stationed

base, but he enjoyed flying for Cotton, ((44))

young

at a Scottish

and without asking any-

TRIAL AND ERROR one's permission he used to slip

graphic his

flight

By

officer got tired of this,

and Slocum was

offi-

posted to the Photographic Development Unit. early 1940, Cotton

as well as the Spitfires,

go

do a photo-

to Heston,

or two, and then return to his squadron. Eventually

commanding

cially

down

off in

moment

one of to

had several Hudsons and

in cloudy weather

these, briefed to

photograph

fitted

with cameras

Slocum used

break cloud precisely

and

his target,

in this

to

at the right

way he

got

some

very valuable results. Early in March, however, he met a tragic end, for his

man

Hudson was mistaken by

plane and shot

down

British fighters for a Ger-

over Kent.

Cotton was not content with convincing the Air Force, the Admiralty, and the French, of the necessity for the graphic inteUigence. it

just as badly.

At

It

was obvious

to

him

this stage the British

that the

new photo-

Army needed

Army's photographic

reconnaissance was in a plight somewhat similar to the Air Force's.

The army co-operation squadrons, equipped with Blen-

heims and Lysanders, were suffering

terrible

and the

losses,

photographs which did come back were normally interpreted by intelligence officers. In the specialists

as in the R.A.F., the

had not been foreseen, and

there were at

Tom

Army,

first

in the

need for

whole of the B.E.F.,

only two photographic interpreters: Major

Churchill and Lieutenant Gerald Lacoste,

who were

at-

tached to General Gort's headquarters at Arras. Their main work

was preparing annotated maps of the Siegfried Line defenses. Into this

Army

stronghold, one day early in 1940,

came Air

Marshal Barratt, accompanied by Sidney Cotton with an enor-

mous album under

his arm. In

General Gort's

((45))

office,

Cotton

— AIR SPY

turned the pages and showed off enlargements from his sorties,

He

five best

complete with beautifully annotated transparent overlays.

pointed to a stretch of river on one of the photographs. "The

defenses are very heavy on this bit of the Rhine, as you see," he

was

said, "but the Spitfire

The

it

above

anti-aircraft range."

idea of Cotton's special brand of photographic recon-

new one

naissance was a to

far

to the

was not slow. Already the

Belgium was a very

spite of its small scale,

the

threat of a

German

Army's response invasion of

and the maps of Belgium were

real one,

hopelessly out of date. This

Army, but

new

high-altitude photography, in

would be invaluable

for correcting them.

So the idea of photographing Belgium was suggested, and Barratt

turned a blind eye on

In mid-March 1940, operating from Lille,

its

lack of official Air Staff sponsorship.

when a

Flight of

its official

targets

Germany, but on a great many of the "dogged by compass trouble," and tunes"

it

212 Squadron

started

were supposed to be in flights the pilots

were

as a result of these "misfor-

was not long before the whole of Belgium had been

photographed. Eventually,

when

the Air Staff got to hear about the

of sorties, as the cover of

reprimanded for spirits

he

this

Belgium was

to

win

series

Cotton was severely

breach of neutrality. But with undaunted

later maintained,

war we had

called,

"X"

—not

"What we were mixed up

in

was a

a parlor game." Thus, in a typically

unorthodox manner, he helped to

set the pattern for the future.

For one of the lessons of the Second World War was

to

be that

photographic intelligence must be able to serve more than one master

—more

than one

indeed more than one

command

ally.

((46))

—more

than one service

TRIAL AND ERROR

While the

flying

went ahead from

and soon

Lille,

also

from

the airfield at Essey near Nancy, a longer-range Spitfire was being

prepared at Famborough, and by April 7, 1940,

At

was

the Admiralty's special request, Kiel

tive.

it

to be

was ready.

its first

But even with the extra tank there was not enough

get to Kiel

Norfolk

objecfuel to

and back from Heston, so Longbottom refueled

at a

Four hours

later

airfield,

and then took

off for the Baltic.

Cotton and Tuttle sighed with

overhead, and "Shorty" came taxiing

with hardly a drop of fuel

left.

they heard the Spitfire

relief as in,

numb and

frozen,

and

There had been some trouble with

cameras, but he had succeeded in photographing Kiel.

At Wembley

that night Spender

and Denning measured and

analyzed and discussed. Kiel harbor was

crammed

with shipping. At the nearby Holtenau

airfield, too,

swarms of Ju 52s. But fore,

who

thing

as Kiel

actually,

of

there were

had never been photographed be-

could say that this was not

was

to overflowing

course,

its

normal

state?

exceptionally

The whole

abnormal,

for

Denmark and Nor-

April 7 was two days before the invasion of

way. But Spender and Denning could do no more than report the invasion fleets as though they were an everyday sight. That is

what

it

means

to have to interpret activity

from a

single photo-

graphic cover.

During the months that followed that Michael Spender made perhaps

first

cover of Kiel,

his greatest contribution to the

technique of photographic interpretation, by establishing the principle of

often been it

comparing consecutive covers. Photographs had

compared with

earlier

photographs before

this,

but

needed someone of Spender's caliber to put across the idea that

aerial

photography can yield information in time as well as in ((47))

AIR SPY space. Largely thanks to Spender,

soon became accepted as

it

axiomatic that the value of evidence from a sequence of covers far transcends the evidence of a single sortie.

The new developments

of photographic intelligence, and every-

one concerned with them, were to be put severely to the before the spring of 1940 was out.

Germans swept forward

while the

Cotton hurried from he wrote I

On

the morning of

into the

Low

office to office at the

May

test

10,

Countries, Sidney

Air Ministry. Later

in his diary:

think

we

must have

all

As

see eye to eye now.

war has

the

want our material more than

started, they will

the equipment

That evening he flew over

really

ever, so

we

we have requested and more. The

to France.

airfields at Lille

and Nancy were already being bombed, so both FHghts of 212 Squadron had evacuated

to

Meaux and Coulommiers,

and arrangements for processing the

to plan,

graphic trailers were brought rapidly into things at

up

further,

Meaux,

according

films in photo-

effect.

And

to speed

Kendall came to Tigeaux from the French unit

so as to

make immediate

The tempo

of the

more than

a few hours old

interpretations

war had accelerated so much would be

on the

spot.

that information

useless.

and also the obsolescent

Barratt's photographic Blenheims,

reconnaissance aircraft of the French Air Force, were doing their best in spite of shocking losses, but in the

France's most illustrious authors, pilot at the time, "It

a forest

fire

in the

was

as

if

who was

you dashed

hope of putting ((48))

it

words of one of

also a reconnaissance glassfuls of

water into

out." Antoine de Saint-

TRIAL AND ERROR

Exupery was himself

flying photographic sorties over the areas

Germans had

that the

and

seized,

Arras, he

later, in Flight to

wrote: Fifty reconnaissance crews

was

all

we had

French army. Fifty crews of three men each,

and gunner. Out of the

—Group 2-33.

twenty-three

.

.

strategy of the

immense

observer unit

In three weeks, seventeen of the twenty-

Fifty crews for the

.

pilot,

whole

made up our

had vanished. Our Group had melted

three

wax

fifty,

for the

like a

lump

An

French army rested upon our shoulders.

forest fire raging,

of

whole of France. The whole

and a hope that

it

might be put

out by the sacrifice of a few glassfuls of water.

No wonder

that as soon as the

German onrush

began, Barratt

turned urgently to Cotton. During the "phony war," the

latter's

methods had succeeded where the orthodox photographic reconnaissance had failed. Perhaps even

with his few

done

—

and

Spitfires.

at once.

now he

could work a miracle

Anything that could be done had

to

be

Every possible scrap of information on the

enemy advance was needed. Early on dire

May

15, 1940, Barratt's intelligence staff were in

need of information about the Dinant area, and

o'clock Flight Lieutenant Pippet,

who

at eleven

acted as liaison ofiicer

between Tigeaux and the headquarters, waited anxiously

Meaux

airfield for the return of

one of the

Spitfires.

at the

Almost

as

soon as the films were out of the airplane, he was tearing back to

Tigeaux with them. The two photographic

trailers

were parked

alongside a chateau not far from the Old Mill, and a sergeant

named Walton, who was

in charge, ((49))

was waiting outside with

AIR SPY

They

Kendall.

men

all

hurried inside into the blackness, and Walton's

work on processing

got to

the films.

Above

the door a single

red light gave a faint glow. " *Ugly' just doesn't

Pippet, there's

no time So

for prints.

have to do

I'll

use a stereoscope.

I can't

but there's no time for anything

and

he's asking," said

him; then

I'll

interpret

what

my

I

talked with Walton,

on the drum and stop when

can, and

go and phone headquarters. Okay? But

While the German armor began

best with the wet

mad, absolutely mad,

It's

else. I've

he's going to turn the film slowly

I tell

Kendall to

he must have the answers in a matter of seconds

"if

negatives.

know what

it's

its

you

jot

it

down and

mad, absolutely mad."

main westward advance

from the Sedan bridgehead, Kendall's magnifier was focused on the breakthrough forty miles to the north, as he struggled to

on the photographs, which had been taken

discern the detail

from about

thirty

thousand

stroyed," Pippet scribbled. siderable

feet.

^'Bridge

"Mechanized

at

trafiic

Dinant not decrossing.

numbers of mechanized vehicles moving up

along Dinant-Spontin road throughout

its

length,

Con-

to bridge

i.e.,

3 kilo-

meters." "I'd better

with the next

An

hour

phone lot

and

away," he

this right

Til

later Pippet

said.

"You go ahead

be back."

was

at the telephone for the

second time.

Anhee not destroyed. Mechanized traffic moving up Pumod-Yvoir road. Railway bridges across main roads in this "Bridge

at

district destroyed.

Large bodies of mechanized

across countr>^ leaving tracks.

.

traffic

have moved

." .

A httle later he was on the phone to Barratt's headquarters for a third time, reading out Kendall's ((50))

final interpretation to Pilot

TRIAL AND ERROR

"Heavy bombing northeast of Mezieres.

Officer Ian Parsons:

Aerodrome

hit

Five years

by numerous bombs, but

on photographic

his regular lecture Staff College,

still

usable."

when Wing Commander Kendall used

later,

intelligence at the

to give

R.A.F.

he always laid emphasis on the dangers as well as

the great advantages of this form of intelUgence. "Photographic

evidence

is

positive

and undeniable," he would point out

quiet convincing way, "and

it

—

in his

therefore enables positive counter-

demands

action to be taken

in fact

when you can only

see part of the

it;

but

whole

dangerous

this is

picture, because

it

almost inevitably causes the wrong emphasis in counter-measures. If

a directing headquarters sees a photograph of a bridge that

needs blowing up, the natural tendency to attack

it,

is

to lay

without in fact knowing whether

it is

on operations

the right target

in relation to the over-all battle, simply because sufficient over-all

information

is

not available. The answer, of course,

enough reconnaissance

aircraft

and

interpreters,

is

to have

and a properly

geared organization to provide a total picture."

But on the evening of

May

15, 1940, as Pilot Officer Kendall,

white and exhausted, steadied his nerves with a double brandy, all

he could say once again to Pippet was,

"It's

mad

—

absolutely

mad!"

The next day an order came through from London

that

212

Squadron was to be evacuated. Cotton immediately appealed to Barratt,

and

it

was agreed

that part of the unit should return to

Heston, but that a nucleus should remain. Since the mobile, they could be

moved home

out causing trouble. ((51))

at the very last

flights

were

minute with-

AIR SPY

By

time the

this

bombed, and to

Meaux

at

east of Paris

airfields

midday on

how

to find out

May

were being heavily his

way

things were going with Lespair

and

Cotton was on

17, as

the French interpreters, he passed close to the

which was

in process

So he told

fighters.

trees near a

for a

little

bombed and

of being

Meaux

airfield,

by

also strafed

his chauffeur. Kelson, to drive in

under the

deep ditch. The two of them stood beside the car

and then Cotton

while,

said, "If the planes

head

in

our direction, you must jump into the ditch as quick as you can." "Will you get into the ditch also, sir?"

"Yes, Kelson, I certainly will."

The

perfect chauffeur hesitated for only a second

asked, "Shall

When

I

place the rug in the ditch, sir?"

Barratt's headquarters

withdrew to Orleans, a Flight of

212 Squadron moved with him, and operated from a nearby already hard at

much

and then

airfield.

for a final

But Cotton's

few days

Spitfires

it

were

work taking photographs from French bases

further afield. Immediately the

German

invasion began.

Cotton had asked Barratt for permission to arrange with the

French

to operate

tain that Italy

from bases on the Riviera. For

would come

into the

war

at

it

seemed

cer-

any moment, and

it

was therefore very important to photograph the Brenner Pass

and various other important half of

May 1940

and the

objectives. first

several other pilots flew sorties also

from a Corsican

airfield.

So throughout the second

half of June

Longbottom and

from Le Luc and Hyeres, and

And

while Cotton was constantly

back and forth between the South of France and Barratt's headquarters, Geoffrey Tuttle kept things going at Heston, organizing ((52))

TRIAL AND ERROR the flying

program

in

an attempt to meet the pressing demands

and Bomber Command. All

of the Air Staff, the Admiralty,

three needed frequent covers of targets in France, Belgium, and

Holland

—

all

on the highest

priority

—and equipment was

piti-

fully short.

Meantime a dreadful

faced General Gort's photographic

crisis

when

intelligence officers at Arras, for

moment came

the

to

evacuate, their whole print library had to be destroyed at a

few hours' notice. Gerald Lacoste

make a

tried frantically to

bonfire of the stacks of shiny prints, but they all stuck together

and would not burn. He threw paraffin over them but

only

up and blackened the edges of the photographs and then

flared

went

it

out.

He was poking

desperately

tion officer. Captain Walter

got to

move

"But we

—

when another

interpreta-

Venour, came hurrying up. "We've

minute!"

this

can't," said Lacoste,

"We'll just have to bring

it

poking some more. with us," replied Venour, and

between them they shoveled the smoldering mountain into the back of an old army

car.

At

their next stop the

photographs were

shoveled out and Lacoste tried to light his bonfire again; but only after

two more moves had he got

rid of the last of

Cotton managed to keep up the photographic

French bases Paris

on June

till

the very end; but after the

14, 1940, the final

could not be postponed

La Rochelle via the

longer. It

that the last of

Channel

Walton were

much

Islands,

there,

move back

to

from

England obviously

left

16. Kendall

and Belcher, the equipment ((53))

sorties

Germans entered

was from an

212 Squadron

on June

it.

airfield

near

for England,

and Pippet and officer,

and

also

AIR SPY Kelson. Sidney Cotton himself was one of the last to leave. But as

G-AFTL

he flew the Lockheed

Channel for the

—

her dog

last time,

they had been

what he was going

back across the English

accompanied by an EngHsh

left

stranded in Nantes

to find awaiting

((54))

him

—he

at Heston.

girl

little

and

knew

Ill

The Invasion Threat

Jc$RiTAiN had faced the threat of invasion before

time during the past thousand years British eyes fleet.

—

^but

—time

after

never before 1940 had

been able to watch the assembly of an

entire invasion

Photographic intelligence was the new factor that made

possible.

At

Channel

assault,

the time

when

the

enemy was preparing

this

for the cross-

most of the normal methods of obtaining

infor-

mation were unworkable; and the photographs were recognized, both by the

and only

Thus the

War

Cabinet and by the Chiefs of

Staff, as

the one

reliable intelligence source.

the

summer

of

new photographic

1940 was the intelligence. It

first

great proving time for

was

also a time of rapid

expansion and change both at Heston and Wembley; for the of France brought

home

fall

to everyone concerned the desperate

necessity for reconnaissance.

On

Dunkirk, while ^Sidney Cotton was

June 10, still

just

a week after

working on untiringly in

France, the whole question of the status of the Photographic

Development Unit was raised

at a high-level interservice ((55))

meeting

Am in

SPY

London. The meeting went on for hours;

to find a

among

way

its

it

seemed impossible

of sharing out the fruits of the unit's tiny resources

hungry customers.

With the likeUhood of German invasion looming ahead, the Admiralty demanded that

all

its

effort

watching enemy ports; but Bomber this, as

should be devoted to

Command would

not accept

they considered the bombing program an integral part

of anti-invasion measures, and had urgent need of sorties for

damage

The suggestion

assessment.

that

Bomber Command

should control the photographic unit was raised afresh but not accepted:

driven to setting up

Air

Staff

Bomber, the Admiralty might be

the unit went to

if

own

its

organization. Within a few days the

found a solution. Coastal

Command was

already in

charge of the Air Force's visual reconnaissance of enemy shipping;

its ties

with the Admiralty were close; and the

Marshal

in-Chief, Air Chief

Commander-

Sir Frederick Bowhill,

interested in nautical matters.

What

was much

could be more appropriate

than to give the photographic unit to Coastal, when

was

responsibility

to be a

the whole scope of

to

be expanded; forward bases

in northern Scotland

as to bring a vast stretch of

moment had

evidently

prime

watch on the invasion ports? Besides,

work was

its

were to be started up

its

come

enemy

and

in Cornwall, so

coastline within range.

to establish the unit

The

on a regular

Air Force footing.

So when Sidney Cotton arrived back

was handed a Arthur

letter

Street, the

and read

at

Heston on June 17, he

from the Air Ministry.

It

was signed by

Permanent Undersecretary of State

as follows: ((56))

Sir

for Air,

THE INVASION THREAT Sir,

am commanded by

I

the Air Council to inform you that

they have recently had under review the question of the future status and organisation of the Photographic Develop-

ment Unit and

that, after careful consideration, they

reached the conclusion that so

much

this Unit,

now be

to foster, should

have

which you have done

regarded as having passed

beyond the stage of experiment and should take

its

place as

part of the ordinary organisation of the Royal Air Force. It

has accordingly been decided that

it

should be consti-

tuted as a unit of the Royal Air Force under the orders of

Command, and should be commanded by a regular serving officer. Wing Commander G. W. Tuttle, D.F.C., has been appointed.

the Commander-in-Chief, Coastal

I

am

add

to

that the Council wish to record

how much

they are indebted to you for the work you have done and for the great gifts of imagination

you have brought

to bear

and inventive thought which

on the development of the

tech-

nique of photography in the Royal Air Force.

It

must have been a

bitter

moment. But

in fact

Cotton had

already achieved the thing he had set his heart on. With the help of his devoted glib tongue,

had

—

little

and

team, and by his

own burning

conviction, his

his sheer brash determination to get results,

within the space of only nine months

—

he

laid the founda-

tions for the triumphantly successful photographic reconnaissance

of the later years of the war. In his natural role of catalyst he

"accelerated the reactions"

of everyone ((57))

with

whom

had

he had

AIR SPY dealings; at a time

necessary.

Heston

at

And

when

accelerated reactions were extremely

although the

was, in effect,

he received when he landed

letter

an abrupt notice to

put on record that in the 1941

quit,

it

should be

New Year's Honors List Frederick

Sidney Cotton was granted the award of Ofl&cer of the British

Empire. The R.A.F.

official history of

n sums up the

World War

matter thus:

Thanks

whom

to the brilliant

S.

Cotton, there

and

efficient

now

economical

high-altitude Spitfires, tion,

of a few individuals,

among

due credit must be given to the adventurous and un-

orthodox F. sive,

work

existed a air

means

of exten-

The

reconnaissance.

no longer merely a promising innova-

had already become one of our most important

weapons. The time was therefore ripe to bring them into line with

Even

normal Royal Air Force organization.

was

after Cotton's departure there

the feel of ad-

still

venture and pioneering at Heston, and also of ever-increasing urgency, as the threat of invasion approached. tial

that Geoffrey Tuttle

was there

to take over.

months under Cotton he had been very but

when

the time

came

for

him

was providen-

It

During

definitely a

his four

second

to step into the lead

string,

he did so

with marked success. There might easily have been a disastrous

drop in morale

after

standards by his the

good sense

own

Cotton

left,

but Tuttle

set the

pace and the

inexhaustible energy and keenness.

to accept the flying-club atmosphere,

try to "regularize" the unit all at once. to overlook a pilot's blue

suede shoes

photographs. ((58))

He was if

He had

and not

to

quite prepared

he was getting good

THE INVASION THREAT Things did gradually become more orthodox, however, and the

new name which was conferred on

longer disguised

its

the unit was one which no

true function. In July 1940,

it

was renamed

the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit, or P.R.U., as

usually called.

any

But Tuttle never contemplated

rigid orthodoxy.

unit of

It

most

its

inherited

was

from

To

his

mind

essential virtue:

that

trying to impose

would have deprived the

the spirit of initiative

became the center

took over that a new intelligence room

of things at Heston; the pilots

be briefed and to plot their courses, and after the

as the

news

came flight

Meantime,

to the intelligence officers.

there to

returned as soon

photographs were printed they were taken over by a team

W.A.A.F.

of

had

it

originators.

its

after Tuttle

to tell their

was

it

areas that

"plotters,"

whose job

was

it

had been covered. Working

the intelligence room, they inked onto

of overlapping rectangles

—

to identify the precise

at large trestle tables in

map

sheets a

whole

each representing an exposure^

series

—

that

looked like a pack of cards pushed over sideways. These "plots" greatly speeded

up the

the area covered

The

interpretation, for they

by each print of the

plotters at

showed

sortie.

Heston were some of the very

to be brought into photographic intelligence,

quite a fight to get them.

vinced that

first

and

was

jects in

of a

W.A.A.F.s

it

had been

But both Cotton and Tuttle were con-

women would be good

at the

work. Cotton once

put his views on the matter in a nutshell as follows: ing

at a glance

"My

reason-

that looking through magnifying glasses at minute ob-

a photograph required the patience of Job and the

good darner of socks." ((59))

skill

AIR SPY In July 1940, the P.R.U. pilots were busy photographing the

Dutch

ports and the

Channel

coast; but at that time there

were

not yet any sinister congregations of shipping to suggest that invasion was imminent.

The

potential danger area

had

to

be

watched constantly, however, whatever the weather. This meant that

when normal

owing to cloud, Tuttle had sorties.

The

photography was impossible

high-altitude

to send his pilots out

idea of photographing

specific targets

on low-level from below

cloud had already been tried out in the days of Sidney Cotton

and "Slogger" Slocum, and "dicing"

this

method was already known

—someone had once made

a joke about "dicing with

death." This special kind of photographic reconnaissance,

though limited is is

in

its

of unique value

as

al-

uses because large areas cannot be covered,

when information on

a target such as shipping

urgently needed despite the weather, and Tuttle set himself

to steer the

development of the low-level technique. Planning

was one of the

secrets,

because at very low levels navigation in

The landmarks had

the usual sense

was not

memorized most

carefully beforehand, for time

marks were going "It's

to

best to keep

possible.

to

be

and major land-

be the only guides.

down low

giving an early warning to

all

the

enemy

way

over, so as to avoid

radar," Tuttle used to say,

"so you go in almost at sea level; and you must spot your land-

marks the second you see the in

coast.

And

good time before you whistle past your

right first time,

because there

isn't

He believed that it was "murder"

switch on your cameras target.

You've got to be

going to be a second time."

to attempt the

same dicing

sortie

twice.

Flying Officer Alistair Taylor, one of the few pilots «60))

who was

THE INVASION THREAT a regular R.A.F. officer, was a star performer at dicing. a planner par excellence.

To

Taylor's

He was

mind preliminary

plan-

ning for a "dicer" meant not only memorizing the landmarks and calculating the time factor to the nearest second, as well as a careful study of the flak

of all the

enemy

aircraft

maps;

it

meant an intimate knowledge

he might meet

—

their performance, their

guns, their hkely tactics.

was always an anxious moment when a

It

from

Out

dicing.

at the

pilot

was due back

edge of the tarmac as usual, one cloudy

afternoon in July 1940, was a blue Ford car, and beside solitary figure

was

striding

up and down

always liked to be on the spot

when

—Geoffrey

it

Tuttle.

a

He

That

his pilots returned.

afternoon Alistair Taylor was out after the Dutch ports, and he

was

just

about due back.

In the intelligence room. Flying Officer John Weaver and Pilot Officer

when

Quentin Craig were also listening for the

Spitfire

the door opened and two heads looked in: Flight Lieu-

tenant Spencer Ring, a cool and exceedingly competent Canadian,

who was commander Flymg

great friend

of one of the P.R.U. Fhghts, and his

Officer "Bill" Wise, a spirited pilot

who knew

what he could get away with, and habitually got away with

"Any gen

for

"Yes, Tuttle just got

on

it.

tomorrow yet?" asked Ring. it

from Coastal," replied Weaver. "Come

in."

Ring and Wise went over the penciled

jobs

when

list. It

to

Weaver's desk and looked down

was the usual thing

—twenty-two

top-priority

there were only half a dozen Spitfires to

fly

Meanwhile, the door opened again, and an intelligence ((61))

them. officer

—

.

AIR SPY

who was

coming on duty hurried

shortly

in

and made

for Craig's

telephone.

"D'you mind, Quentin? Oh, those stupid so-and-so's." "What's happened, Norman?" asked Craig. Pilot Officer Sir

fortune, dialed a

Norman Watson,

number and

an immense margarine

heir to

waited.

"What's the point in having a Bentley the time?

It

gave up near Osterley, so

—Watson

hello

all. It's sitting

here.

by the

as well collect

it.

if it

I just left

That Bentley you sold side of the

And

in the

road

me

there.

it

is

I shall

all

Oh,

no good

at Osterley, so

meantime

down

breaks

at

you might

want another;

I'm completely stuck here without a motorcar. So will you send along another Bentley

Wise had been

away."

right

listening fascinated,

and

at this point

he edged

over to Watson and gave him a nudge.

"Make

it

two,

Norman, one

for

you and one for Spencer and

me!" "There he comes," said Craig, as he heard the roar of a Merlin engine; and a few minutes later Taylor taxied up in his pale pink Spitfire (Tuttle

had found

that pale pink

was a

better color for

dicing than the usual duck-egg green)

Everyone gathered round while Taylor described

He had

just finished

home, when, to

for

fighters

—he

his sortie.

photographing Flushing, and was starting his

horror

—

as

he glanced around for

suddenly saw a Ju 88 only three hundred yards

then, as the

made a right-hand climbing turn, and German climbed after him he just managed to give

him

by turning sharply

behind. Immediately he

the

the slip

Kent

to the left

coast. ((62))

and then beating

it

for

THE INVASION THREAT This was not an exceptional encounter; thing that happened every day of the

Reconnaissance Unit got into to insure that the

work

week

its stride.

it

was the

sort of

as the Photographic

Tuttle took great pains

of his pilots received recognition, and by

the end of July three of

them had brand-new D.F.C. ribbons:

Ring, Wise, and Taylor. Gradually P.R.U. began to build up the reputation of a secret corps d' elite. in the year a

young

bar at Heston, and she

pany

—gave

the

—

after a glance

commanding

by fastening her eyes on sweetly,

of

,

list

and Tuttle could take as

from July

1

and white ribbon and asking

Eval in Cornwall.

choose the right

tern for the future

He

his pick.

Wick

that he ever attempted to

there

was not only Heston

in the north of Scotland

how

and

it

was

was the moment when the

pat-

set as regards flying practice.

Not

realized

pilots, for this

was being

who wanted to join He needed quite a lot

of pilots

940 onward

to think of, but the Flights at

to

most exquisite pleasure

"Are those the squadron colors?"

new men,

at St.

story goes that later

round the assembled com-

officer the

his purple

Soon there was a waiting P.R.U.

The

pilot introduced his fiancee to Tuttle in the

vitally

important

impose hard-and-fast methods.

He

firmly believed that success in photographic reconnaissance de-

pends primarily on the individual, and he encouraged each to

work out

his

own variations

man

of technique.

Perhaps one of the most important things which Tuttle did during the fourteen months he was in

command

of P.R.U.

was

to

The two way alone Once these

follow through on organizing the operational training.

main

things a pilot

in a Spitfire

and

had

to be taught were to go a long

to fly accurately over his target.

elements were mastered, the

first

operational sortie from Heston

((63))

AIR SPY

was the Dunkirk milk run;

Germany. The biggest

after that

Rotterdam, and then

risk in the early days

was running out of

—

the Spitfire used about a gallon a minute

fuel

found that the

pilots

saw

at

once that

than guns. "There's another reason, too,

why

it

any sense for you to have guns," he used to

you stopped

to fight you'd

don't need guns

when

—and

was better

it

finally

to

Tuttle

have fuel

wouldn't tell

be using up even more

make

them, fuel.

"if

You

you're flying the fastest planes in the

sky."

Tuttle expected so

he

instilled

later

much, and took so much

One young man, who was

confidence into his pilots.

awarded several decorations for

for granted, that

his

work

in P.R.U., arrived

He was greeted by a brisk, enthusiastic Wing Commander Tuttle, who asked him if he'd ever flown a Spitfire. He said no, he hadn't; to which Tuttle answered, at the unit very

"Well, get types. I

all

green and timid.

the practice

want you to

At Wembley

fly

you can today on small single-engined

one tomorrow."

the transition to Air Force ways

was rather more

complicated than at Heston, though the changes were rapid as

soon as the Air Ministry decided

company. Spender there,

—

stiU a civilian

to

—was

and Douglas Kendall joined him

take

over Hemming's

the leading interpreter after

he returned from

France. Meanwhile, Walter Heath, with the small group of

R.A.F. and W.A.A.F. interpreters he had been training, had joined forces with the Aircraft Operating

1940, and the new the Photographic

Company

in April

known

as

Development Unit (Interpretation). And

to

joint organization

celebrate the merger.

was

for a time

Hemming combined ((64))

the initials P.D.U.

THE INVASION THREAT and A.O.C., and produced the splendid name "Paduoc House" for the decrepit

little

Wembley

factory.

Walter Heath's special interest was detailed interpretation,

and

it

was when the Germans were rushing

air bases for the attack

his interest

upon

on Britain

airfields.

that he

There were many

discovered by studying the photographs.

tended runway, the size of

new

new

night-landing equipment

to develop their

began to focus

first

secrets that could

The

be

length of an ex-

aircraft shelters, the installation of

—

all

show

these could

unfailingly

what the methodical enemy was planning. During the weeks that followed Dunkirk the intense urgency of day-to-day reporting was

paramount; and to Spender and interpreters

it

team of hard-pressed civihan

sometimes seemed that Heath and

their long-term

Nevertheless,

his

it

researches,

his helpers,

were hardly pulling

was the work of the few

specialists at

Wembley

that led to the forming of specialist interpretation sections. it

was therefore

in

no small measure thanks

to

with

their weight.

them

And

that the

whole scope of photographic intelligence was so much extended later in the war.

Such was the 1940, a istry

letter

situation at

Wembley when,

at the

which Sidney Cotton had written

end of June

to the

Air Min-

a few weeks before his departure had important

results.

Cotton had heard that Peter Riddell was leaving Bomber

Com-

mand, and on the grounds

is

of the most experienced

that

men

"Squadron Leader Riddell in the country

work," he had immediately asked to secure his services.

On June 26

if

on

one

interpretation

arrangements could be made

Riddell was posted to Wembley.

Like Tuttle at Heston, he found himself the one and only regular

R.A.F.

officer in a

very irregular unit. ((65))

AIR SPY

was

It

moment when an

just the

energetic organizer such as

him was nothing

Riddell was needed; and the task which faced

than laying the foundations for the whole future of British

less

photographic interpretation.

He

He plunged

into the

work with

zest.

believed fiercely in the principle "contract to expand," for

there

was

would be

the continual risk that separate organizations

still

Command, were and

ligence,

jump

The Admiralty,

started up.

if

the

War

Office,

Bomber

agitating all the time for photographic intel-

things

went even

wrong they were apt

slightly

to the conclusion that they could cope better

own. But Riddell fought and schemed against eventually he won.

It

on

to

their

danger, and

this

was not merely a danger of wasteful over-

lapping, but a risk of disintegration

—

of sacrificing something

too new, too unproved, too supremely valuable not to be de-

veloped in the right way.

The

relationship between

Wembley and

the Admiralty

was

already on a firm footing, mainly owing to Sidney Cotton's early spadework ning.

War

and

to the liaison

between Spender and Den-

But there was not yet any proper arrangement with the Office.

When

raw material

Riddell arrived he found that a wealth of the

for military intelligence

was coming

in

—

the photo-

graphs were bristling with guns, tanks, dumps, camps

pleaded with the

War

Office for the loan of the

Army

—and he

interpreters

who had escaped from Dunkirk, to supervise and help with the Wembley reports. Before the end of July, Walter Venour had arrived,

and was soon

after joined

September the

and thus

by Gerald Lacoste; but the

Army section soon became obvious. By War Office had approved a new establishment, an Army interpretation section started up as part of the

need for a specialized

((66))

THE INVASION THREAT

—a foreshadowing

Air Force unit unit that

was

to

of the fully fledged interservice

come.

when photographic

This was a time

intelligence

was being

shaped and strengthened by an influx of outstandingly able men.

One

of the

first,

E.

J.

cartographic surveyor,

Ramsey Matthews,

came

to

Wembley

charge of the Wild machine and a

May 1940

in

staff of

and took

seven civilians, which

freed Spender for actual interpretation. For

had been

a very experienced

some time Hemming

trying to enlist the help of a former colleague,

Wavell, a brilliant mathematician in a pioneering air survey of

who had

Claude

taken a leading part

Rio de Janeiro before the war.

After Dunkirk, Wavell telegraphed: "If you

come," and the answer flashed back:

"Come

want me,

still

at once."

I'll

At Wem-

bley he began by helping Douglas Kendall to start an interpretation school,

and then Riddell asked him

interpretation (by that time

working entirely on

Heath was back

airfield intelligence).

launched out into the

to supervise all detailed

field in

expert: the interpretation of

Air Ministry,

at the

But before long Wavell

which he became the leading

enemy radar and

British

"wireless" instal-

lations.

Largely through Michael Spender, a number of

demic distinction were drawn start that their sort of tion.

Two

sor of

in:

Geology

work was a good background

for interpreta-

now

Profes-

Oxford, and Glyn Daniel, the Cambridge

whose cheery

exposition have the television

at

of aca-

he maintained right from the

of the earliest arrivals were "Bill" Wager,

archaeologist,

men

likable informality

become known

and knack of

to milHons since the

war through

program Animal, Vegetable, Mineral! Within a ((67))

AIR SPY

few weeks,

Pilot Officers

Wager and Daniel were

and could help to ease the load on Spender

interpretation shifts,

and Kendall. Other valuable additions

team

to the

were Alfred Stephenson, a polar explorer, who interpretation training,

(now Professor

at

Wembley

later directed all

and David Linton, an expert geographer

Geography

of

in charge of

at Sheffield).

Wembley a quiet, elderly officer named Flight Lieutenant Hamshaw Thomas, the very man who had been one of the stalwarts of photographic Then, in the early autumn of

tion,

work

as a botanist at

trying to get

Cambridge

back to interpreta-

but he had been tossed hither and thither by the vicissitudes

of postings, and

managed Ministry's date,

left his

had been

to join the R.A.F., he

940, there turned up at

War. Ever since the outbreak of the

interpretation in the First

Second War, when he

1

it

took him almost a year before he

Wembley. He was longing

to reach

manual of

and Riddell

set

interpretation,

him

to

finally

to revise the Air

which was seriously out of

work on

this at once.

The

analysis

of industry particularly interested him, and he soon began to

concentrate on factories and the clues to their activity. This interest of his shortly led to the

which throughout the valuable reports. plants,

which

is

formation of an Industry Section,

rest of the

war produced a wealth of

may seem a far cry from the study of fossil Hamshaw Thomas's special subject, to the

It

interpretation of Nazi

war

industry; but

it

is

the

same patient

approach and deductive reasoning that brings success in both.

Sometime

after the Industry Section got going

was helping tion unit,

to escort Field-Marshal

Douglas Kendall

Smuts round the interpreta-

and Hamshaw Thomas was called upon

to

show

the

Field-Marshal his work. Smuts was tremendously interested and ((68))

THE INVASION THREAT impressed, and also as he

much pleased to

had known him years

see

Hamshaw Thomas

comment

Afterward, his

earlier.

again, to

Kendall was, "D'you know, that man's one of the best botanists in the world."

month

After a

was a masterly proved

it

Wembley, Riddell drew up

synthesis of the

at

his blueprint. It

methods he had himself

Bomber Command, and

at

been introduced In

at

tried

and

of various practices that

had

Wembley and Heston under Sidney

he formulated the pattern that was

Cotton.

later followed out in

the vast machinery of the Allied Central Interpretation Unit.

One

of the

most important principles he defined was that

there should be three successive

stages

of interpretation,

or

"Phases," as they were named. "First

Phase" meant immediate reporting of important news

items: the

canal

movements of

traffic,

ships

the extent of

and

aircraft, of rail traffic

bomb damage and

ammunition dumps. In cases of special urgency was to be available three hours

and

the position of this

information

after the aircraft landed.

"Second

Phase" reports were to be out within twenty-four hours, and they

were to give not only quite a

lot of detail

on general

activity,

but also, by dealing with a day's accumulation of cover, a coordinated view of what was going on. to

be issued

recipients,

later,

The "Third Phase"

reports,

were to be very detailed statements for speciaUst

on such

things as airfields, factories,

and military

installations.

In the

summer

of 1940,

mediate information,

it

when everyone was demanding im-

would have been easy

thing else and concentrate entirely ((69))

on

to ignore every-

First Phase.

But Riddell

AIR SPY foresight to see that the photographs held

had the grasp and infinitely

more than snap answers, and he planned

OriginaUy

all

the interpretation

was done

at

accordingly.

Wembley, but

within a few months there were First Phase sections at

Eval as well as

St.

films

at

Wick and

Heston; so that almost as soon as the

were processed the Admiralty and Air Ministry had

teleprint

statements on activity at the ports and anchorages of southern

Norway and western France,

as well as the supremely important

news of what was happening across the Channel.

All through the

summer

of

1940

the interpretation unit at

Wembley watched

the invasion ports like a cat watching a

series of rat holes;

but

invasion

fleet

Many

—

off

As

the rat

—

in the

form of an assembling

did not put in an appearance.

very significant things were, however, going on along

the French coast,

day.

still

whole

and they were watched and reported day by

early as July,

new photographs

almost to the

cliffs

had

lost its

Cap

Gris

Nez sounded

little fields

that reaches

of

an alarm, for the tidy patchwork of

normal look of peace and

quiet.

There was a network of newly trodden paths, and the beginnings of three huge

pits,

each twice as large as a house. The freshly

exposed earth showed up a glaring photographic white against the calm grays of the natural landscape, and the whole thing

had the look of new military construction

—an

unmistakable

look of violation like hobnailed footprints on snow. Within a

month the

the

War

first

of the great twelve-inch guns

Office,

which

in

May had

was

and

formed a department for

receiving photographic intelligence, pressed for

covers and eagerly awaited the interpretations. ((70))

in position,

more frequent

THE INVASION THREAT Venour and Lacoste and to

the other interpreters did their utmost

keep pace with the system of defenses that the Germans were

putting

up along the French

report besides guns. lines

—betrayed by

Round

of newly turned earth at

quarters were installed.

left

no doubt

as to

Omer,

and there was much to

for example,

new telephone

shadow of each post and the pale

the

myriad tracks of heavy

St.

coast;

foot

its

And

lorries

—

circle

indicated where local head-

five miles

inland from Calais the

converging on the Foret de Guines

where ammunition and

stores for the invasion

were being hidden.

At

further afield, there in

was so much of importance to report that

August a Third Phase

headed by a W.A.A.F.

who had been

airfield section

was

started at

interpreter, Flight Officer

Wembley,

Hammerton,

trained by Walter Heath.

While the stage was being craft,

bomber bases

the fighter bases in the Pas de Calais, and the

set

on the French

coast, the landing

without which the invasion could not begin, were being

hurriedly prepared in the shipyards of the

Low

Countries. In

July Michael Spender found that five 130-foot barges at Rot-

terdam had modified bows, presumably for the landing of tanks

and troops, but because of the small could say no more.

scale of the photographs

By mid-August, however, Wembley

report that at Antwerp, at Rotterdam, and at fleet

to

of makeshift invasion craft lay ready.

he

could

Amsterdam, the

When would

it

start

move?

On

August 29, and again two days

warnings

—

the chilly gusts of

The news was

later,

wind before the

came first

the earliest

drops of rain.

negative, but nonetheless definite: fifty-six barges

had disappeared from Amsterdam. ((71))

Two

days later a hundred

AIR SPY

more had

left

Antwerp. Then

were photographed

late

at Ostend,

on August 31 eighteen

and during the next

six

of

them

days and

nights the procession gathered in volume: by September 6 two

hundred barges were assembled

Each new cover

of Boulogne, Calais, and

enemy was moving

that the

in the harbor.

Dunkirk confirmed

into position to strike, in spite of

On

presenting such close-range targets to the British bombers.

was warned of "imminent invasion,"

the day that the country

Spender and Kendall and their interpreters counted feverishly,

and Peter Riddell hardly

left

the telephone.

Those rows of

patched-up barges, huddled side by side with their bows to the

quay for loading, seemed back

—

at the

sinister

enough

at the time,

photographs now, they suggest

—most incongruously

after litter of gigantic piebald piglets

litter

but looking

nuzzhng

at the

sides of the quays.

For the next ten days the tension mounted

as the

numbers of

barges steadily increased at the ports nearest to Britain, and

were joined by crowds of E-boats and other small Heston

Spitfires

as well as of the

Antwerp

move

Channel

forward.

ports,

and both

They

at

Hamburg and

at

also brought pictures of convoys of barges coast, in formations so tidy that

German Navy was

17,

when

barges at Calais, 220 at Dunkirk, 205 at

Boulogne, 200 at Ostend, and 600

at

there were

may

was

at

Antwerp. That night, in

be launched upon ((72))

266

Le Havre, 230

Secret Session, the Prime Minister told Parliament,

a major assault

it

in charge.

The climax came on September

moment

The

there were assemblies of merchant vessels waiting to

on the move down the clear the

craft.

brought back photographs of the supply bases

"At any

this island. I

now

THE INVASION THREAT say in secret that upwards of 1,700 self-propelled barges and

more than two hundred seagoing

ships,

many

are already gathered at the

some very

large ships,

invasion ports in

German

occupation."

While Churchill spoke. Spender was rechecking the number of barges at

Dunkirk

— 130 had

down

he sprang to his feet and threw

"We

arrived in four days. Suddenly his stereoscope.

don't want these," he exclaimed. "They'd better give us

rifles!"

The suspense continued poised, ready to

swarming with Britain

for another

few days. The armada was

and the quays of the Channel ports were

strike,

activity.

But meanwhile, overhead, the Battle of

had been fought and won, and the Luftwaffe had

to gain air supremacy.

We know now

that Hitler

failed

had already

decided to abandon "Sea Lion."

The armada

still

remained poised, but, nevertheless, the new

photographs showed something very

significant.

The Wembley

were already learning that nothing ever happens

interpreters

without leaving a track, or evidence of some kind, even evidence

is

negative.

The

an indefinable change indefinable, but

And

sign that the crisis

the

had passed was

look of the quays. At

soon there was a very clear slacking

first it

was

off of activity.

then as October came, and as the interpreters checked and

rechecked their barge fleet

first

in the

if

was beginning to

and docked

side

by

totals,

it

disperse.

became

The piebald

side parallel to

position for commercial barges

been bombed to

bits

certain that the invasion

—and then

gradually slipped

danger of invasion was past. ((73))

piglets

the quays

were

—

shifted,

the normal

those that had not

away up

the coast.

The

"

AIR SPY

There was one day

summer

in the

of 1940

when

the unre-

work was set aside both at Heston and Wembley: the King and Queen made a formal visit of when the day inspection. At Wembley there was a brave display of R.A.F. uniforms: Wing Commander Hemming escorted the King; Squadlenting hard

ron Leader Riddell accompanied the

Queen; and Michael

time as a

flight lieutenant. After-

Spender appeared for the

ward Hemming was

first

asked

why

there

had been such a

merriment when the royal party reached the maps and

"Oh

well," chuckled

that the

word

'Wild'

we pronounce like to

means something

'Vilt'?

it

WILD PLANS, he

When

charts.

the King to

special for us,

know

and that

he saw those big folders marked

burst out laughing and said to me, 'You wouldn't

show me what's

Two months

Hemming, "how was

lot of

in those,

later the hut

would you?'

where the Wild Plans were kept was

a roofless wreck, and at the entrance of the shelter next to

an airman had been

killed.

On

October

2,

it

1940, in the early

hours of the morning, the interpretation unit received a direct hit

from an

oil

bomb. Again a

fortnight later,

"Paduoc House" was

almost blasted down. After this the roof was no longer at

all

weatherproof; and the Third Phase interpreters upstairs often

had

to

wear raincoats and put up umbrellas over

their desks.

A search began for more suitable quarters; but throughout the winter of the Blitz the work went on at Wembley, to the accom-

paniment of

sirens

and bombs and guns, and the endless shunting

of the trains in the railway yards across the way.

The bombing Wembley, and in quite bad.

On

at

Heston was much more severe than

the third

the

week

at

of September things began to get

Thursday night an enemy bomber went throb((74))

THE INVASION THREAT bing overhead, but apparently did not drop anything. Five

minutes

however, there was a

later,

A

main hangar.

terrific

explosion outside the

magnetic mine had been dropped by parachute,

and the hangar was a flattened mess of twisted underneath the debris were

girders.

Crushed

and

also the

five precious Spitfires

famous Lockheed G-AFTL.

A

few days

which was by

Geoffrey Tuttle was working in his

later

time in

this

a somewhat

rickety state,

Adjutant, Flight Lieutenant Noel Sherwell,

came

to

office,

when

the

him with an

incredulous expression on his face.

"The guard says

the

King

is

waiting at the gate," he announced,

"and he wants to see you."

came

Tuttle, equally unbelieving,

to see

what

trick

someone was

was a genuine royal

car,

to the gate with Sherwell

playing.

and inside

it

But there sure enough

was H.M. King George

Tuttle snapped to attention with a smart salute,

VL

and His Majesty

smiled and explained. "I

was driving from Windsor

to

London and

look out toward Heston, and suddenly

hangar wasn't there any more. So

you were

all

In the second half of October,

was "dispersed"

three times get

it

was

some proper

I just

when

He

called in to see

how

the Blitz began in earnest,

and

incendiaries.

was the worst

section

hit:

to quarters outside the airfield,

hit again. Tuttle insisted that the pilots

sleep, so

he took a house for them

but he himself did not leave his post. deputy.

to

I realized that the big

after night of high explosive

The photographic processing it

happened

getting on."

Heston got night

times

I

used to look in

at Shelter ((75))

At

this

at

three

and must

Cookham;

time he had no

"H," where the night-shift

AIR SPY

were working, and where Quentin Craig's dog snapped

plotters

an occasional

at

and then he would

rat;

alone in the Officers'

sit

Mess and wait for the bombers. Sometimes he managed to snatch a

sleep,

little

and sometimes he turned on the radio-gramophone

and played Ravel's Bolero over and over

again.

In the daytime the flying went on at an increasing tempo, and at the

end of October an "extra-super-long-range"

ready for action.

It

nicknamed "the bowser." Flying killed only

who

two months

achieved the

later

Officer S.

on a dicing

great success in

first

longest sortie yet flown by P.R.U.

J.

He was

was

it

Millen (who was

sortie)

it,

was

Spitfire

was so heavily loaded with fuel that

was the

pilot

when he made

the

out for five hours and

twenty minutes, and came back with photographs of Stettin and

Rostock Just a

—

the

week

and long-awaited cover of the

first

FHght Lieutenant

later

bowser" southward

to

P.

Baltic coast.

Corbishley flew "the

photograph Marseilles and Toulon, and

both pilots were awarded D.F.Cs.

But although

at

Heston, as at Wembley, the work went on in

spite of the Blitz, there

the better

packed

—and

its

had

just after

clearly got to

was

to

be

—

the sooner

Day 1940 the whole unit to move to Benson, the Oxfordhome for the rest of the war.

Christmas

bags and started

shire airfield that

be a move

its

Across the road from "Paduoc House" there was a row of

mock-Tudor in

villas,

one of these, for

five

little

shabby and draughty from the bombing, and fifteen shivering

days from December

1

W.A.A.Fs. and one rather embarrassed young Army

applied themselves to learning

how

graphs. I was one of the W.A.A.Fs. ((76))

,

1

940,

officer

to interpret aerial photo-

THE INVASION THREAT

We

our greatcoats in a sparsely furnished upstairs room,

sat in

and took down notes while Douglas Kendall, in

his quiet

em-

phatic way, kindled our interest in the dimensions and armament

German

of

and chalked up one

battleships,

plan views of the Channel ports.

by

all

I

after another the

was amazed

that he

knew them

heart.

For our

first

exercise

we were

given some "verticals" (photo-

graph taken from vertically above), and gradually we learned

how

to recognize such

airfields,

and

major landmarks as railway

to distinguish

gentle curves,

between railways, with

stations

and

their invariable

and roads, which usually follow the

lie

of the land.

There are always shadows on daytime high-altitude photographs, because the pictures could not have been taken except

from a

clear sky;

the prints

if

and

I

learned

how much

easier

you place them with the shadows

you; as though the sun were shining

from beyond the table you're working

down on

We

at.

it is

to look at

falling

toward

the photograph

could have done

with some sunshine in that freezing room, where the sputtering gas

fire

seemed

to give out

more

Shipping was of course the

making accurate counts,

noise than heat.

first

and we practiced

priority,

listing the vessels

by

size

—

large,

me-

We didn't yet know enough about recognition many types. myself was much looking forward to seeing some German

dium, and small. points to identify I

aircraft,

because

I

was

and had

intensely keen about aviation

been writing for The Aeroplane for some years before the war.

But the

first

aerial

photograph of an enemy

a disappointment and shock.

Pas de Calais, and

I

had

It

to try

airfield I ever

was a busy

fighter base in the

and count the

((77))

saw was

aircraft;

but even

AIR SPY

under a magnifying

pinheads, in fact rather

be able to do

"I shall never

an

aircraft test

good had

this."

which was more

A my

to

however, we had

bit later,

we were

taste:

dump

clear photographs of a

Germans had

the

Me 109s were no bigger than smaller. My heart sank, and I thought,

glass the

given some

of French aircraft which

written off at Merignac, near Bordeaux,

to identify as

many

as

we

some

could, with the help of

recognition silhouettes. I thoroughly enjoyed myself but rather worried because

one airplane he

said.

We

I

took

I

my

hst to Kendall there

was was

hadn't been able to name. Kendall smiled. "No,"

"Nor can

started

when

and

I."

by looking

but were soon trying

at single prints,

to use a stereoscope, that apparently simple optical instrument

which presents exaggerated height and depth photographs below

it

is

set

—

was something important and

rowed one.

It

the "pair" of

in just the right position.

were not enough stereoscopes to go round, and "stereo"

if

I realized that

precious. In time

was an absurdly uncomplicated

thing like a pair of spectacles

mounted

little

as I

it

had seen some of the others doing.

not one, and there really did not seem

I

gadget; some-

it

a few

could see two images,

much

point. It

work with an ordinary magnifying

two

backward and forward a

bit

bor-

above a pair of prints

simpler to prints

I

a

in a single rectangular

piece of metal, supported by four metal legs that held

inches above the photographs. I stood

There

—

glass. I

still

was much edged the

two images; and

then suddenly the thing happened, the images fused, and the buildings in the photograph shot

drew back. that I

It

was the same

up toward me so

sort of feeling of

remember long ago when

I first stayed

((78))

that I almost

triumph and wonder

up on a bicycle

THE INVASION THREAT without someone holding on behind.

was much

From

then on interpretation

easier.

Toward

the end of the fortnight, Michael Spender

came and

gave us a talk about the interpretation of shipping. In his hesitant but intimidating voice he spoke of the principles that apply to

all

interpretation.

"You must know

at

a glance what

is

normal, and then you

can recognize the abnormal when you see

it.

When we saw

Dutch shipyards crowded with barges having

their

bows

the

cut

away, we knew the importance of what was happening because

we had

And

already been watching the normal

because

we could

we knew

a town,

who

An

of those yards.

the normal look of the Channel ports

moment

recognize the abnormal the

appearing there.

life

interpreter

is

the barges started

like a motorist driving

suddenly sees a rubber ball bouncing across the

road from a side

street.

He

can't see

any children playing, but

he knows in a flash they are there and his brake

must know what ficance of

We knew

through

is

normal, but you must also

what you see when you see

is

know

on.

it."

listened enthralled to this farouche flight lieutenant,

so

much and

You

the signi-

who

expected so much; but his wonderful ideas

did not really seem to bear

much

relation to our

little

exercises

of counting and identifying.

The climax

of the course, on which our fate depended, was an

oral examination

by Peter Riddell.

the dark, busy squadron leader

a quick

word with Kendall.

inefiiciency,

We

We

were much in awe of

who looked in occasionally for knew that he could not tolerate

and we trembled as we thought how

were. ((79))

inefiicient

we

—

— AIR SPY

The

exam

night before the

billet, forgetful

on

my

bed

in

my Wembley and over the

of the thud of bombs, and went over

Bismarck, Tirpitz, Prinz Eugen

silhouettes

my weakest subject. And then a letter which had just I

I sat

finally I

come from

.

.

.

shipping was

consoled myself by reading

a trusted friend in the R.A.F.

haven't the least doubt that you will

present course with flying colours

—but

sail if,

through your

by some

fickle

chance, things don't go quite as you had hoped, don't take it

too hardly.

am

I

told that photographic interpretation

—

requires a pecuHar mentality

—which

a kind of super jig-saw

mind

bears no relation to brains or ability.

Well, by the next evening

it

would be

all

over.

The following afternoon Riddell appeared without any

mony and you

sat

on a

table while he shot questions at us.

cere-

"How do

the difference between a naval unit and a merchant

tell

vessel?" he asked me. I

of a

was paralyzed

German

and asked

—Oh, why

airplane?

gently,

He

hadn't he asked

turned to

my

"Do you know?" Eve

me

neighbor, did

the wing span

Eve Hohday,

know and had been

waiting eagerly.

"A merchant

vessel

and a naval unit

drew a

Next

an oblong box with pointed ends,

like

a very elongated oval

cigar-shaped.'"

cigar shape in the air to stress her point.

course, I

the

is

is

it

knew

She

yes, of

quite well really.

was the turn of a W.A.A.F. with a long

fragile

Oh

look of a wild flower

daughter of the famous poster

artist.

((80))

—Ann "In the

little

face and

McKnight-Kauffer,

German Army

are

THE INVASION THREAT more mechanized

there

divisions or horse-drawn?" Riddell asked

her.

Ann was

was rather a catch question, and

It

mechanized,

And

so

it

I think,''''

caught.

"M-m-

she replied.

We

went on.

were certain we had

Wembley was

in fact that fifth training course at

But

all failed.

the

first

on

which every one of the candidates got through.

So

was

it

in

January 1941 that

I

the Second Phase shifts, twelve hours off alternately.

Wearing

my

took

on and twenty-four hours

my new uniform with the

thin stripe of an assistant section officer, I

kind and cheerful Australian W.A.A.F. ling. I

had

preferred

place on one of

almost invisibly

worked alongside a

officer called

Jean Star-

to tackle shipping quite often, but as all the others

it,

and

I

much

preferred aircraft, I

more

often got

the airfields.

Walter Heath's enthusiasm for

airfields

was having

its effect,

and major changes had to be reported by Second Phase, as

by the Third Phase

airfield section. I

as well

was rather taken aback,

however, to find that the aircraft themselves were normally reported rather as an afterthought, at the end of the statement

on the horse

But

airfield itself.

—

it

Surely this was putting the cart before the

or rather the stage before the play that was being acted?

was hardly for a W.A.A.F. who had been an

officer

only

a few weeks to say so.

During the times when reconnaissance was held up by weather

moment

I

used every spare

I

thought that before long

to I

add

to

my

knowledge of

aircraft.

might be asked to interpret Italian ((81))

AIR SPY aircraft,

and

I

knew

practically nothing about them.

hours with Jane's All the World's Aircraft, and

main

who had been schel,

how

One

things I thought important.

was

set

I spent

down

the

of the civihan interpreters

with the Aircraft Operating Company,

interested in aircraft too;

So

and

I

Ray Her-

picked up from him

to link the facts in Jane's with the tiny shapes

on

the photo-

graphs.

In a few weeks

my

a sort of report, and surprise, that

notes

when

Italian aircraft

was

finished I

was

were turning into told,

much

Squadron Leader Riddell wanted to see

next morning he sent for I

it

on

me and

I felt

to

it.

my

The

a bit apprehensive. Could

have made some dreadful boob? I

went toward

outside, with "I've

my

his ofiice,

but he happened to be in the passage

report in his hand.

looked through

this,"

he

said. "Aircraft are

important, and they ought to be reported in

you

like to start

more

detail.

an Aircraft Interpretation Section?"

((82))

extremely

Would

IV

The

It was March

months

just six

war was declared, on the night of

after

19, 1940, that the R.A.F.

against a target

Bombing

Start of the

made

its first

bombing attack

on German ground. For Bomber Command

was a long-awaited occasion: the

first

this

chance to show what

it

could really do.

At the R.A.F.

Hemswell

Station at

early hours of the following morning,

in Lincolnshire, in the

two

intelligence ofl&cers sat

waiting while the hands of the clock crawled on. There was

nothing you could do but wait. Hours ago the intelligence

had been

full of

eager young men: the pilots and aircrews

room

who

had gathered round while Squadron Leader Brown and Flight Lieutenant

Hamshaw Thomas

pointed out on the

thin shape of the island of Sylt, station at

Hornum was one

of the

and explained

map

the long

that the seaplane

main bases used by

the

German

mine-laying aircraft which were being such a serious threat to British shipping in the

North Sea. Then Air Vice-Marshal Arthur

Harris himself, at that time in

came

command

of No. 5

in to give his aggressive encouragement; ((83))

Bomber Group, and when the

AIR SPY

boys trooped out they were keyed up for an attack that was going to

make

A

history.

total of forty-nine

Whitleys, and

bombers were taking

Hampdens. The

part: Wellingtons,

Hampdens had roared

last of the

off into the darkness a very long time ago, so

Hamshaw Thomas; and much had happened

seemed

it

to

elsewhere since

then.

At midnight

burst into cheers

announced

House

the

when

of

Commons,

toiling in late session,

had

the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain,

that the recent

German

air raid

on Scapa Flow was

being richly avenged; that even while he spoke British bombs

were

obliterating the

main enemy

air

base at

from the leading

aircraft while

was

it

The message had been decoded and

still

explained

directing the attack.

sent straight

on

he could announce the news while the raid was It

He

Sylt.

news had come four hundred miles over the North Sea

that the

was an event "probably without precedent

to him, so that

still

in progress.

in the history of

warfare."

At Hemswell, Brown kept glancing for the at

first

sound of homecoming

at the clock

aircraft.

and

listening

Very soon now. And

any moment Harris would be over again from Waddington,

the other 5 out.

Group

airfield

from which bombers had been

Hamshaw Thomas knocked

refilled

but

it,

it

sent

out his ancient pipe and then

wouldn't light properly and he had to

start all

over again.

When

the

for hours,

bombers did

and

get

back the interrogation went on

in the chilly silence before daybreak, after

shaw Thomas had

finished helping

Brown

for group headquarters, he thought ((84))

to

make

Ham-

out the returns

back over what the crews had

THE START OF THE BOMBING had been courageous of those boys

said. It

what actually happened, even though

of

as Harris would have liked.

success; just

—and it,"

Still,

it

wonder what

Hamshaw Thomas,

as he

wasn't as dramatic

had been a wonderful

what the bomber crews needed

the country too. "I

thought

the raid

to stick to their stories

morale

to boost their

the papers will

had a

make

of

bite of breakfast

before going off to bed.

The papers were

in

no doubt

at all

what

to

make

of

it.

The

headhnes blazed out: land target at last for the r.a.f.

TONS OF BOMBS DROPPED

SIX

GARS AND OIL TANKS ABLAZE

The

LIT UP.

HOURS ATTACK ON SYLT

—ADMIRATION

British press also

—

—HAN-

NIGHT SKY

IN U.S.

exposed the subtleties of German

propaganda, and held up to ridicule certain insinuations which

—

Germany changes the subject "hail OF bombs" on DENMARK ran the headlines on the Foreign arrived via Rotterdam.

—

News page The

of

The Times, and

on

the report went

to claim:

best proof that last night's raid of the R.A.F.

was an

effective enterprise

on

Sylt

can be seen in the fact that the

Nazis are diverting attention from the raid to the unintentional violation of aircraft.

main

They

Danish neutrality by some of the British

contrive to convey the impression that the

British raid

was not on the German island but on

Denmark. While the British public gloated, the headquarters of Bomber

Command was

filled

with incredulous elation. After six dreary

months of impotence and of the tide.

failure, here at last

The crowning confirmation

of this

was the turning

first

great success

would be photographs of the damage taken the day ((85))

after the

AIR SPY

and almost

raid;

as

soon as the

photographic Blenheims went

last of the

bombers landed, two

off to get pictures.

That evening Peter Riddell waited impatiently

in the photo-

Bomber Command's

headquarters,

graphic intelligence section at

a cozy underground chamber dominated by a vast wall

Germany

stuck

had

over to High

be processed and brought

was clamoring for

Riddell's interpreters all

wanted

occasion, and the six of

work

Bomber

have a hand on

to

them

—

lots

pictures.

sat

was A.P.F. Fane, famous before the war later did brilliant

section at

turn out special enlargements

set to

all

of them; the press

umphant

to

Wycombe. The photographic

Command was

of

The Blenheims had returned

full of target flags.

safely all right, but the films

map

this tri-

round waiting. There

as a racing driver

as a photographic pilot;

—he

and the three

other R.A.F. oflScers were Eric Fuller, whose prewar business contacts in the

Ruhr had given him a

of the oil plants,

come as a

Tom Muir

useful knowledge of

some

Warden, a Canadian who had be-

interested in aerial photographs in connection with his

work

mining engineer, and "Schloss" Windsor, so nicknamed by

Fane immediately he aerial

arrived,

who had

photography business. The two

W.A.A.F.

officers,

and Angus Wilson

previously been in the

civilians,

who

later

became

were a blonde and a brunette, Cynthia

—both

of

them

Wood

talented interpreters.

Riddell was smoking cigarette after cigarette, and Fane was

playing about with a loaded revolver, as he often did (he was a

crack shot), while Fuller was trying to read an intelligence report,

and the others were pretending

up and broke the

silence.

"Where's Stolp?" ((86))

to work. Fuller looked

— THE START OF THE BOMBING There was a shattering explosion and the

Fane laughing and

map

At

An

what had happened, and they found

section next door to see

name

screamed.

and several airmen came running in from the photographic

officer

wall

girls

of

the rest of the section speechless. In the

Germany

there

huge

was a neat round hole above the

"Stolp." last

a sergeant hurried in with a packet of photographs, and

Riddell grabbed them and divided up the prints

among

his team.

For a long time not a word was spoken. There was not even a sound from Fane, who was wont to burst into song when the

work was not

Then one by one the interpreters Riddell. They were not very clear

specially urgent.

took their prints over to

photographs, but clear enough to

Below

tell their

unmistakable news.

his stereoscope Riddell could see the

Hornum

hangars

looking as boxlike as ever, and the Heinkel floatplanes sitting

about as usual on the slipway, and the unquestionably, horribly intact.

hold of him, and his these

oil

tanks solidly intact

A sickening,

sinking feeling took

thought was, "There must be a mistake;

first

must be some old photographs taken before the

looked

at the date strip.

raid."

He

No, March 20. Then with grim decision

he told the interpreters,

"We must

find out

where the bombs

did go:'

Deep despondency

settled

on the

section as all through the

night they searched the Sylt sand dunes, hoping find

and longing

to

something to show that bombs had fallen on the island.

But by morning there were

less

than half a dozen rings drawn in

chinagraph pencil to mark the findings: a handful of possible

among the dunes, and a hangars at Hornum. craters

tiny hole in the roof of

((87))

one of the

AIR SPY Bright and early the telephone rang. Riddell answered, and it

was the Senior Air

Staff Officer,

Norman

Air Vice-Marshal

Bottomley, sounding very cheerful.

"Have you shaved yet?" "Yes, I have,

sir."

"Well, you'd better get into your best uniform quick, as you've

got to go to

Buckingham Palace with some

Sylt enlargements."

There was a moment's pause, and then Riddell see

you

A

in

your

few minutes

said, "right

stay here.

map

"Can

I

important."

he was back. "All the photographs," he

later

away. I'm going to show them to Ludlow.

No

He

door."

a

office first, sir? It's rather

said,

one must know

at the

moment.

You

all

I'd better lock the

gathered up the prints like a pack of cards, snatched

of Sylt, and hurried off to the Commander-in-Chiefs

office.

"It can't I

be true," said Ludlow-Hewitt. "You must show me;

my own

must see with

Riddell spread out the

graphs beside

it,

eyes."

map on

the floor,

and then the photo-

and Ludlow-Hewitt went over

to the

door and

turned the key. "Here,

"This

pointed out Riddell, on his hands and knees.

sir,"

is all

we've been able to

find.

We've been

at

it

all

night."

Ludlow-Hewitt knelt down beside him and examined the photographs through a magnifying

glass.

After a few minutes

he had seen enough. "I

must

tell

"Would you

Newall." like

me

to

go out,

sir?"

Ludlow-Hewitt sighed. "No, you telephone. "Get

me

asked Riddell.

stay."

He

reached for his

the Chief of the Air Staff," he said. ((88))

I

THE START OF THE BOMBING

On

the evening of

announcement

the following

R.A.F, of Sylt

March

22, 1940, the Air Ministry issued to the press:

on the

aircraft carried out a reconnaissance

on Wednesday morning with a view

the results of the previous night's attack.

island

to confirming

The photographs

taken have proved to be of no value in indicating the extent of the material

damage

inflicted in the

course of the heavy

attack.

In the meantime, the Germans hastened to invite various neutral journalists to visit Sylt. But so strong in

England

that their reports cut

and public, and

ice

was happily believed

it

put to work so effectively in

damage

no

that the reporters

with the British press

that labor gangs

up

filling

was wishful thinking

craters

had been

and repairing

had been completely taken

in.

Within a few weeks, however, the rights and wrongs of what

had happened

at Sylt

the onrush of the

were forgotten

German

invasions

—

as

Europe staggered under

first

Denmark and Norway;

then Holland, Belgium, France. But from the viewpoint of the relationship between

bombing and photographic

story of the "successful" attack

could not

lie

criticize

Sylt

and the photographs

that

stands as a permanent landmark.

Looking back and

on

intelligence, the

after seventeen years,

and mock. But

too easy to blame

to see the Sylt incident in proper

perspective one must look back further the wars, to a period

it is all

when an

still,

to the years

obsessive fear of

between

bombing was

growing up.

Ever since the Zeppelin

raids,

bombardment from

((89))

the air

had

AIR SPY

been a haunting

terror;

and the theory of bombing had been

developed to such an extent, not only by peacetime but by the press and by writers of science of

evoked the same

it

strategists

fiction, that the

idea

sort of fear that the idea of nuclear warfare

does at the present day. In 1938 Professor

J.

B.

S.

Haldane came

out with some terrifying figures based on the effects of bombing in the Spanish war.

would be airplanes,

killed if

He

estimated that twenty thousand people

each time there was a mass attack by

each were carrying two tons of bombs. But hypo-

thetical statistics

such as these bore very

actual capabiHties of the aircraft and theless, the

will

hundred

five

views

summed up

little

bombs of

relation to the

the time. Never-

in Baldwin's dictum, "the

bomber

always get through," led most people to believe that bombing

raids

would

unfailingly achieve their aims, in spite of anti-air-

craft defenses

and adverse weather and human

once the "success" of the attack on

Sylt

fallibility.

And

had been so loudly pro-

claimed, there was no going back. Inevitably there were fre-

quent discrepancies between the published

stories of

bombing

triumphs, and the reality of what was actually happening as the British

bomber

force struggled into

life

by the hardest of ways.

There were some genuine successes, of course, and when photographs did confirm spectacular destruction, such as the breaching of the Dortmund-Ems canal in the

and the smashing up of invasion barges

at the

summer Channel

pictures were immediately released to the press

one an encouraging

of 1940, ports, the

and gave every-

feeling of confidence in the high standards

of British bombing.

But although "the photographs" were sometimes useful

as

propaganda, the whole subject of photographic reconnaissance ((90))

THE START OF THE BOMBING was a painful one

at

Bomber Command

from the disappointing

aside

brought to

light, the

in these early days. Quite

facts that the interpreters often

high casualty rate of the Blenheims was a

constant nightmare; and as 1940 wore on

Command

more imperative

that the

graphic

Ludlow-Hewitt had begun

Spitfires.

Cotton's cover of the Ruhr, but the year, at a time

when

policy

it

seemed more and

it

should have

was not

its

own

photo-

to press for this after

until nearly the

was being readjusted

end of

after the im-

mediate threat of invasion was past, that the project was at agreed to by the Air Ministry. In

mand

A

started

up

its

Number

lies

mixture of failure and success, for

photographic assessment

Spitfires

—was

940 Bomber Com-

flat

its

It

Unit.

open country

R.A.F. Station Oakington; and

P.R.U. came into being.

3

1

own Photographic Reconnaissance

few miles from Cambridge, in the

edge of the fens, that

November

last

was fated

it

at the

was there

to a strange

primary aim—

^to

operate

independently for purposes of damage

abandoned within eight months; but

its

sec-

ondary job, the development of night reconnaissance by means of flash bombs, led unexpectedly to the evolution of a

new and

undreamed-of science: the detailed interpretation of the photographs taken by the night bombers themselves. of these night photographs,

It

was the evidence

more than any other

that eventually forced into view the desperate

single factor,

need for new

navigational methods.

The bombers leys

—had from

—Hampdens,

of the day the

first

Wellingtons, and Whit-

been provided with cameras, so that

they could bring back a record of where their

on

the daylight raids.

Then when ((91))

bombs went down

the British

bombers proved

AIR SPY defenseless against the onslaught of to night operations, the

enemy

camera experts

at

and turned

fighters,

Bomber Command and

at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough set them-

work out plans

selves to tionally.

for using flashlight techniques opera-

But the whole business was exceptionally

camera had

the explosion of the flash

supposed to go off at exactly the right

And from

the

during

new

1

unit at

bomb was

940 a few

aircraft

bomb, which was

moment on

a very

its

bomber

the viewpoint of the

handling of the flash theless,

The

be synchronized both with the dropping of the

to

bombs and with ground.

tricky.

awkward

way

to the

crews,

extra.

the

Never-

were equipped, and by the time

Oakington started some two hundred operational

night photographs had been taken.

The man who gave

the impetus to the experimental interpreta-

tion of night photographs

was Squadron Leader

P. B. B. Ogilvie,

an exuberant young Scotsman who had been put 3 P.R.U.; friends,

in

command

and the other leading pioneer was one of

my own

of

his close

brother Bernard.

Pat Ogilvie had for some time been a well-known figure at

Bomber Command, and everyone his

at the

enthusiasm for aerial photography,

and

his

and

just the

unconventional ways.

man

to lead the

headquarters

his

unit. It

was a job

heart; new, exciting, important, full of danger. lots of operational flying,

development work that needed doing so badly.

and could

still

a live wire after Pat's

He would

but he could also press on with

up the experiments he had been making

of

sudden brainwaves,

He was undoubtedly new

knew

He

all

get

the

could follow

in night reconnaissance,

keep in touch with Farnborough, working out

ideas for improving scale

and

quality.

«92))

THE START OF THE BOMBING But he needed the

good

up

pilots lined

coming from Bomber had

to find

someone

right people for his team.

to fly the Spitfires,

Command

the night cameras

and Eric Fuller was

as intelligence officer; but

to help with plotting the daylight sorties,

and analyze the

also to sort out

He had some

statics

—someone with an

he

and

on the performance of

instinct for

mathematics

and a trained mind. Bernard Babington-Smith was the

man he

wanted. Pat knew he had joined the Air Force and was just

finish-

ing his officers' training course.

Pat and

my

They were

brother had been friends for years.

both keen athletes, and had kept in touch although they struck out along very different lines at St.

Andrews

botanist

University,

—Bernard and Pat

as a teacher of psychology first

of

as a research

(when he became an expert photographer), and then

as a traveler in soap. Finally Pat joined the

and soon began

R.A.F. as a regular,

to specialize in photography.

On December at

all

1,

1940, Pilot Officer Babington-Smith arrived

Oakington. Pat had volunteered to try and find somewhere for

and the Fullers to

the Ogilvies, the Babington-Smiths,

live,

and

he went to a house agent in Cambridge and asked for twelve

bedrooms and a ghost, but there

ghost.

The agent

was a manor house

which he thought would do forces at

said he couldn't at

instead.

manage a

Coton with a water system

So the three families joined

Coton Manor, and each day Bernard and Pat and Eric

Fuller drove along the country lanes to Oakington; and each

day Bernard found himself drawn more deeply into the fascination of the strange

His work

new world at

first

damage assessment

of aerial photographs.

consisted almost entirely of plotting the

sorties,

and

in the process of this

((93))

he acquired

AIR SPY the habit of keeping simultaneously in

the

two questions

"What has he photographed?"

the pilot been?" and

"Where has

mind

But soon Pat had him working on night photographs It

had been arranged

as well.

for copies of all the operational night

photographs to be sent to Pat

Oakington, and there was quite

at

a stack of them piling up. Bernard had never set eyes on a night

photograph before, but as soon as Pat explained the idea interest

"The

was first

thing

is

to try

and the only proof of exactly.

The

stations

and

where the chap's been,

find out

this is if

you can

have been making

plot the photograph,

show

and

this

the

bomb

and

bursts,

if it

plot the photograph

their reports, but the

And

whole thing needs proper co-ordinating.

to

his

kindled.

was taken

then,

if

moment bombs fell,

you can report where

the

can be linked up with the damage assessment

the interpreters at

stage really, but

Bomber Command.

it's

you can

at the right

It's all

at

sorties

by

an experimental

pretty exciting."

So Bernard gradually learned how to work on both day and night photographs, and

by

little

little

the appearance of the

regions of northwest Europe, seen from far above, familiar to

him

as the roads

Coton. Later in the war,

became

as

and lanes between Oakington and

when he was head

of a large section

devoted to the interpretation of night photographs, he used to teach his people that the

way

to learn the face of the land.

the actual face

to

Not

become good just the

map

at plotting

of Europe, but

and features of the land: the polders

where the newer dikes have been the older ones tend to follow

in Holland,

laid out in regular patterns,

some natural

of the land; the curious narrow fields near ((94))

was

feature in the

Hamburg;

and lie

the irregular

THE START OF THE BOMBING fields

and woods near

Kiel,

pockmarked with pools and mounds;

the intense cultivation around Cologne; the patchwork quilt of Brittany. If

you keep on looking

at

more and more photographs

with an eye for this sort of thing, you will one day perhaps be

up a night photograph with a grayish blur of a

able to pick

crossroads, or a

wood and

a few

fields,

and

say, "That's

probably

near Bremen," or even, "That's near Bremen," before ever taking a look at a map. Such certainty as this can be attained in time after a flight

over, the facts are before you, recorded in photo-

is

graphic form. But

who

it is

an

entirely different matter for a navigator

has to try and identify landmarks in the dim moonlight far

below while the

superhumanly the

if,

same

flight is actually in progress.

alert

sort of answer;

steering a course

mind

is

"Where

"How are

means

far

Even

the

most

and conscientious navigator could never give

and indeed

his

prime responsibility of

that the subconscious question in his

have we got on our course?" rather than

we?" So

if

evasive action has had to be taken, or the

winds have been unexpectedly strong and the aircraft has got off

her course, the chances that a river, any river, or a town, any

town, will be mistaken for the river or town that "ought" to be there are very great indeed.

At

the end of 1940, the fact that there

was a high percentage

of serious discrepancies between the claims of the crews and the evidence of the night photographs

by anyone. But

all

had not

yet been realized

through the winter, as a steady trickle of

operational photographs kept arriving at Oakington, and Bernard

continued examining them and recording his findings

encouragement from Pat

When the statistics

—

—with keen

the hard facts began to emerge.

for three

whole months had been compiled,

((95))

AIR SPY a

summary

of

them was

sent to

Bomber Command.

showed

It

151 flashlight photographs that had been

that out of the

at-

tempted in three months by the bombers of Nos. 3 and 5 Groups,

And

not more than twenty-one showed the target area. case the crew had estimated

position as within

its

a certain pinpoint, when in fact

it

fifty

in

one

miles of

was a hundred miles further

east.

To

Pat and Bernard these facts and figures were heartrending

chiefly

because they seemed to show that

concerned with the wrong

issue.

Bomber Command was

The reason

the photographs were

being taken was to help with damage assessment, but their value

was much higher

in bringing to light errors of navigation.

The

crews were being asked to do the absolutely impossible; to navi-

from almost double the heights they had been

gate accurately

trained at; heights to which they were forced up fire,

and from which a momentary glimpse of a

below might

just as well

The urgency

it

was hardly

objective view.

began

to

to

winding far

be the Meuse as the Rhine.

During the spring of 1941,

the

would not be to light;

be expected that everyone would take

to

be known throughout Bomber

see

river

whole painful situation were brought

reacted in various ways. first

anti-aircraft

of the need to improve matters

realized unless the

but

by

The

this

as the stark facts

Command,

intelligence ofiicers

various people

who were

the

bombers' night photographs had to decide

whether to draw attention to not an easy decision.

Some

failures of navigation,

of the crews

who were

and

it

was

told of their

errors frankly disbelieved the photographs; while others took

them very Perhaps

seriously it is

and got worried and depressed.

hardly surprising that night photography was not ((96))

THE START OF THE BOMBING

men were

very popular with the crews. Although some of the

only too pleased to be able to check their results with a view to

doing better next time, others

enough

to do,

and enough

felt

had quite

strongly that they

without learning a lot

risks to take,

of extra drill (not to mention carting about a whacking great cylinder which might explode at the in a lot of extra forms,

and having

they ought to be weaving.

might

just as well

wrong moment), and

to fly straight

And what was

and

all in

it

when

level

aid of?

You

have a malicious snooper on board, to

tales to the intelligence ofiicers if everything hadn't

At higher

filling

gone

tell

right.

were some who could not bring

levels also there

who

themselves to face the facts, and others

faced them and

were deeply disturbed. At one group headquarters, the intelligence

found

officers

it

was best not

to say anything about the photo-

graphs which did not show the target area; and at another an officer

who passed

attack had missed across

it

seems

less

in red: "I

to his chief

its

an interpretation showing that an

mark found

do not accept

unreasonable

if it is

later

it

on

his

this report."

desk with scrawled

But such a reaction

regarded in the light of a long-

standing attitude toward photography within

Bomber Command.

Photographs were considered as a useful adjunct to bombing, but not a vital necessity.

The camera was regarded somewhat

as a motorist regards his mileage gauge. It's nice to

far you've been,

and sometimes very useful

do not expect your mileage gauge of having lost your

When

many

But you certainly

round and accuse you

way almost every time you've been

the photographs began to

natural that

to turn

too.

know how

of those

do precisely

whose work

it

this,

affected

it

out.

was very

jumped

to the

comforting conclusion that something must have been wrong ((97))

AIR SPY

with the camera or the photographs or the

man who

wrote the

report.

But within a matter of months, realized

more and more seriousness.

its

The Central Blue it

was

Sir

that at 5

his principal

navigational and

John

was

and groups, everyone with

Bomber Command was profoundly

responsibihty in

by

at the stations

as the true situation

Slessor has

Group during

stated

the

in

troubled his

summer

book

of 1941

preoccupation to find ways of improving

bombing accuracy; but he frankly admits

that

he knew nothing more than rumors of the experiments with navigational aids that were already beginning at the Telecom-

munications Research Establishment.

There was one man, however, who could view the whole of British scientific development, and

matters carried as

much

whose opinions on such

weight as those of the whole of the Air

Force put together. Professor Lindemann, in at Churchill's elbow,

field

had

for

his

some time been

unique position

seriously worried

about the accuracy of British bombing, and in the summer of

1941 Churchill asked him to make a thorough investigation. The Professor and his statisticians descended

on Bomber Command,

and rapidly gathered the facts they needed. It was a moment when the whole future of British bombing hung in the balance. The report which Lindemann submitted to Churchill summed up the evidence of the night photographs taken during the months of June and July 1941.

By

night cameras, but there were

and they were usually there

was no doubt

then

Bomber Command had more

still

not nearly enough to go round,

allotted to the

that things

most

efficient crews; so

were actually quite a

lot

worse

than could be proved by figures. But the figures were bad enough. ((98))

THE START OF THE BOMBING They showed

that only

one

which

aircraft in every four of those

reported they had attacked their target had got within five miles of

Churchill has recorded his views on the matter in The

it.

Second World War:

The done.

air It

photographs showed

how

knew this, and were so much hazard. Un-

also appeared that the crews

discouraged by the poor results of less

we

damage was being

Uttle

could improve on

this there

did not seem

much

use

in continuing night bombing.

Professor Lindemann's report went

Air

Staff,

on

to the Chief of the

Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, with a minute

from the Prime Minister: This

is

a very serious paper and seems to require your

most urgent

So

it

was

attention. I await

at these

photographs was

topmost

finally faced,

your proposals for action.

levels that the evidence of the

and

at these levels that the neces-

sary priority was given to developing the

—"Gee," "Oboe," and "H2S"

new

—which were

to

navigational aids

change the entire

outlook for British night bombing.

Meanwhile the

Spitfires

from Oakington had been pressing on

with their daylight reconnaissance.

was so much

faster than the

on the "D.A." be on the

sorties

alert for

would want

to

knew

Me

It

was well that the

109; for the pilots

that the

enemy

fighters

Spitfire

who went

would always

them. The Germans were fully aware that

check the

results of ((99))

out

we

—

an attack without delay

^if

AIR SPY

morning

possible the next

—and

naturally they were waiting to

revenge the hurt of the night before.

During the

months

six

many Coton Manor

of

was commanding 3

operational sorties himself, and often the

P.R.U., he flew tiles

that Pat Ogilvie

swooped joyously

rattled as Pat's Spitfire

over to announce his return; but he also

made time

to nip over

frequently to Farnborough, where his sturdy figure and explosive

—

known as at Bomber Command and The intricacies of the cameras were Pat's

laughter were as well also his practical jokes.

concern

just as

much

as the long cold flights; for the foremost

function of his unit was "to obtain photographs of

damage"; and the

targets at a scale suitable for the assessment of

crucial Pat's

word first

in this brief

was the word

"scale."

introduction to aerial cameras had been at the R.A.F.

School of Photography at Farnborough some years learned that, even

if

you

fly

graphs need not diminish

And

bombing

much if

you

earlier,

when he

higher, the scale of your photofit

a lens with a longer focus.

while at the school he visited the Photographic Division of

the Royal Aircraft Establishment, and there

met Harry

Stringer.

Since then they had kept closely in touch, and after Pat took

command

of 3 P.R.U. he often turned to Stringer for advice and

help. "I visits

was over

at

Bomber

again," Pat told Stringer

to Farnborough, "and

tions people say the

damage

it

you can answer

to that."

surreptitiously

same old

is

there

all right,

because the scale

preters can't see

"No; except

the

it's

'just

you

slipped

wait,' "

some

is

his

The Opera-

but that the inter-

so small. There's nothing

answered Stringer, as Pat

gunpowder

((100))

on one of

story.

into

the

ashtray.

THE START OF THE BOMBING

"When our

thirty-six inch lens

is

ready

they'll

have to think

again."

The

fact of the matter

was

that although, at this stage of the

war, the scale of most of the photographs was inadequate for

damage assessment,

bombs then being dropped were doing

damage. But that was not the point as

negligible his pilots

the

were concerned.

of the targets the

It

was

their job to try for

bombers had been

effectively with the

far as Pat

and

photographs

after, and this they did very

equipment that was then available.

Later on, in 1942, when the thirty-six-inch lenses came into use, there

was a great leap forward both

in "sharpness"

and

in

Then, on photographs taken from many miles up, one

scale.

could occasionally see the tiny dark specks that represented the

human

beings so far below.

obvious simile

—but more

They

didn't really look like ants

when

the

like grains of pepper, hardly noticeable

when

individually, but springing to the eye

instance,

—

in the mass:

for

a shift of workers was pouring out of the gates

of an aircraft factory. I sometimes used to think that photo-

graphic interpretation was a nice clean job, as even after the heaviest attacks,

and even with the

saw any blood. As new photograph

is

largest scale,

you never

interpreters are taught, a vertical air

not a picture but a precise mathematical docu-

ment. It

was a

fitting

climax to Pat Ogilvie's time with 3 P.R.U.

that he himself should get the

of Berlin; and as

if

it

first

reconnaissance photographs

was not enough

to secure this daylight

cover, he went off in a Wellington equipped with cameras for

night reconnaissance, and photographed the capital by flashlight.

That

first

cover of Berlin was achieved in a manner typical of ((101))

AIR SPY Pat, with

an incongruous mixture of

efl5ciency, skill,

carefree irresponsibility of a schoolboy

BerUn photographs were a great feather

Command, and But

on a bicycle

and the

ride.

The

cap of Bomber

in the

within two weeks Pat was awarded the D.S.O.

P.R.U. began

after reaching these heights, the fortunes of 3

to decline.

At

new

the Air Ministry

plans for reorganizing photographic

inteUigence were hatching out, and the question whether desirable for unit

Bomber Command

was raised once more.

chosen to take

May

command

And

to

have

at the

of the

its

own

it

was

reconnaissance

same time Pat Ogilvie was squadron of

first

Stir lings.

1941, the hfe and soul of 3 P.R.U. departed from

In

it.

Bernard continued steadily on with the research that he and Pat had started together, and by

this

time he was delving deeper

into the esoteric mysteries of night photographs.

Week by week

he was accumulating material for a report summarizing the principles of this specialized

new branch

order to help the station intelligence explain

which

all

of interpretation. In

officers,

he was going to

he had discovered about the various strange markings

find their

way onto

films

exposed

at night.

To

the untrained

eye some of those photographs look like nothing more than a chaotic

muddle

of

wavy white

lines

and streaks and splodges;

rather like the efforts of a three-year-old of chalks.

But Bernard has the

calculations depending

on

sort of

five

let

loose with a

mind which enjoys making

or six variables, and he could

translate the crazy-looking scrawls into precise facts.

explain to

me

that

any

fights

box

which showed

used to

in the darkness

the camera while the shutter was open appear ((102))

He

below

on the photo-

THE START OF THE BOMBING graphs as streaks, because the exposure was often as long as five

And

seconds.

the streaks

ment

—

in other

maneuvers

many

the

the fires flak,

unless the aircraft were flying straight

would naturally undulate according

it

to

and

move-

its

words they were an exact record of

had made. They were

level

all

also, of course,

a record of

go with an

air attack:

different kinds of hght that

and the bomb flames; and

also the tracer, the

heavy

and the searchlights of the defenses. But Bernard did not

confine his analysis to individual photographs: he soon interested in

became

working out the relationship between photographs

taken by several bombers on the same raid, allowing for the

and evasive actions of each, so

ferent headings

the progress of the

He was deep bank and

of

the

3 P.R.U.

fires

and timing, when

drift

was going

to close

in

tracks

fire

and

flak bursts,

June 1941 he heard that

down. For a time he stayed on

Oakington as a station intelligence

officer,

up a night photograph section

starting

as to calculate

on the ground.

such calculations of

in

dif-

at

but before long he was

at the central interpretation

unit.

Perhaps the experiment of an independent Bomber P.R.U. had to be tried out.

If

it

had never been

some people would always have claimed

that

Command

actually tried, it

might have

worked. But the principle "contract to expand" was steadily proving

itself,

and the time of contracting was almost

When

3 P.R.U.

moved

to Benson,

— ^

two years The

title

3

came it

later

to

an end,^ and

was an important

—

of

a

its

step

photographic

pilots

and

over.

Spitfires

toward the formation reconnaissance

wing,

P.R.U. was used again later when a Photographic Reconnais-

sance Unit was started in India.

((103))

AIR SPY

and

later

still

of an R.A.F. group entirely devoted to the needs

of photographic intelligence.

Early in 1941, not long after Peter Riddell had asked start

me

to

an aircraft section, the Photographic Interpretation Unit

moved from Wembley

home was

to a safer

and more pleasant

spot. Its

new

a large pseudo-Tudor mansion called Danesfield, a pre-

tentious edifice of whitish-gray stone, with castellated towers

and

fancy brick chimneys, which looks out southward from a magnificent site high

When given an

above the Thames between Marlow and Henley.

Danesfield became an air force station

and

official title,

menham,"

after the

little

it

the

first

Abbey

name "Medmenham"

—was

From

thought

it

in

Medmenham Some peo-

was rash of the Air Ministry

as Danesfield.

Command,

But during the years

then

—which

identified with photographic intelligence.

on such a big house of Coastal

be

had been linked with black magic because

headquarters of the "Hell Fire Club" was at

ple, at the time,

to

was named "R.A.F. Station Med-

riverside village nearby.

on, for the rest of the war, the the eighteenth century

had

it

to take

The Commander-in-Chief

in particular, felt

it

was much too

that followed, R.A.F. Station

large.

Medmenham

grew a crop of mammoth-sized huts which almost dwarfed the country mansion

At

itself.

this stage, in the

summer

of 1941, the control of photo-

graphic intelHgence was entrusted to the Air Intelligence,

Staff's

of

Air Vice-Marshal Charles Medhurst (who had him-

He looked round Medmenham on the

self

flown photographic sorties in the First War)

for

someone

lines

new Chief

to organize the expansion at

he wanted. Wing

Commander ((104))

.

Peter Stewart, an officer of

THE START OF THE BOMBING the Auxiliary Air Force,

had

just

made

a great success of organiz-

new War Room at the Air Ministry, and Medhurst chose him to head a new Assistant Directorate of Photographic Inteling a

A.D.I (Ph), as

ligence, or

came

to

Medmenham

Stewart's

commanding

as

move was

first

was usually

it

were that

still

some

had

officer.

to "militarize" the unit,

to get into uniform. In time

Wembley

of the leading spirits of the

Michael Spender and Peter Riddell, took Interpretation Unit, as

it

it

also

meant

regime, such as

their leave.

The Central

had been renamed, was entering a

The "kicking

period of somewhat severe growing pains. as Sidney

which meant

Company's personnel who

that for a start the Aircraft Operating civilians

called. Later Stewart

Cotton once called

it,

child,"

had reached the struggles of

adolescence.

At Medmenham Douglas Kendall was Phase

section,

in charge of the

which worked on day and night

shifts in

Danesfield's palatial halls. Outside the high west

a mass of

mauve

Second Phase.

wistaria,

German

it

well, as the

—where and bombers— was

Aircraft Section's fighters

first

one of

windows was

and the sweet heavy scent drifted

remember

I

Second

home

I

desk which was the

pondered

just

into

all

day over

near one of the win-

dows.

Kendall was

silent

something he had near the

over his stereoscope,

just found.

German town

He was

much

intrigued by

looking at some open

of Soest, which

lies just east

fields

of the Ruhr.

After a bit he got up, thought for a minute, glanced round the

room, and then went over to a desk where an interpreter called Geoffrey Dimbleby was bent low over some photographs. ((105))

Am

SPY you?" asked Kendall

"I expect you're frightfully busy, aren't tentatively.

me

to

and see

if

you want

"Well no, not

if

"Have a look

at this

do something

else."

you know what

it

said

is,"

Kendall, giving him a pair of photographs.

Dimbleby had a look, and saw the neat regular pattern of narrow German splodges of

with scattered over them the disfiguring

fields,

bomb

dozens and dozens of them

craters,

—perhaps

about a hundred.

"One to

of the

Ruhr

raids

gone wrong,

know," said Kendall, "but

isn't it?"

mean

He

pointed

"Yes,

I

some

strange objects, the size of foundations for three large

bams. They looked rather

I

like three gigantic

this.''

dominoes, laid close

together.

"What on "I tell

A

earth

.

.

you what I'm

fire site to

draw

?"

.

pretty sure

off the

like to try

Dimbleby rectangles

and

work

set to

had walls only

—and

roofs of any kind.

Then

looked

is

the

find out

said Kendall.

how

it

five feet

high

there were

"A

decoy.

been on the lookout

I've first

one

I've actually seen.

works?"

to analyze the giant dominoes.

from the shadows

stuff that

is,"

bombers.

for something like this; but this

Would you

it

The

three

—he could measure

gaps in the walls,

this

and no

within the enclosures were bundles of

like straw, set

up

at regular intervals. If the

straw were set ablaze there would be a mass of flame inside the rectangles,

and seen from a bomber

far

suggest a group of burning buildings.

decoy was received with some disfavor Really!

What would

the interpreters ((106))

above

The at

it

would strongly

report

on the Soest

Bomber Command.

come up with

next?

It

was

THE START OF THE BOMBING very well

all

fires

the crews were sharp enough to recognize decoy

if

and avoid them, but the

seemed

interpreters

to

spend their

whole time in cutting away the ground from under your They'd probably soon be proving that

aimed

all

feet.

the attacks had been

at decoys.

Dimbleby's report on Soest was, in

and soon he was running a plenty to keep

him busy,

already widespread, and as time

Decoy

specialist

many,

fact, the first of

Section.

There was

German decoy system was

for the

became more and more elaborate

it

went on.

Peter Stewart was well aware that "the photographs," of both the day

and night

varieties,

Command. One day

as

were a thorn

he drove from London

he racked his brains to think

how

to

Bomber

in the side of

make

to

High Wycombe

things less difficult.

After lunch in the Mess, he sat for a while in the anteroom, again searching for a

way to make

for better understanding.

idly

round the room, and then suddenly caught

had

just noticed that

Illustrated

He

glanced

his breath.

He

Air Vice-Marshal Saundby was deep in the

London News and

that all

round the room the picture

magazines and the illustrated papers were being looked

at,

while

most of the other papers were lying untouched. What photographic intelligence needed was promotion.

was flowing entation to

As soon

in every day; all that

make

it

The raw

was wanted was the

right pres-

really interesting.

as he got

back to the Air Ministry Stewart

planning a mock-up, and the

moment

it

really

do

this?" asked

Medhurst, enchanted.

((107))

started

was ready he hurried

Medhurst.

"Can we

material

to

AIR SPY "Yes,

sir,"

must have a

Stewart nodded emphatically, "we can. different cover

each week; not

And we

like those dreary

intelligence summaries that always look the same."

The mock-up went on back with

just

to the Chief of the Air Staff,

and came

two words of comment: "Excellent. Proceed."

Stewart proceeded at once, and his efforts brought into being an official picture

pilots

magazine called Evidence

maintain was

Camera, which many

in

the only official publication they ever looked

at.

There at

is

no doubt

that Evidence in

Bomber Command, but only on

of the war

own

it

special

was a

different story.

Camera helped

things a bit

the surface. In the later years

Then

Sir

album of enlargements and

Arthur Harris had

his

own

his

special stereo-

scopic viewers. But in the early years there was no real reconciliation

and

its

between Bomber Command, with agonizing

difficulties,

its

hopes and fears

and the merciless

the photographs.

((108))

revelations of

V The Sea War

F ROM the very

first

day of the war, when Sidney Cotton's distant

obliques of Wilhelmshaven proved so valuable, the importance

and

potentialities of

the Admiralty

through

1

more

photographic intelligence were realized clearly, perhaps,

940 "Ned" Denning and

tional Intelligence Center

interpretations

reports

came

than anywhere

else.

at

All

the other officers of the Opera-

to rely

more and more on

from Wembley, and they

began

to find that

effectively

checked by

also

from other sources could be very

the

means of photographic evidence.

At

first

the interpretation of ships

was mainly a matter of

measuring and identifying. But then early in 1941, as covers of the

German

shipyards gradually accumulated, there

came a new

development which immediately brought about quite a revolution in the

The

methods of estimating U-boat production. interpretation of shipyards

was the

special province of a

young man named David Brachi, one of the employees of the

Company and a disciple of Michael Spender's. new sortie was available, Brachi pounced on

Aircraft Operating

As soon

as each

((109))

AIR SPY the cover of the shipyards; and he learned,

methods and tempo of each individual yard. He

number

to

each new submarine

and then watched and noted cover.

By

as

soon as

its

its

tion, for its

most

startling

code

down,

had come set

to

sum-

a precedent

on shipbuilding became a

for the rest of the war: his reports also

laid

progress on each successive

marize his findings, and the report he produced

It

was

the

little,

allotted a

keel

the end of February 1941, the time

regular institution.

by

little

marked a new departure

in interpreta-

news was a forecast of future U-boat

production.

One day

shortly before the

move

to

Medmenham,

late in the

afternoon, most of the tables in the Second Phase

Wembley were The night-shift the desk where

clear, as the day's sorties

interpreters

had not

room

at

yet arrived.

were not due for another hour. But

David Brachi was working was weighed down

with stacks of box

files

and book-shaped cardboard boxes

full

of photographs.

In a clearing so

among

the photographs Brachi's head

low that he might have been hoping

out of the pictures with his nose.

and reached

for his

He

to

was bent

burrow the information

set aside his stereoscope

measuring magnifier

—

instrument something like a jeweler's glass

a small precision (it

was actually

intended for counting the threads of textiles to check the regularity of the weave,

curacy).

He

which gives an idea of

placed

it

on one of the

its

magnification and ac-

prints, and,

under the

crystal-

clear lens, the metal scale calibrated in tenths of millimeters rested

upon

the image of something that looked like a slim gray splinter,

with a darker gray knob jutting up halfway along ((110))

it.

That

THE SEA WAR was

"splinter"

newly launched five-hundred-ton sub-

in fact a

marine which was being

fitted

out and would soon be fighting in

the waters of the Atlantic.

down

Brachi penciled

a figure and took up his slide rule; then

handed the photograph and the magnifier

who was working "See what you

young W.A.A.F.

at the other side of the big desk.

make

her,

Assistant Section Officer assistant

to a

Bunny," he

said.

"Bunny" Grierson,

his indispensable

and partner, was responsible for checking every measure-

ment and conversion, so

in this

way no

was made

interpretation

without a double check.

"Two hundred

fifteen feet," said

"Bunny"

few moments.

in a

"Yes," said Brachi. "So they're right up to time, and she

ought to be ready for

trials

by mid-May." He had been watching

the progress of this particular submarine

previous summer.

German

By

this

slips since

time Brachi had watched

month

shipyards from

on the

500-ton U-boats were usually

to

many

month and knew

off the slips in eight

the

of the

that the

months. Fitting

out took another two or three. So as soon as a keel was laid

down, he could add a finished submarine to the production estimate for eleven months ahead.

He

sat

back for a minute, took

and gave them a rub with

off his

horn-rimmed

his handkerchief.

a pity Spender's always away on First Phase now," he

"It's

said thoughtfully. "I'd have liked to go over these

him before do

glasses,

that

I

work out

tomorrow."

He

new

covers with

the final production estimate.

crouched down again over

We

must

his photo-

graphs, and was immediately lost in contemplation of the Ger-

mania

slips at Kiel.

((Ill))

AIR SPY "I think

Next day he sought out Peter Riddell. see our figures for Httle smile.

"The

totals are just ready." Riddell

and then sprang

must get Denning

at once."

Admiralty, was sent "I'd like

you

to

he said to Brachi.

down

Brachi's dark

shipbuilding at the

"Paduoc House."

to

me how you have made your "How can you possibly tell from

tell

what launchings to expect little

stereo pairs ready.

yard

is

deductions,"

photographs

months ahead?"

six

eyes twinkled.

some

"I

John Godwin, R.M., who

German

for the study of

went over the

to his feet, exclaiming,

the following afternoon. Captain

was responsible

to

U-boat production," he said with a secretive

figures with him,

On

you ought

Here

first

"I'll

of

a keel that's just been laid

show you, the

all at

down

sir.

I've got

Blohm and Voss

for a five-hundred-

tonner."

Godwin had never used

a stereoscope before, and at

first all

he could see was a confusing double image. Brachi checked the position of the prints.

"Now

U-boat keel with a pencil. "Yes,

I

can see the

He

try again, sir."

"Oh

yes, I've got

keel. Let's

it

pointed to the

now," said Godwin.

have some more."

Brachi put another pair of photographs in position. "This the hull

same keel when the were

And now on,

keel

just

sections of the midships portion of the

going to be put into position. There's the crane.

here's another yard,

Deschimag

at

Bremen," he went

"and these photographs were taken a month

was

finished,

laid

"Now

after a

new

down. The midships part of the hull has been

and the camouflage

"I see," said

is

Godwin. "Yes,

'cradle' I

do

is

being put up over

it."

see."

here, sir," Brachi continued, "is a later cover of the ((112))

THE SEA WAR same submarine, and the aft.

'cradle'

That's because the hull has

so they've

had

has been extended fore and

been extended to

to lengthen the 'cradle' to screen

it.

its full

are so methodical about their camouflage that once

know

to

their

flage itself."

and

set

them

methods you can

tell

quite a lot

length,

The Germans you

get

from the camou-

Brachi produced yet another pair of photographs

"And now

in place.

after the laying of the keel,

this

a cover taken six months

is

and you see what's happening."

"They've taken away some of the camouflage," said Godwin. "Yes, they've had to remove some of the 'cradle' so as to finish

work on whole

"And As you

the conning tower," Brachi explained.

before yesterday these photographs 'cradle'

came

in.

has been removed, so that means

she'll

the day see the

be launched

any moment now."

By

the

end of the afternoon Godwin was more than convinced:

he was carried away. But he hardly dared to think what the

mean

photographic evidence was going to shipping losses.

As he

in terms of Allied

got up to go he took a last look at Brachi's

calculations.

"There's no doubt then. If

been covered, we can

we allow

definitely expect a

U-boats four months from now. Ten twenty in July.

Back

at

My

for the yards that haven't

doubled production of

this

month, and

at least

God!"

the Admiralty,

Godwin prepared an urgent new

appreciation of the U-boat production program, based almost entirely

on Brachi's

figures.

It

was

at

once submitted to Ad-

miral Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence. Next day Sir

Dudley Pound raised the matter

of Staff, and from there the

at a

meeting of the Chiefs

new production ((113))

estimate went on to

AIR SPY

was very

the Prime Minister. It

shortly after this,

on March

6,

1941, that the "Battle of the Atlantic" directive was written.

The

of Britain were threatened not only by the

lifelines

U-boats, but by the capital ships of the class cruisers, the

German

pocket battleships, the

Fleet: the Hippercruisers

sister battle

Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the newly completed battleship

Bismarck. The Tirpitz,

last

named

of these, and, at a later date, the

were the most powerful warships

in the world. If

any

of these ships got loose in the Atlantic they could massacre the

big Allied convoys; and from the end of 1940 onward

it

was

a major responsibility of P.R.U. to co-operate with Naval Intelligence in watching them.

This was the main reason

Eval and Wick.

and the Biscay

From

ports;

St.

why

Flights

Eval the

had been sent

Spitfires

and from the remote

coast ready to spot any

German

ships that

airfield

down

of Caithness they could range up and

cliffs

to St.

could cover Brest

on the bare

the

Norwegian

were creeping toward

the open seas. It

was

after the Flights

had been operating for a few months

from these two bases that Michael Spender First

started agitating for

Phase interpreters to be sent to join them. Immediate news

ought to be reported on the spot. So a few interpreters

set off

from Wembley, and one of them was David Linton, who arrived at St.

an

Eval on

New

Year's

Day 1941,

after only

two months as

interpreter.

That winter was an exceptionally cold one: Cornwall was deep in snow, and the sea spray froze in

icicles

on the

cliffs.

In

Brittany the landscape was snow-covered too, and the photo((114))

1.

2.

Fred Winterbotham. (Photo lent by Group Captain F. W. Winterbotham)

Cotton and the (Photo lent by F. S. Cotton)

Sidney

Lockheed

in 1939.

the Australian who in unofficial partnership secured aerial photographs of enemy war preparations just before World War II.

The Englishman and

3.

Shorty Longbottom. (Photo lent by H. C.

Macphail)

Sidney Cotton adjusts Longbottom's parachute before takeoff on one of the first Spitfire sorties. (Photo lent by Group Captain S. G. Wise) 4.

).

^w-

$ i

i'^-^

The

great oil fires at

May 27, 1940, photographed by Flying Officer Wise. (Crown Copyright)

Dunkirk on Bill

6.

Wing Cammander Geoffrey 1940. (Photo lent by

7.

J.

Tuttle in

H. Weaver)

Squadron Leader Peter Riddell and the author in the R.A.F. documentary Target for Tonight. (By courtesy of the Imperial War Museum)

British photographic reconnaissance

Geoffrey Tuttle, while

fil

was put onto a regular R.A.F. footing und

Peter Riddell

took the lead in

interpretation.

organizing

photograph

8.

Sidney Cotton with Air Marshal

Sir

Arthur Barratt

at his

French

headquarters in 1940. (Photo lent bv F. S. Cotton)

The German advance on Paris. Streams of tanks and other vehicles jam the roads .outhward to Paris in June 1940. Many have cut across the fields, leaving glaring track marks. CCrown CoDvrisht) ).

10. Michael Spender: piom photographic interpreter. (Ph(

lent

by

J.

H. Weaver)

Autobahn junction. (Crown Copyright)

12.

13.

Oil

storage tanks under construction.

(Crown

Copyright)

Problem pictures for the photographic

interpreter.

1-i.

Bernard Babington-Smith: interpreter ot night photographs. (Courtesy Air Ministn,')

Pat Ogilvie: pioneer of night photography. (Crown Copyright)

15.

16. \Miat flak looks like.

Night photograph taken from an R.A.F. bomber over Brest. (Crown Copyright)

17. Ann McKnight-Kauffer. (Photograph by Cecil Beaton. Reproduced by courtesy of. Vogue)

18.

Sarah

OHver,

daughter

of

Winston

19.

Churchill. (Courtesy Air Ministry)

Three photographic interpreters:

officers in the

Eve Holiday. (Photo

lent

by

Dr. Ensor Holiday)

Women's

Auxiliary Air Force.

Michael Suckling: the pilot who found the Bismarck. (Photo lent by R.A.F. Station Wyton) 20.

21. After a sortie:

Gordon Hughes and

intelligence officer

lent by Q. C. Craig)

Edward Hornby (Photo

22.

The

23.

The most remarkable photograph ever taken over

Hipper

Aas Fiord, photographed by Flight Lieutenant A. Fane on March 28, 1942. (Crown Copyright)

Tirpitz in

in

Brest:

dry dock. This picture was taken by Pilot Officer January 26, 1941. (Crown Copyright)

J.

the

P. F.

Admiral

D. Chandler on

i

24.

With the advent of the Mosquito, many graphed for the

first

time. (Photo lent

distant objectives could be photo-

by R.A.F. Station Wyton)

I

25. Alistair Taylor,

the

first

quitoes.

who commande

unit of photographic

(Photo

lent

Weaver)

by

Mo! t

J.

Adrian Warburton: British photo-

26.

graphic ace.

(Crown Copyright)

Warburton had to crash-land this aircraft, but twenty minutes after he escaped from it he was taking off in another plane. (Photo lent by Col. John R. Hoover)

27.

28. The speed of a ship can be calculated by means of a formula based on the scientifij theory of wave patterns. These German R-boats were minesweeping at about eleve knots. (Crown Copyright) j ;

29.

Lieutenant

tain)

Robert

S.

Commander (now CapQuackenbush,

(U.S.

30.

Jr.,

U.S.N.

Navy)

Major (now Colonel) Harvey C. Brown,

Jr.,

U.S.A.F. (U.S.

Air Force)

The two Americans who

visited

Medmenham

as observers in 1941

leaders in U.S. photographic intelligence.

and soon became

Colonel Elliott Roosevelt and General Eisenat the headquarters of the Allied photographic reconnaissance wing at La Marsa, Tunis, in July 1943. (U.S. Air Force) 31.

hower

La Marsa on November 20, 1943. On left: Colonel Wing Commander Eric Fuller. (U.S. Air Force)

32. President Roosevelt at Elliott

Roosevelt and

33.

34.

The Lightning was

the standard U.S. photographic plane throughout the war. (U.S. Air Force)

North African landing ground plowed up to prevent its use by advancing Allied Air Forces. (Crown Copyright)

most outstanding American photographic reconnaissance pilot of World War II. (U.S. Air Force)

35. Karl Polifka:

^J^ «6.

Colonel Leon

W. Grav and

his

flak-damaged Lightning

(U.S. Air Force)

at

an Italian base.

37.

Tony

Bruneval lent

38,

Claude Wavell,

specialist interpreter of

Air Ministry)

enemy

radar.

Hill,

who

photograph.

by

J.

took the (Photo

H. Weaver)

(Courtesy

39.

A

classic

picture

assembly factory

at

of successful precision bombing: the Focke-Wulf fighter after the U.S.A.F. attack on October 9. 1943.

Marienburg

(Crown Copyright)

Major James G. Hall, W'crld War I veteran pilot, who commanded U.S. British-based photographic reconnaissance in 1943. (U.S. Air Force)

40.

photograph on which V-2 rockets were first seen (A). At (B) and recording equipment for rocket tests. General Dornberger identifies this "test stand" as the one from which the first successful launching of a V-2 took place. (Crown Copyright) 41. Peenemiinde: the

are tv/o special rocket vehicles. Buildings contain control

42. Wing Commander H. Hamsha^ Thomas, photographic interpreter in hot World Wars, who directed the early stage of the V- weapon investigation. (Photo b Ramsey & Muspratt Ltd., Cambridge

Wing Commander Douglas Kendall, expert photo interpreter. From mid1943 onward he co-ordinated the work on V-weapons at Allied interpretation unit at Medmenham. (Courtesy Air Ministry)

43.

V3

o *s

t3

toc "^^ 1

1 _C ^^ ^ CP a 43

ax)

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1

PL,

45.

John

Merifield.

(De

Havilland

Aircraft Co.)

46.

The author examining aerial photographs with (Ann Rosener from Pix)

a stereoscope.

47.

One

of the modified sites from which V-l's were eventually launched against this site at Vignacourt the ramp was hidden in an orchard (A) and the

London. At

"square building" (B) was close to the village. (Crown Copyright)

48. to

The "ski site" at Bois Carre near Yvrench: the first V-1 launching site in France be analyzed on photographs. The ski-shaped building was meant for storage of flying-bomb components. (U.S. Air Force)

A V-2 launching site that was never used. The elaborate concrete structure built by the Germans at the edge of a quarry at Wizernes, after it was attacked by the R.A.F. using 12,000-lb. bombs. (Crown Copyright)

49.

o o

^

c:


o

(/3

X5

o ftJQ

C

"^

51. British gliders after Allied airborne landings near Caen.

damaged

as

it

would appear:

in

The gUders

are not

most cases the rear portion of the fuselage has been

detached to speed unloading. (Crown Copyright)

D-

O

U c

o

o 03

O o a.

53.

Frenchman waves

to Allied reconnaissance plane.

(Crown Copyright)

il

THE SEA WAR graphs were consequently

by the snow blurred his

second day at

ington, a

a

difficult to interpret as

the outlines and distorted the shapes.

all

On

Eval, Linton joined Flying Officer Wig-

St.

more experienced

new cover

the light reflected

examining

interpreter than himself, in

of Brest. Wigington

was so much preoccupied with

searching for U-boats, however, that he was not very interested

when Linton

told

him he had found "something big"

the dry docks. Linton's find was his first thought was, "I

that size her

must

name must be

more than 650

find out

in the book."

showing the "boat" to Wigington vessel

was hard

what

to distinguish

this

in

one of

feet long,

boat

is.

But he could not

at once.

and

If she's

The shape

resist

of the

because of patches of snow on the

deck and superstructure, and when Wigington dismissed

it

casually as "probably a merchant vessel," Linton accepted his

judgment. But

when

the photographs reached

Spender nearly jumped out of

phone

Denning

to tell

his skin,

that the

Wembley, Michael

and dashed to the

tele-

Admiral Hipper had arrived

at

Brest.

Toward

the end of January 1941, Spender

came down

to St.

Eval and told them that the Admiralty was worried about

Norway. The

station intelligence officers at

their best at First

Wick had been doing

Phase reporting, but trained interpreters were

badly needed. ''You'd better go to Wick," said Spender to Wigington, in his

imperious voice.

"Oh

no,

you

can't

ington, a short square

do that little

to

me, Michael," protested Wig-

man

with a dark mustache, whose

heart was not really in interpretation

"With

my

wife living in the south." ((115))

—he longed

to

be a

pilot.

AIR SPY

Spender sighed impatiently and turned to Linton. "Would

you

like to

go?"

Linton's face

lit

up. "Yes,

I

And

would.

tny wife

in

Edin-

First

Phase

is

burgh."

At Wick, David Linton

up a most successful

built

section, together with Assistant Section Officer

W.A.A.F. who had known oral

exam

the answers

all

Eve Holiday,

on shipping

the

in the

at Wembley. Linton's prewar experience as a geog-

rapher had given him a fund of knowledge about Scandinavia and also about meteorology,

and he could

brief the pilots with real

authority; while Eve, in her cheerful easygoing way, took a special interest in caring for their needs,

tea ready

when

and always had a hot cup of

a pilot returned cold

and exhausted

after

hours

of solitar\' flying. It

was from Wick on

famous

21, 1941, that one of the most

of all the early photographic sorties took place: the flight

from which electrifying

Pilot Officer

news

Atlantic for the

On

May

that

Michael Suckling came back with the

that the

first

Bismarck

w^as

on her way out

to the

time.

Wednesday morning an urgent phone

say that the Admiralty had news of

"German

call

came

to

ships" steaming

northward in the Kattegat the day before. So "the ships" (no hints

were dropped

somewhere

off the

as to

what ships they might be) must be

Norwegian

coast,

and within P.R.U. range.

P.R.U. must find them.

Two

Spitfires

were ready

to fly

could be

made

ready; and the two pilots

them were Flying

Officer Greenhill, an experi-

enced D.F.C., and Michael Suckling, also an experienced but with such youthful looks

—

fair hair

((116))

who

and blue

pilot,

eyes, invisible

— THE SEA WAR eyebrows, and a pink and white face

—

that inevitably he

was

nicknamed "Babe." Linton and Greenhill discussed the probabilities and agreed

on a plan. Greenhill was to cover the coastline toward Oslo, because ling,

it

seemed most

likely that the ships

might be there. Suck-

who was junior to Greenhill, was given the less responsible job Bergen

of photographing the

As soon

were brought to readiness Suckling

as the aircraft

took

off, at five

half

an hour

area.

minutes past eleven, and Greenhill followed just

later.

Both

refueled at Sumburgh, which

pilots

gave them an extra half hour's range, and then

set

course for

Norway. Linton and Eve Holiday lunched as usual in the Officers' Mess, and then Eve went back to the interpretation section the to

main downstairs room P.R.U.

—

this

in a

house that had been given over

strange lodger unit that was a law to

Neither of the pilots was due back

went to write some

letters in the

Michael Suckling in

till

late afternoon, so

anteroom

his Spitfire

was

at the

itself.

Linton

Mess.

flying high

above the

Norwegian coast toward Bergen from Sogne Fiord, where he had made

landfall.

Every minute or two he tipped over to port

so as to cast a long look over the unending dark pattern of

rocks and islands and inlets

—

or rather over the gray-blue water

between them. Linton had marked on anchorages, but

He

it

was quite hard

reached Herdla, the

to pick

German

of his secondary targets, and turned

on southward, and

as

his

map them

fighter base,

on

his

the most likely out.

which was one

cameras

briefly.

Then

he was approaching Bergen from the west ((117))

— AIR SPY

He

he suddenly caught sight of them.

an ahnost

bank

vertical

one

model of a Norwegian

A

ship, but two, three, four, five, six!

a cruiser

—and a

destroyer,

back

frantically skidded

Spitfire into

he could see clearly, far far below

till

like tiny toy ships in a tiny

threw the

fiord

big one

—

—not

straight

and

level

and

must be

it

and four stubby merchant

just

ships.

He

on

his

flicked

cameras.

Good! That was and then home.

that.

Next he had

He made

his

to

photograph Bergen

itself,

run over the town, and was turning

westward when he was surprised

to see yet

more

anchored

ships,

in the fiord five miles south of Bergen. It looked like another cruiser as

and four more merchantmen. Suckling banked

he reached them to make sure of

his position,

and then pulled

Then he

the Spitfire back to take his photographs.

right over

course for

set

home.

He had found

the ships

and photographed them,

his other targets, but that, of course, it

was not complete

And was

until

was only part of

he was safely

home

one and only navigational

getting

home

to

aid,

Wick from Norway.

his task;

with his pictures.

for a solitary pilot in a single-engined plane, his

as well as

whose compass

it

was not

If

you met unexpected

all

that easy

upper winds and your navigation went wrong over the gray stretches of the

cloud

—

if

North Sea or when you were high over soHd

you missed the Shetlands

—you might go on and on

over wide-open sea until your fuel gave out and you went into the Atlantic.

Only a few weeks before, one P.R.U.

down

pilot

had

erred too far in the opposite direction, and after attempting a sortie to

Trondheim had landed

on Lindisfarne! So you had

to

off the

Northumberland

keep your wits about you.

((118))

coast,

THE SEA WAR Eve Holiday was

Just after two-thirty Spitfire circling

surprised to hear a

overhead, and she bustled out to the

little

Standard

van which she and Linton used for getting about the and speeded over to the dispersal

point. Suckling

airfield,

was back early

because his search had met with such early success, and as he

chmbed out

Two

them!

of the cockpit he broke the great news: "I've seen

of them!"

The waiting airmen had already taken and were

the cameras

the magazines out of

photographic section.

off to the

"Where's David?" asked Suckling. "I must

tell

him about

the

ships."

A

few minutes

later

Linton heard the door at the other end

of the long anteroom being opened softly,

who

it

and he turned

to see

was. Suckling's beaming face was sticking round the big

door, and Linton

knew

at

once he had found the

ships,

even

before the words were spoken: "I've found them."

"Come on

in," said Linton, crossing the

"I can't," Suckling

shook

his head,

"Babe" always took things very

"I'm

seriously,

room. still

in

my

flying kit."

and would not

trans-

gress the rules of the Mess.

"Two

of them," he went on, "and I think they're cruisers, or

one might be a battleship." It

was indeed a

The

battleship.

battleship.

And

the chase that

when the Bismarck went to among the best known and most

followed, the epic chase that ended the

bottom

six

days

later, is

exciting stories of the war.

Suckling's flight brought

name

will live

because of

the serious baby-faced

fame and glory

it.

to P.R.U.,

But two months

young man took ((119))

off

and

his

later to the day,

on another photo-

AIR SPY graphic sortie, this time from

St.

The

Rochelle, and he did not return.

over the Nonvegian fiord on that followed

May

but they do not

it;

Eval to get pictures of La histories tell of the flight

21, and of the great events tell

of the Nottinghamshire

home which on

July 21

received the dreaded telegram, and

mourned

who had

so briefly

the son

Suckling's

soon

visual

report was

Linton could get

as

at the

been a hero.

sent

out immediately,

but as

photographs he followed

it

up

with a teleprinter signal, definitely identif}^ing the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen. that

when

He

also

added the important piece of news

the photographs were taken the warships

were not

protected from torpedo attack by booms, which strongly suggested that they were about to move.

That very day Captain Cla\ton, who was

in charge

of the

Admiraltv's Operational Intelligence Center, was visiting David Brachi's section at

Medmenham

for the

first

time.

He was

of course, very familiar with Brachi's reports, but he

before actually seen for himself

He

how

interpretation

already,

had never was done.

spent the whole afternoon with Brachi. looking and listening

with growing fascination.

way he was attempting

He was

particularly interested in the

to read the enemy's

mind: interpreting

motive by piecing together both positive and negative evidence after the "\\'e

manner

of

must keep

Next morning

at

an archaeologist.

in touch,"

he said as he

left.

eleven o'clock Brachi's telephone rang. "Clay-

ton here." "Yes,

sir."

"You know

the photographs

Fm

<(120))

interested in?" 1

THE SEA WAR "Yes,

sir."

want you

"I

to look at

me what we want Or

know.

to

a seaborne raid?

is it

merchant

"How

vessels

them Is

Or

at once,

if

you can

tell

are they just escorting a convoy of

up the Norwegian coast?"

long can you give me, sir?"

"I've got to

Brachi tore

know down

Duty Interpretation

before twelve-thirty."

Second Phase and advanced upon the

to

Officer, his

head

charge, and a dark worried frown

was able

and see

she going raiding in the Atlantic?

down

slightly

on

as

though to

his face. Fortunately

borrow the precious Bergen photographs and

to

he

retreat

unmolested.

At

twelve-thirty he

must be going raiding,

"Why? What's "I've

worked

was on the telephone

the evidence?" it

out by a process of elimination,

Brachi. "They can't be going of the ships with

to Clayton. "She

sir."

on a seaborne

them are troopships or

raid,

sir,"

said

because none

assault vessels.

But the

fact that there's a tanker in the fiord suggests refueling for a long trip.

When

I've seen other

naval units preparing for trips up the

Norwegian coast they've never been fueled by This

is

something out of the ordinary

"Good enough,"

said Clayton with

strongly suspected she

was

dence of yours confirms

How been

to

off

a household

all right."

warm

on a raiding

in

sortie,

man named

the circumstances in which his

word

appreciation.

and

"We'd

this evi-

it."

surprised the Celtic holy

know

special tanker.

Eval would have

name was

to

become

photographic intelligence a thousand years ((121))

AIR SPY after his death. In

once been

was

of

St.

1941,

Eval's

busy R.A.F.

at the

home ground,

supreme importance.

It

airfield

which had

the reconnaissance of Brest

was "Brest or

bust," as the P.R.U.

pilots used to say.

The Admiral Hipper but in

brief,

March

stay at the beginning of the year

s

the Scharnhorst

and Gneisenau arrived

and for almost a whole year,

a foray in the Atlantic,

was after

until their

escape up the Channel, they were the most often photographed,

and often bombed,

Nazi Europe. Also the most

target in

fero-

ciously defended: seven P.R.U. pilots lost their lives as the price for the unceasing

At

the

end of

watch from

May

St.

Eval.

1941, after the Bismarck went down, a

whole week passed and the Eugen had

Where would

On

tained the crucial answer. of the Prinz

Eugen

At

fast

superb efficiency as a

and

original ideas,

St.

and

June 4 he brought back pictures

becoming well known

pilot,

and also for

in

honest}-

whimsical ways

and out of the Interpretation Section.

hungT}' for the facts the interpreters the prints again

his

in P.R.U. for

for his great interest in his photographs.

Eval he was always

there was so

not been located.

Gordon Hughes ob-

at Brest.

Gordon Hughes was his

still

she turn up? Flying Officer

had found, and gazing

at

and again. In the early days of the war, w^hen

much

uncertainty about the claims

by bomber and

fighter pilots, the pilots of

the consolation of bringing

back

made

in all

P.R.U. had

self-evident proof of

what they

had done.

Ann McKnight-KauSer was Eval

at this time,

one of the two interpreters

and one day when Gordon Hughes came ((122))

at St.

in to

THE SEA WAR latest Brest pictures,

look at his

she had just finished working on

them.

new

"They're starting on some

Gordon looked pencil.

at the prints that

"And more

Ann.

flak positions here," said

Ann had marked

in

chinagraph

Lanveoc Poulmic," she went on,

fighters at

and then added impulsively, "Do you ever wish you had guns

Gordon?"

yourself,

Gordon Hughes

straightened himself

up and looked

at

Ann

with great earnestness.

"Oh

Neverl Don't you understand? That's the whole

nol

thing about P.R.

where you

and your

.

aren't .

.

much more

flowers breaks

down it.

may

if

I

mean

down your

flowers,

and

slips

you

see,

to pinch your

smashes the fence, and tramples

certainly don't let

slips into

don't

someone who wants

gate,

you

And

flying

on when

the will to keep

to death.

war

of a different

and your

they're your planning

effective too. If

someone

some

feel

You have weapons

kill.

—

perseverance.

half your garden,

But

picks

guns

wrong and you're frozen

things go it's

the only sort of front line job in this

aren't asked to

which

sort,

It's

him

get

away with

your garden before you know

away again

annoyed but you probably

let

quietly

him

it,

and quickly, you

go."

All through the autumn and winter of 1941 the vigil over Brest

was maintained, and during the time the

battle cruisers

were there they were the objective of more than seven hundred photographic

came

sorties.

But on February

that they were well

Britain

knew

up

12, 1942,

when

the news

the Channel before anyone in

they were on the move, ((123))

it

was a shock

to everyone

AIR SPY

photographic intelligence, as

in

it

was

whole country.

to the

Not, however, because the breakout was unexpected.

During the graphed

last

days of January

many new

were photo-

arrivals

destroyers, torpedo boats, minesweepers;

at Brest:

the fighter bases along the

Me

109s. Sortie after sortie

and

also the Prinz

Channel coast began

showed

to bristle with

that both the battle cruisers

Eugen were nearly ready

The Admiralty was already

and

to

move.

what was

well aware

in the wind.

Their other intelligence sources had alerted them, and the photographs provided confirmation. At the Operational Intelligence Center,

"Ned" Denning prepared an appreciation making a

confident forecast that there would soon be an attempt to get

back

the ships

to

Germany by way

Then on Sunday, February

8,

of the Channel.

two

pilots

from

Eval took

St.

photographs of Brest which showed that preparations were extremely advanced. The Scharnhorst was "emitting

and the Gneisenau was

at

moorings

off

much smoke,"

Two more

Lanveoc.

destroyers had arrived and the minesweepers had gone

At

to

Command, the Commanderintelligence staff. By this time Bow-

the headquarters of Coastal

in-Chief conferred with his hill

off.

had been succeeded by Air Chief Marshal

whom

Sir Philip Joubert.

photographic intelligence was no newfangled idea, as

he had been closely concerned with

it

in the

First

War. The

evidence of the photographs of Brest, along with the Admiraltyappreciation, led 9, to his

On single

day

him

to send out an urgent warning,

own groups and

also to the other

the following day the weather

on Februar}'

commands.

was shocking, and not

a

photograph of Brest could be secured. But on the Wednes-

—February —two 1 1

Spitfires

were successful. At four o'clock

((124))

THE SEA WAR that afternoon both battle cruisers

were

still

But before

there.

midnight they were on their way toward the Channel.

Next morning when Douglas Kendall came Second Phase room away,"

at first

"Whatever

Medmenham and

at

into

the long

"They've got

said,

no one believed him.

will they

do with themselves

at St.

Eval now,"

exclaimed one of the interpreters, "without Salmon and Gluckstein!"

was

It

last

as

though a tooth which had long been aching had

at

been drawn. The ache had gone, but instead there was a

great

yawning void.

Ever since the beginning of the war, the photographic

had been

flying the

much

loved

pilots

Spitfire, in successive versions

with steadily increasing range; but there were

still

many

im-

portant areas that were out of reach: East Prussia, southeast

Germany, Czechoslovakia. So

it

had been a great day when Geof-

frey de Havilland himself flew the R.A.F.'s

Benson

—

exciting It

bomber and

new horizons began

was decided

from Wick, and

Mosquito over to

1941. The shapely twin-engined airplane had

in July

the range of a

first

that the

the performance of a fighter,

open up.

to

first flight

Alistair Taylor

and

of Mosquitoes should operate

was chosen to lead

it.

Taylor would have been an outstanding figure in whatever he chose to do

—but

in photographic reconnaissance

exceptional heights.

war

to

He was

in fact the

be awarded two bars to

his

first

he attained

pilot in the

whole

D.F.C. "You could hardly

see the ribbon for stars," as one of his pilots said with awe.

But the combination of amazing ((125))

skill

and singlemindedness

Am which earned him tall,

lean,

SPY

his decorations

were only a beginning. The

young man with a high forehead and remarkable

ing eyes had the arrogance of youth and few familiar

pierc-

friends, but

he had vision and certainn." and a quahty which was something

more than

"drive." for

what

he thought was needed for P.R.U. effort

that goes into

wanted

Alistair Taylor

to

—he did without

most people's

'drive.*'

—what

do

the seeming

This was largely

because of the effect he had on the people round him. Apart from a

few

who

upon him

reacted violently as

away from "God"' Taylor, and looked

inhuman, those who came within

his

aura worshiped

him, and gladly slaved to meet his demands.

Wick

In October 1941 Taylor and the Mosquitoes arrived at

and the Flight began

to

tr}* its

Each

wings.

aircraft

was named

after a different variety" of strong drink: \\Tiiskey, Benedictine,

\'odka. Later there were also Drambuie. Cointreau, and

de Menthe. At

first

some

soon got used to

it.

and

it

ver\' strange to

them where

to go. but they

of the pilots

have a navigator with them also

telling

found out what tremendous advan-

tages there are in having a crew of two. really familiar with the

Mosquito got

Before the Flight had been long

came

clear that a

The

to love at

pilots it

Medmenham. and

in

Wick, however,

in sending the

bad weather

it

who became

wholeheartedly.

more convenient base would have

There was an imduly long time lag to

found

were being used

it

It

had moved

was bad

be-

photographs

might take four or

Now

five

that

was not so neces-

sary to operate from the extreme north of Scotland. the unit

it

to be found.

days to get Mosquito spare parts from the south. aircraft with longer range

Creme

By December,

to Leuchars. near the Firth of Forth.

wintr}- weather, but the flying ((126))

was started up again

THE SEA WAR and one of the

at once,

first sorties

was on December

Taylor and his navigator, Sergeant Horsfall,

W-4055

—

Benedictine

alias

—

set off in

for routine cover of

4,

when

Mosquito

Trondheim

and Bergen.

When Benedictine was overdue, Eve Holiday and David Linton were not

at first

concerned, for Taylor was often overdue, and he

always came back later.

later.

But

time he did not

this

come back

He, and Horsfall, and the Mosquito called Benedictine,

never came back.

The

story of Taylor's last flight

afterward. first

in

It

seems that the day he was

day the Germans used

Norway.

telling that

And

if

new

was probably the

high-level anti-aircraft guns

in time a story filtered through

new

he had wished

of course,

their

lost

from Norway

one day early in December a twin-engined

of an unidentified

—

was gradually pieced together

type was

hit,

and the

—have crash-landed

have meant delivering the

it

pilot could easily

safely.

That would,

aircraft to the Luftwaffe.

Instead, the pilot used his height to turn out to sea, far out

from the shore when he went down

((127))

aircraft

and was

into the waves.

VI

The Mediterranean Watch

While

the P.R.U. pilots were reaching out

from Britain across

was

the skies of Northern Europe, photographic intelligence

beginning to

come

into

its

own

further south.

the threads in the Mediterranean area

means

But

to pick

of

first

a brief glance back to the beginning of the war, to the days

when

Fred Winterbotham and Sidney Cotton were co-operating obtain "unoflficial" information for the Air

Staff.

When

up

taking

all

to

Cotton

got into uniform and started the Heston Flight, in September

1939, his connection with Winterbotham, as then,

was terminated. But they

still

it

had worked

until

kept closely in touch, and on

occasion there were projects which concerned them both.

In

March 1 940,

oil fields

there

was need

for photographs of the Russian

near the Caspian, which were suspected to be supplying

the Germans.

Winterbotham and Cotton were asked

to help,

and together they worked out a plan. From Habbaniya, the R.A.F. base near Baghdad,

it

was

six

hundred miles

to

Baku.

An

aircraft

such as the Lockheed which they had used for their

earliest

photography could do

it

((128))

comfortably.

To

fly

such a

THE MEDITERRANEAN WATCH sortie,

they would need an experienced pilot of the "go anywhere,

do anything"

from

sistant, fresh

suitable

man

flying

as-

across the Andes, was a very

DC-3s

for the job.

A week or so in a civil

and Hugh Macphail, Cotton's personal

type,

later,

Lockheed,

Macphail

G-AGAR,

left

Heston for the Middle East

which had been specially equip-

ped with hidden cameras. At Habbaniya the registration markings

on the

aircraft

were painted out, and on March 30 the anony-

mous Lockheed took by a

off for

Baku. Macphail was accompanied

co-pilot. Flying Officer Burton,

and two airmen who were

going to take additional photographs with a hand-held camera.

They climbed northeastward and then into

it

As he

across the mountains of Kurdistan,

ahead Macphail could see the Caspian. Jutting out

far

was a

solitary peninsula

—

the heart of Russia's oil supply.

got nearer, he could see that the oil refineries stretched for

miles along the shore, both southward and northward from the great industrial city of Baku.

For an hour he flew unchallenged

over the whole area, and at a considerable height over the endless conglomerations of processing plants.

back

at

Habbaniya they had been

Six days after this Macphail 5,

oil

When Macphail and

tanks,

his

crew

made

six runs

derricks, finally

and

landed

flying for over nine hours.

made

a second sortie.

On

April

he photographed Batum, the Black Sea terminus of the pipeline

from Baku. But his

work.

On

his

smoke, and then

this

time he was interrupted in the middle of

second run he suddenly saw four black puffs of five

more: bursts of anti-aircraft

fire.

He changed

course hastily, and got away as rapidly as he could. But

had been photographed sorties

had achieved

as well as

Batum

Baku. Both of the surreptitious

their purpose.

((129»

AIR SPY

At Heston

ten days later Macphail delivered the precious

who

films to Sidney Cotton,

interpretation.

A

took them over to

Wembley

for

detailed report accompanied by photographs

was soon ready, and a copy was given to the French Deuxieme Bureau. Unfortunately, however, this report was not destroyed before the

Germans took

that fell into their

Paris,

and among the

hands were some

interesting spoils of

aerial

war

photographs of Russia's

greatest oil center, along with a detailed English interpretation report.

What

splendid anti-British ammunition!

It

seems amazing,

now, that only a year before Hitler invaded Russia the Germans

and the Russians could rave together against the

when

tricks" of the British.

"illicit

But

in

No

on capturing the

Hitler set his heart

Baku found their 1940, Hugh Macphail's

those photographs of files.

in "righteous indignation"

doubt a

oil of

little later,

the Caucasus,

German target and the Wembley

place in the sorties

interpretation report caused a diplomatic flurry that left a deep

mark, and gave photographic intelligence

an aura of hushed-up notoriety that put cloak and dagger spy

Middle East in the war,

in the

Middle East

in a class with the best

stories.

In the turmoil of the

days of Dunkirk

it

first

—Sidney

G-AGAR

week

of June

1940

—

during the

final

Cotton sent Hugh Macphail to the for a second time. If Italy

came

into

new photographs of the Dodecanese might be very useful.

When Macphail

left

Heston he reckoned he would be back in

a couple of weeks.

A

day or two

after

he reached Cairo, however, the Italians

did declare war, and the

new R.A.F. Commander-in-Chief, Air ((130))

THE MEDITERRANEAN WATCH Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore, sent for Squadron Leader

Macphail.

"What

are you doing wandering about the Middle East?" he

asked severely. Macphail explained that he had come out from

England

photograph the Dodecanese, and was to

specially to

return inmiediately afterward.

Longmore had only a handful

of obsolescent aircraft for reconnaissance, and he soon

G-AGAR would

clear the

of his

command, and

services.

So the

lasted for

two and a half

work keeping an eye on later,

would

also

was supposed

trip that

Three months

be a welcome

that he

years,

and

made

it

addition to the strength

be glad of MacphaiFs

to last a couple of

G-AGAR

weeks

was soon hard

at

the Italians in Libya. in September,

preters arrived in Cairo

two photographic

from England, and

inter-

after only a

few

weeks there was some extremely important interpretation to be done. Admiral Cunningham was laying his plans for attacking the Italian fleet at Taranto. as

much

For a

start,

needed

therefore, he

information as possible on the harbor defenses, and he

turned to the R.A.F. for the essential preliminary reconnaissance. Just before this an exciting event

had occurred

Fhght of Marylands had arrived from

Britain,

at Malta.

and for the

A

first

time in the war the island's superb position as a base for photographic reconnaissance could be exploited. At this stage there

was no question of sending out a unit of photographic

—P.R.U.

was only

the Marylands were of the day,

and they

just getting into its stride at

more than equal also lent a

hand

Spitfires

Heston

—but

to the intelligence needs in other directions.

These

twin-engined American-built aircraft, with a crew of three, were

equipped for

all

contingencies, with guns ((131))

and bomb racks as well

— AIR SPY

and the Maryland crews jumped

as cameras,

any chance of

at

"having a crack" that came their way.

When

on

the Marylands started

their reconnaissance of

Ta-

ranto the photographs were sent to Cairo for detailed interpreta-

and there FUght Lieutenant R.

tion,

them. In his

office at the

Idris Jones set to

R.A.F. headquarters he

work on

laid out the

overlapping prints on his desk, and before him the splendid semicircle of Taranto's outer harbor took shape. There, dotted in the curve of the harbor, lay the best part of the Italian fleet battleships, cruisers, destroyers

out to

fight.

He

then got

position of each ship just

—

down

the ships that

would not come

to the detail, plotting the exact

and of the elaborate booms. He could up the

see the faint tracery of the floats that held

torpedo nets

—

anti-

they showed up as lines of tiny gray blobs against

Next he plotted two

the dark water of the harbor.

lines of

white

specks: the barrage balloons which protected the southern half of the harbor,

and part of the northern

His report went

off to

Cunningham's

he was to hear that

staff,

along with copies

was subsequently on the phone

of the photographs; but Jones the Illustrious several times

half.

and he

his statement

still

recalls

to

how dismayed

about the balloon barrage had

been ignored. There had been no previous reports of Itahan balloon barrages, he was told, and "no one could see any balloons

on the photographs." In meant

that the aircraft

would

loons, Jones hurried to telligence officer,

who

the current plan for the attack

fact,

fly straight into

both

Group Captain Paynter,

said they

must both go

at

lines of bal-

the chief in-

once to Long-

more.

The Commander-in-Chief

listened,

((132»

and then looked care-

THE MEDITERRANEAN WATCH photographs on which Jones had ringed the barrage

fully at the

Then he turned

balloons.

to

"Can you confirm

Paynter.

the

existence of a balloon barrage from other sources?" he asked.

"No,

sir,

definitely not."

Longmore looked

photographs again. "You realize,"

at the

he said to Jones, "what a serious matter

word

may mean

it

operation.

How

this

is.

on your

If I act

the success or failure of a very important

you

certain are

in

your

own mind

that there

are lines of balloons in these two places?" "I

am

completely certain,

sir."

"Very well then," said Longmore

decisively, "I will send a

senior officer to Alexandria at once, to try to convince

Admiral

Cunningham."

Longmore was

as

have succeeded in the Swordfish pilots

batde

fleet

had

good

as his word,

and the senior

officer

must

his mission, for official history records that

who launched

certainly

their torpedoes at the Italian

been warned of the existence of barrage

balloons.

But the photographing of the defenses was not naissance that was needed. There

still

had

to be a final

November 10 was

still

and gray

on the positions of the

The morning

of

check

ships.

and there was hardly a airfield,

the recon-

all

ripple

at

Malta,

on the Mediterranean. At Luqa

the crew of one of the

Marylands looked up

at the

blanket of low cloud.

"Eight eighths!" exclaimed Sergeant John Spires, the navigator, in

some

disgust.

"How

does anyone think we're going to

Taranto when the birds are walking and the chor?" ((133))

fish

fly

to

are at an-

AIR SPY

The captain Pilot OflScer

of the crew, a

young man

of twent>'-two

named

Adrian Warburton, did not seem to be concerned

about the weather.

"We're going

at

zero feet the whole way," he said quietly to

and plenty of paper.

Spires, "so get yourself a sharp pencil

we

can't photograph, you'll

map." Then

to Sergeant

If

have to plot the ships on the harbor

Moran,

you read the names on the

the gunner, he said, "Paddy,

sides of the ships." In unison

both

sergeants expressed their feelings in a single word.

But Tin,"

it

was

The

the day's work. Off they went in

"The Sardine

somewhat battered Maryland. They crossed the

their

stretches of

all in

dead calm

Italians

sea,

and then Taranto was suddenly ahead.

were completely unprepared and

all

the balloons

were down, and the Maryland flew twice round the outer harbor,

Warburton

trying

to

take photographs

and Spires scribbling

feverishly, before the anti-aircraft defenses blazed into

Maryland sped out two compared "That's

of range,

The

and then Warburton and the other

notes.

more than were here

"We'll have to

life.

make

so we'll go in again.

yesterday," said Warburton.

sure in case the photographs are

Now

no good,

keep your peepers open. We'll check

the battlewagons together."

He brought the Mar>iand down till made fire.

she

straight for the curve of the harbor

"How

the water,

—two—

all his

three

and then

might on counting.

—four—

Then "Whacko, chaps!"

and

straight for the Italian

the hell can they miss us?" thought Spires,

concentrated with

"One

skimmed

—

five!"

all

three of

called Spires. "Lets see

this."

((134))

them shouted.

Warby

get out of

THE MEDITERRANEAN WATCH

As

the

lowed

Maryland whistled

off,

an Italian biplane

Paddy Moran, who was

after.

fighter fol-

itching to have a shot at

it,

exclaimed to Warburton, "For crying out loud! Pull up a bit

now, Warby. The so-and-so can't catch us up."

Next day Warburton's photographs were on board the trious

—and

place.

that night the Fleet Air

Arm's spectacular attack took

But "The Sardine Tin" had not yet

morning

after the attack

Illus-

Warburton and

finished,

his

and on the

crew took

off for

Taranto again to record what had happened. Spires and Moran craned to see the wreckage of the three battleships that had

been

hit.

Oil was streaming

all

over the water, and large

fires

were burning.

"Cor—look! Bloody

lovely!"

"What a prang!"

Warburton did not pay any attention craft fire, but just

and

it

was only

went on photographing from

after a fourth

the

— —resounded

of the Taranto attack

Prime Minister described

And meantime

the

six

thousand

feet,

run that they climbed into cloud

and made for home.

The news

to the vicious anti-air-

it

"this glorious episode," as

round the world.

Times of Malta ran a cartoon showing War-

burton in a Maryland swooping exultantly over a battleship, while an Italian admiral hurled his sword at

him

in impotent

fury.

During the outfit at

six

months that followed Taranto, Macphail's

Cairo expanded into a formally established unit.

tiny

Number

2 P.R.U., with a few more pilots and interpreters; but a slightly theatrical

hush-hush atmosphere

still

clung to

it.

In spite of the desperate shortage of aircraft in the Middle ((135))

AIR SPY East, one or

two Hurricanes were allocated

had cameras

happened

so

He was

Cairo.

them with good

results.

Then

Beau-

later

were modified to take cameras.

fighters It

fitted in

and he

to Macphail,

Adrian Warburton was

that at this time

man who had

already becoming famous as the

photographed Taranto from

fifty feet,

and the

photographic

first

He was

be awarded a D.F.C.

pilot in the area to

in

known

also well

the captain of the Maryland crew that had shot down the

as

most enemy planes, and who could get away with anything

on one occasion when, he finished up

after

at Catania.

photographing eight Sicilian

He was

so low that he

—

as

airfields,

was given a

"green" signal from the control tower to land, and he put his undercarriage

down and made

moment he whipped strafed the aircraft

it

a landing approach.

crucial

up, and with forward guns blazing he

on the tarmac, leaving two

bombers and a big German transport

Warburton had been

At the

sent

Italian torpedo

in flames.

from Malta

to Cairo for a rest

from

but after two weeks he was posted to 2 P.R.U., and for a

flying,

time he worked for Macphail before returning to Malta.

There sion air

is

a story which has gained in the telling about the occa-

on which he

"tried out" a photographic Beaufighter

from the

base at Hehopolis. First he flew along some of the canals near

Cairo, barely above the water, photographing the barges and pulling

down

up sharply

just

before he hit them.

He

then decided to

the Cairo-Suez road to photograph a car that was

toward him; but he car, seeing

failed to get

any pictures

an aircraft approaching him

at

fly

coming

as the driver of the

road level

at three

hun-

dred miles an hour, turned rapidly into the ditch. Then Warburton flew out over the desert and there he caught sight of an old ((136))

THE MEDITERRANEAN WATCH Arab on

a camel crossing the skyline

them and then looked back

straight over

but neither

some miles away. He

man

nor beast had taken the

to see their reactions,

—but

with the

same

A

result.

War-

slightest notice.

burton turned the aircraft and proceeded to again

flew

fly

over them

disappointed,

little

he

returned to Heliopolis.

Sir

to

Hugh

Lloyd, in his book Briefed to Attack, has paid tribute

Warburton and the Maryland crews, and

graphic interpreters

who worked

time he was air officer

must be given

to

at

commanding

also to the photo-

Malta during the

there.

Lloyd himself for the way

critical

But the highest in

credit

which he made use

of photographic intelligence. His confidence in

it

was remarkable,

and paid remarkable dividends.

When Lloyd

arrived in Malta as an Air Vice-Marshal in

1941, he had been given a clear-cut brief: his job was to in cutting

Rommel's

lifeline; in

May assist

other words to help to sink the

Axis ships that carried supplies from Italy to North Africa. Lloyd did not hesitate. Photographic intelligence was his

foremost need.

was not a

first

this

and

already had the Flight of Marylands, but there

single trained photographic interpreter

he remedied

The

He

first

on Malta, and

lack as quickly as possible.

interpreter to reach

Malta from

Medmenham

in

1941

Howard Colvin, and he was soon joined by Flying Officer Raymond Herschel, the same Ray Herschel who as a civilian at Wembley had helped me learn how to interpret aircraft. These two men were amazed to find that they were to work in a tiny room opening directly off Lloyd's own office. Most was Flying

Officer

of the intelligence offices were installed in underground tunnels, ((137))

AIR SPY for

Malta was already being heavily bombed, but Lloyd did not

like being

underground and

his office

"ditch" that cuts through the

and Herschel

set to

was

town of

in the

Valetta.

deep ravine-like

So there Colvin

work.

Lloyd was demanding as well as very appreciative.

know when the ships are loading, what they are loading, and when they are going to sail," he told the two interpreters. "And after they've sailed I must know their course and "I've got to

their speed."

This meant

first

of all a day-by-day

watch on the port of

Naples, for in 1941 the Sicilian Channel was

much

the most

important supply route to Africa; and activity on the quays at

Naples was the

One evening

first

sign that a

convoy was soon going

shortly after Herschel arrived, he

to leave.

and Colvin

were working on that day's new cover of Naples, oblivious of everything except the ships they were counting and measuring.

The window of the tiny interpretation room had been boarded up because of the bombing, but a door leading immediately into "the ditch"

was usually kept open. The room was

in half darkness

while in front of the interpreters the desk lamps cast their circles of

light.

Someone came

silently in

through the outside door, and a voice

new

said to Herschel, "Is that the

cover of Naples?"

Herschel looked up, and was aware of an R.A.F. officer he had never seen before,

"Yes

—

"Don't

On

fair

we're working on 'sir'

it

—

sir,"

he answered.

me, old boy," said Adrian Warburton.

later occasions

very well

and extremely good-looking.

—he

—Warburton

used to sUp into the ((138))

know the interpreters room soundlessly in his

got to

THE MEDITERRANEAN WATCH crepe-soled desert boots; and his approach

by a

flash

times

in,

and a thud

as a

huge escape knife landed on, or some-

one of the desks.

Lloyd himself was always cover of Naples. first

was usually announced

time. This

He wanted

was

First

and out when there was new

in

snap answers, and they must be right

Phase interpretation in

stripped of every vestige of "usual channels."

had a verbal answer from the

its

purest form,

As soon

interpreters he acted

Lloyd

as

upon

it,

long before a report had been sent off to Cairo.

Lloyd wanted immediate answers, and he got them. Soon Colvin and Herschel knew Naples so well, and also the of the

Germans and

the Italians, that they could

little

ways

tell in

a flash

what was going on. The convoys were always loaded

at the

—

same spot

quickly nicknamed "Rommel's Quay."

hatches were battened within twenty-four

abroad of

—

down you

hours;

as

When

a ship's

could reckon she would

sail

soon as the deck cargo was

drums

the tanks, the armored cars, the innumerable

oil.

So

if

Lloyd knew that some of the ships

had

their hatches

first

light the next

"Rommel's Quay"

at

on by midday, a Maryland would be morning

to

off at

check whether they had

Within about three hours from the moment

it

got back to

the interpreters could say "yes" or "no." If the convoy

another aircraft was sent off to find

it.

Once

its

left.

Luqa

had

course was

left,

known

an attack could be mounted. This was the

moment when Lloyd needed

to

know

of the ships, a fact which the photographs could cisely.

that

tell

the speed

him con-

Colvin and Herschel merely had to refer to a formula

had been worked out

earlier at ((139))

Medmenham, based on

the

AIR SPY theory of wave patterns, from which they could cal-

scientific

culate the speed of a ship in knots in

from the spacing of the waves

wake.

its

As time went

on, the ships which escaped being sunk

so familiar that they were given nicknames. If Lloyd

became

came

in

and suddenly asked, "Where's old Betty Martin?" Colvin knew just

what he meant, and turned

movement

every

to his card index

which recorded

had ever been photographed

of every ship that

from Malta. In a moment he could say where "Betty Martin" had last

been seen: Naples, Taranto, Brindisi, Trapani, Palermo,

Messina, or Tripoli, whether she had been loading or unloading,

and It

just

whereabouts in port she had been

was

largely thanks to this systematic

which was developed

—

that the attacks

at

Medmenham to watch

in the

same way; and the devastating

frankly admitted later in the

a

he replied.

"We

Allies

knew

all

Navy

—

a

method

enemy shipping was, of course,

effect of this

war by a leading

In 1943, after Italy surrendered, he was asked

made such

watch

on the North African convoys had such out-

standing success. Every ship of the Itahan

watched

lying.

was

Italian admiral.

why

his

Navy had

poor showing. "No one can play chess blindfolded," never

knew where

the Allied

Navy

was. But the

the exact position of every unit of our fleet at

all

times."

Until the end of 1941, the convoys that Colvin and Herschel

had been tracking were usually escorted by a few destroyers; but then on December 17 Warburton came back with the news that pretty well the

whole

Italian Fleet

was escorting a convoy

of four merchant ships. This was hardly an exaggeration, as ((140))

THE MEDITERRANEAN WATCH Colvin found when he saw the photographs. The escort included

two

battleships,

two

cruisers,

and no

less

than fifteen destroyers.

There was no doubt that a new and much grimmer lap of the fight against the

Through the ordeal

Axis lay ahead. early

months of 1942

—Warburton and

the ports

—

the height of

Maha's

the other pilots continued photographing

and the convoys.

And

since the

German Air Force had

returned to Sicily in strength, the watch on the airfields took

on a new importance

By

this

as well.

time Malta had a few photographic

regular cover of the airfields was flown at light

every day.

The

interpreters got to

air bases so well that

one

airfield the

first

know

light

tried to fool

but they might have spared themselves the trouble.

photograph

like a sore

One day toward airfield at Gerbini,

that

was

last

dummy

at once.

dummy

them with

constantly watching real aircraft, a

and

the routine at the

any abnormality was spotted

Germans

and

Spitfires,

If

At

aircraft,

you are

stands out

on a

thumb.

was

the end of April, Colvin

and he was

just starting a little

at first

interpreting the

puzzled by some leveling

way from

the

main landing

area.

Subsequent covers showed other similar levelings, and each

was connected with the main railway by a new looked as

if

spur. It certainly

something was going to be brought

something for which a longish leveled

strip

in

by

rail,

was needed. Gliders!

Ever since the German assault on Crete the year before, airborne invasion had been a haunting menace.

Colvin and Herschel

together took the photographs to Lloyd, and explained their theories

and

fears.

A

broad grin spread over the Air Vice-

Marshal's face. ((141))

AIR SPY "Gliders. Gliders full of

come. Just

let

But week

them

after

did not come.

Germans." he

hope they do

said. "I

tr\!**

week passed and

We know now

Germans

the gliders full of

although an airborne invasion

that,

of Malta was, in fact, planned, the project never matured.

was while things were

It

at their

worst for Malta that War-

him

burton's exploits began to create for

the reputation of a

legendan- hero. His natural talent for aerial photography was

uncanny. The fitted

tale

told that the

is

time he used a camera

first

with a thirty-sLx-inch lens, which

demanded

of flying accuracy than the cameras he

was used

a higher degree to

print covers a relatively small area, at a larger scale

graphed the port of Messina

—

his persistence

ordinan- as well. The

graphing the Sicilian

was for

hit.

and ston."

)

.

—on

his skill as a pilot

goes that once,

each

he photo-

the whole sweeping arc of

surrounds the harbor like a question mark

But

since

(

it

that

a single print.

were out of the

when he was photo-

airfields in a Beaufighter.

one of

his engines

but he finished getting his photographs before he started

home. Another time, on the way back from

Sicily,

without

ammunition, he purposely got into a dogfight with a German

and

in full

By

view of Malta maneuvered him into the

the time that Malta's peril

squadron leader with

He had

a

sea.

was over. Warburton was a

D.S.O. and with two bars to his D.F.C.

already been jokingly called ''King of the Mediterranean/'

but the legend of his

He always

infallibiilt\^

that

did get his photographs.

through the enemy defenses.

He

was growing up was

He

serious.

alwa}-s did fly straight

always did get back.

Admittedly, the circumstances at Malta were unique, and ((142.)

THE MEDITERRANEAN WATCH Warburton's personal achievements, both legendary and factual, put

him

in

an unorthodox

he can be said to stand for the

class

by

strictly

himself. Nevertheless,

photographic

pilots of British

reconnaissance in more ways than one.

The photographic bomber

pilot has to

have

pilot, as well as all the alertness

fighter pilot. In addition

all

the accuracy of the

and

tactical skill of the

he must be an individualist

who can make

quick responsible decisions entirely on his own.

And

he must

have the persistent purpose and the endurance not only to reach his target,

In his

all

own

but to bring back the photographs to his base.

these things line

Warburton

excelled. His achievements in

were quite as remarkable as those of two of the

R.A.F's. most illustrious pilots, Douglas Bader and

who were both

near contemporaries of his at

St.

Guy

Gibson,

Edward's School,

Oxford. The names of Bader and Gibson are rightly famous,

name Adrian Warburton has hardly been heard outside circle of those who actually knew him, and there is no single

but the the

mention of him in the

Some afield

official

R.A.F. history of World

of the pilots of P.R.U. were destined to fly

much

War

11.

further

than the Mediterranean before the end of the war, and the

plans that

made

this possible

were

laid in 1941. Shortly after

Air Vice-Marshal Medhurst appointed Peter Stewart to organize the expansion of photographic intelligence in Britain, he sent

Peter Riddell on a six weeks' tour of the Mediterranean, the

Middle East, and the Far East, to find out ing and to

work out a plan

Riddell fiew

first

just

what was happen-

for the future.

to Gibraltar,

where he saw the few photo-

graphic Marylands that were based there, and then looked into ((143))

AIR SPY the tiny dark cubbyhole where the interpreters

worked by the Hght

of hurricane lamps, and the former men's lavatory where the

photographs were processed. Thence he went to confer with the service chiefs,

so

many

whom

"essentials"

he found far from apathetic. But when

were lacking, trimmings

like

photographic

—

felt.

reconnaissance might have to be dispensed with

At Malta Riddell stopped

briefly,

or so they

and then hurried on

to

Cairo. Next he flew straight to Singapore, and on the return

journey visited Delhi and Simla. Back in London, he reported

The

to Medhurst.

hammered out

in the

and Third Phase

inter-

pattern that had been

early days, the system of First, Second,

pretation and of a central interservice unit must be applied

wherever the war had to be fought. Less than a year later most of Riddell's recommendations had

been put into aircraft

were

Burma, and at "little

effect.

Very soon new high-speed photographic

flying over the sands of Africa

and the jungles of

the photographs they took were being interpreted

Medmenhams"

and Malta both the

in

flying

Cairo and Delhi, while

at Gibraltar

and the interpretation had been ex-

panded and re-equipped. For the

first

time in history, the watchful

eye of photographic inteUigence was scanning the enemy's doings all

the

way

across the globe.

((144))

VII

Combined Operations

In

Harbor there was not one

the years before Pearl

single

photographic interpreter in the United States Navy, and such a creature

had never even been thought

But

of.

in the spring of

1941, Vice-Admiral Ghormley, the American naval attache in

London, was so much impressed by the discoveries of the

Wembley and Medmenham

interpreters at

"competent

The S.

officer" to

officer

of Aeronautics,

Jr.,

how it was done. Commander Robert

be sent over to find out

who came

Ouackenbush,

that he asked for a

over. Lieutenant

head of photography

at the

Navy's Bureau

was much more than merely competent.

Medmenham, Kendall took him on a sections, and we got a lightning glimpse of

On

his first visit to

rapid tour

of

a big

all

the

full of

enormous energy and

liveliness,

man

with a huge laugh and

a handshake to match. Quackenbush, also

known

Bush," and "The Godfather of Navy P.L,"

the sort of

is

as

Bob, "Q-

man who

never does things by halves.

Quackenbush had three months

at

Medmenham, with two Cox and Captain

U.S. Marine Corps officers. Captain Charles

«145))

AIR SPY

Gooderham McCormick. who

speed up the

to help

Then, loaded with training material, he hastened

investigation.

back

him

joined

to \\'ashington.

where

took him only a few weeks to

it

persuade the Chief of Naval Operations to school of photographic interpretation

were going to be needed

Reet and

carrier in the

The school opened

—he

took special trouble to select

foundations for

tiie

in course of time

a

—badly needed,

Na\y

on

ever>-

headquarters.

than a month after Pearl Harbor, with

Quackenbush. Cox, and McCormick

tional background,

up

start

at .Ajiacostia. Interpreters

insisted

at even.-

less

him

let

men

and during the

They

as the teaching staff.

with the right sort of educafirst

high standard of

few courses they laid the

Na\y

interpretation

developed into a service tradition.

which

And Quack-

men more than how to interpret. "No one ^ill know beforehand why you've come, or what your work is for/* he used to tell them. "So even,- Na\T interpreter on ship or on enbush taught

his

shore has get to be a hell of a good salesman

In

May

1942, Qnackenbush

'^ I

time to campaign

set off again, this

for photographic inteUigence in the South Pacific; but before he left

there

was

a battle to fight in the

Na\y Department. He had

been asked how many interpreters he needed cific,

and he said

demand was

tiie least

he could manage

in the Soutii Pa-

with was

office of the Assistant

Chief of

case from ever>' angle, but

still

the senior officer

\iDced. His chief worr\' seemed to be that they

enough supply.

fifty.

This

summoned to Naval Operations. He argued

not well received, and he was

to do. because planes

putting across his urgent con\iction. ((146))

his

was not con-

would not have

and equipment were

Quackenbush searched desperately

the

for

in

such shon

some way

of

COMBINED OPERATIONS

men have

"In the Fire Department," he burst out, "the to

do

But when

loafing. It

on end, and they

for days

sit

nothing

around playing cards and

there's a fire you're glad they're there."

worked, and after a moment's silence the answer came:

"Okay,

I'll

give

them

to you."

In those early days after Pearl Harbor, the battle which Quack-

enbush had to forward

affair

and fought with

fight,

compared

to the "cold

by the champions of photographic

relish,

was a very

straight-

war" that had to be waged

intelligence in the U.S.

Army

Air Corps. But in both services a completely new idea had to be introduced with the greatest possible speed, and

it

was bound to

be a struggle.

Only a short time previously no one

more than

in the

Navy, had an inkling of what the new photo-

summer

graphic intelligence meant; and when, in the

an to

officer

Air Corps, any

in the

named Captain Harvey C. Brown,

Jr.,

of 1941,

was assigned

England for a "photographic course," he gathered that he was

being sent to study the techniques.

He soon

latest

developments in British camera

discovered he was on the track of something

quite different.

In September 1941,

when Kendall brought

my

to

section a

lanky American captain with a poker face and a Virginian drawl,

and asked to

tell

me

to explain to

him about

my

him what

work.

I

was

There were

fears that the

was doing,

in the thick of

investigation for the Air Ministry, gliders.

I

on

I

was delighted

my

first

the subject of

Germans might

major

German

try to stage

an

airborne invasion of Britain, and the Air Ministry had been called

upon

to estimate the extent of the threat. ((147))

By

this

time I had a

AIR SPY

most

who

reliable helper, Charles Sims,

chief photographer to

before the war had been

The Aeroplane, and together we rushed

out a big report on gliders in just over a week.

"This I

is

their standard troop-carr}'ing glider, the

explained to Captain

ghders at see.

Brown

Maleme during

as I

D.F.S.230,"

showed him photographs

of the

the invasion of Crete. ''And here,

you

they used the same type last year to land troops inside the

Eben Emael when

Belgian fort at

Countries. That was the

"Why do

first

they were overrunning the

time

we

Low

ever saw them."

they look so white and flat?" he asked.

"That's because they aren't camouflage-painted," "so their surface reflects the light. as they look.

We

They

I told

him,

aren't actually as big

have to allow for that when we're measuring

them."

"Why do you

have

to

measure them

if

you've recognized the

type already?" •"Oh, we're always

"You

on the lookout

see. there's a great

ghders.

We

want

how many men "So soldier

I

to

make

for modifications," I replied.

we want

deal sure

to find out

how many

about these

types there are, and

they will cany."

German

suppose you measure the wing span of a

and then

figure out

how many can be packed

Brown's expression was deadly a smile and

I

was

serious, but there

give all the dimensions

Then

was a

Harvey

flicker of

a bit annoyed.

"Xo; we don't do any load calculations here.

root chord.

in."

we

It's

our job to

can, especially the wing span and the

Flight Lieutenant Golovine at the Air Ministr}',

who knows what wing

loadings are likely for big ghders, works

out an estimate of what they can carry." ((148))

COMBINED OPERATIONS Harvey Brown seemed suitably impressed, and

produced

I

more photographs. "Have a look

pointed to three of the Germans'

at this." I

moth new troop

carriers.

"A wing span of 178

mam-

feet. It's

more

than double the size of anything we've seen before. Golovine says

could carry a small tank."

it

I

my treasured

put

Leitz magnifier in position and

Brown bent

to look.

"This I I

is

a swell

little

gadget," he said.

laughed. "It was the last prewar

"Where did you

get it?"

German magnifier in London.

was very lucky indeed." "It's

doing a good job of work for the fatherland.

close can

"Oh,

And how

you get with your measurements?"

it all

depends on the photographs. But on good pictures

we reckon on getting within a couple of feet on wing span. Length is much more tricky because you often can't see exactly where the tail

unit ends;

and the nose may be deceptive

too.

We

measure

every single photograph of every ghder that's seen, so from an

average of our figures the Air Ministry can

make

pretty accurate

estimates."

Brown pondered over finding out," he said,

No wonder

sure

Goering knew how much you're

would send

Harvey Brown was

the sections at

all

"it

this. "If

Medmenham

one

his

fascinated,

wing loading up."

and as he

after another

visited

he became

fired

with a burning faith in what photographic intelligence could do.

He

determined to spread the gospel on his return. But when he

did get back to America he found himself up against a considerable

amount

of prejudice.

Between the wars,

aerial

photography had meant one thing ((149))

AIR SPY

and one thing only

good reason

in the Air Corps:

for this. In the twenties,

mapping; and there was

when photography was

first

being tried out seriously for peacetime mapping, only a tiny

America had been accurately

fraction of the vast continent of

mapped, and the Army's Corps of Engineers jumped chance to begin tackling the work in

at the

rapid economical

this

manner. Over the years the technique of mapping photography

was much improved, and the Tri-Metrogon system, with three synchronized cameras taking photographs from horizon to horizon,

was widely adopted.

This mapping was, of course, an enterprise involving the Air

Corps

came

as well as the

into

Air Corps

had come

Corps of Engineers; and

World War

America

just before

one of the leading figures

II

in

was an

it

named Major Minton W. Kaye. General Arnold place much confidence in him, so the view that

officer

to

mapping was the

sole function of aerial

photography pervaded

the highest councils of the Air Corps.

In some quarters, however,

complete and utter ignorance

prevailed as to the potentiahties of aerial photograhps, even for

mapping. Brigadier General George W. Goddard, one of the great pioneers of aerial photography in the U.S.,

and

in charge of

who was

then a Major

photographic experiments at Wright Field, was

constantly meeting this lack of understanding. There

cryphal story that in the

mapping project

him one day and

thirties,

wanted

an

Army

officer

to inspect the

dard showed him round, wondering; and the prints out of the processing tanks, looked at

grunted, and finally seemed content. ((150))

an apo-

when he was engaged

in the Philippines,

said he

is

Then he

came

in

a

to see

darkroom. Godofficer

took the

them one by one, told

Goddard why

COMBINED OPERATIONS he had come. Apparently at another photographic unit in General

MacArthur's domain the processing tanks had been found

full

of

pictures of nude women! Goddard took the opportunity to interest the oflScer in his

mapping work, and

afterward honored by a

he was shortly

as a result

from MacArthur himself. The Gen-

visit

eral arrived in riding kit, with boots so shiny that

you could see

them a mile away, and asked Goddard what he was doing. Goddard said he was making maps and showed him a photographic mosaic.

MacArthur looked crop, and said, "Since

at

askance, tapped

it

when has

that been a

"According to Webster's Dictionary, "a

map is

his eyes

with his riding

map?" answered Goddard,

a representation of the surface of the earth, and

— up "has no human

lit

MacArthur glowered, and him

sir,"

it

this''

—

errors."

his aide

nudged Goddard to warn

to stop. Various other photographs

were discussed and the

General turned to go. As he went out he pointed to the offending mosaic, and snapped at Goddard, a

"You

understand, that's not

map!"

With

this sort of

background

it is

hardly surprising that the

good news Harvey Brown brought back from ceived

little

some of his

immediate response.

When

Medmenham

re-

he reached Washington,

superiors in intelligence, including Lieutenant Colonel

Lauris Norstad, were very

much

interested; but further afield

got cynical smiles and no encouragement at

all.

Little

by

he

little,

however, during the chaotic weeks and months after Pearl Harbor, the importance of the new branch of intelligence was recognized. ((151))

AIR SPY It

was

in

March 1942,

while the Japs swept on southward and

the battle continued grimly in Europe, that the

Army

Air Forces

Intelligence School was started up at Harrisburg in Pennsylvania,

under the direction of Colonel Egmont Koenig.

innovation: before Pearl Harbor intelligence of

been seriously neglected. Soon

one of the instructors wrote Colonel Koenig indispensable.

We

is

all

kinds had

after the training courses began,

Washington:

to a friend in

doing a

and the school

terrific job,

must insure that

war, so that never again will

was a major

It

we

it

find ourselves at the begin-

ning of another conflict so completely dependent for ligence

is

continues after the

on the R.A.F. Air Ministry and on the

intel-

editors of

Time, Life, and FortuneW

The main purpose civiHan

life

of the school

was

to train

new

arrivals

and photographic

as air intelligence officers,

from inter-

pretation was the subject of one of the brief specialist courses.

Harvey Brown joined the

staff,

first

as

an instructor and then

as director of photographic intelligence his

colleagues

who

training,

and among

helped to develop "P.I." were Major F.

Martin Brown and Captain Samuel L. Batchelder, who important operational assignments. They were

and so were including a

their pupils

number

on

the early courses

—hand-picked men, selection

long. Washington's full approval

of photographic intelligence,

unfortunate form.

A

from on high, and

enthusiasts,

of peacetime architects.

But unfortunately the policy of careful

doned before

all

later held

when

it

finally

was aban-

and acceptance

came, took a very

concept of mass production was imposed

classes of literally ((152))

hundreds of men, many

COMBINED OPERATIONS of

them not

in the least interested in interpretation, or suitable

for the work,

By

this

had

to

be herded through the school.

time, however, the

first

Harrisburg graduates had

joined the advance guard of the Eighth Air Force in England.

In June 1942, some of them attended interpretation at in

August

Nuneham Courtenay

that a small

Medmenham's

in Oxfordshire;

school of

and

it

was

group of American interpreters, led by

Captain Marvin B. Sterling, entered the precincts of Danesfield, bring with them "P.I.

on a desert

island.

kits"

From

suitable

for

starting

then on, as more and more Americans

came over from Harrisburg, Medmenham began formed

operations

to be trans-

into a completely Allied unit.

In the

summer

when

of 1942,

North African

the plans for the

landings were being worked out, photographic intelligence was called

upon

briefing.

to provide a

This was an undertaking far bigger and more com-

plicated than anything of

A

mass of material for planning and

its

kind that had been tackled before.

great deal of special photography

Gibraltar and Malta, and then

on models and topographical the landings could

was done, both from

Medmenham

reports.

hurried to

work

These were needed so that

be followed up with precise purpose, and

General Eisenhower's planners wanted to

know

every detail:

the width and condition of the roads, the dimensions of the airfields,

exact details of the defenses, the heights of buildings,

the positions of electricity pylons It fell to

and telephone

posts.

Douglas Kendall to direct the project, as he was

responsible for the immediate operational

Some months

earlier

work

he had found that there was a ((153))

Medmenham. steady demand

at

AIR SPY for very detailed interpretations of pinpoints "on the other side,"

so that agents

who were

going to land by parachute or by boat

could be properly briefed. They needed a

map

lot

of facts that

no

could give: the height of a hedge round a farmhouse, the

position of barbed wire, the low- water line of a creek of these might easily failure.

work

mean

—^knowledge

the difference between success

So Kendall took two of

his interpreters off

to give all their time to this.

When

Second Phase

the prospect of the

North African landings loomed up, however, the cozy section

had

to

the spur of the

and

little

be tremendously expanded; no easy matter on

moment. But Kendall managed

Allied, interservice

to collect

an

inter-

team which included Americans, Canadians,

Navy, Army, and R.A.F.

officers;

and

also

two recently com-

missioned W.A.A.Fs., Dorothy Garrod and Sarah Oliver, or, as

most people thought of

her,

Sarah Churchill

—

the daughter of

the Prime Minister.

Dorothy Garrod, before she joined the W.A.A.F., was Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge,

her subject.

It

was second nature

and an eminent authority on

to her to search patiently

and

to piece together not only the obvious findings but the puzzling

chance discoveries that are sometimes

who

just as significant. Sarah,

brightened the scene with her glamour and elegance and wit,

was a quick and

versatile interpreter,

and adept

photographs to maps: before she became an

Medmenham plotter. During the hectic weeks that labored on the reports that contributed so

at relating air

officer she

much

had been a

Kendall's team

to the success of

Operation Torch, she pulled her weight with enthusiasm, like

all

the others.

On November

7, after the rush at

((154))

Medmenham was

all

over,

COMBINED OPERATIONS Sarah went

off to

that evening she

Chequers on forty-eight-hours' leave, and

late

and her father were alone together.

was

It

very nearly one a.m.; Sarah was curled up in a big chair by the fire,

and Churchill was pacing up and down. Then the clock

struck.

"At

this

very minute," announced Churchill with measured

gravity, "at this very minute,

under cover of darkness, the

six

hundred and forty-three ships that are carrying our troops on their great enterprise are

approaching the shores of Africa."

"Six hundred and forty-four," said a voice from the armchair.

"What's that?" "I've

been working on Torch for months."

"Why "I

didn't

you

was told not

Her

tell

to

me?"

mention

it

to anyone."

father smiled.

"S'pose you thought I didn't know," was his last word.

While the second daughter of the British Prime Minister

worked away

as

an interpreter

at

Medmenham,

of the President of the United States

photographic reconnaissance in the In the

was put

summer in

American

was helping

Army

to build

up

Air Forces.

of 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Elliott Roosevelt

command unit of

the second son

its

of the 3rd Reconnaissance Group, the

first

kind to be sent over to Europe. The group

had two squadrons of Lightnings

—twin-boom guns — and a

equipped with cameras instead of

fighter aircraft

squadron of

Flying Fortress bombers modified for mapping photography.

For

Elliott

Roosevelt the

command

of a group which

was

to

take part in operations was a stimulating development in his ((155))

AIR SPY

Air Force career. for nearly

survey:

He had been

occupied with aerial photography

two years already, but of all finding sites for

first

it

had

all

been mapping and

North Atlantic

air bases,

and

then early in 1942 in West Africa, mapping certain areas that

were important to the Vichy French. So

Elliott

brought to photo-

graphic reconnaissance a specialized variety of technical experience, but of course he brought publicity. His doings in the

much

else besides

—

including

Air Force had been followed by the

unrelenting limelight and criticism that pursue the family of

any United

States President,

on anything

that

made

and the press never

pounce

failed to

a story. Far from pandering to public

manner

opinion, however, Elliott often behaved in a carefree

which seemed

to ask for adverse

comments, and

at this

time

he did in fact jokingly describe himself as "the black sheep of the family." service

He

also bhthely ignored opinion

when he wanted

and

feelings within the

One of his know how to use

to get things done.

once said about him, "He didn't

friends official

channels, and he didn't need to"; but the things his enemies

have said about him are mostly unprintable.

The 3rd Reconnaissance Group was based England, and while a

it

bridgeshire. lost,

down Morden in Camabout how her driver got

that she should drive

to visit Elliott's unit at Steeple

There

is

a famous story

and when they asked the way no one would

finally,

back

was there Mrs. Roosevelt came over on

was arranged

visit to Britain. It

from London

for a short time in

when

to the

they were nearly an hour

American Embassy

was the code name

late,

tell

her escort phoned

for instructions,

and

for Mrs. Roosevelt during her

as

"Rover"

visit,

nounced dramatically over the telephone, "Rover has ((156))

them. So

he an-

lost

her

COMBINED OPERATIONS pup." Eventually she got to Steeple Morden, however, just before it

was too dark

to see anything.

During the crucial days

after the

North African landings,

Group awaited

while the 3rd Reconnaissance

the signal to join

General Doolittle's Twelfth Air Force in Africa, there was urgent

photography

On

be done by the U.S. Navy.

to

board the

aircraft carrier U.S.S.

Atlantic waves off Casablanca, a

Ranger, as she rode the

young

officer

who was one

of

the photographic interpreters assigned to the air support force for the

Moroccan landings rescued some photographs

slithering across the table. at

hand

to

He

that were

put the prints back in order, ready

compare with the new

shots of Casablanca harbor that

would be through from processing

at

any moment.

It

was Novem-

ber 10, 1942, the second day after the landings began.

He had

never

set foot in

Casablanca

in his life, but

the port so well from photographs that he

found

his

way

blindfold to the

he knew

he could have

felt

Mole du Commerce, where

the

^

newest battleship of the French Navy, Jean Bart, lay uncompleted but defiant.

On

those amazing pictures that one of the British

aces from Gibraltar had taken at rooftop level there were turrets

very

no guns

was not

much

in the after positions,

finished either.

complete.

But the other forward

The four

murderous salvos

silenced

by answering

the carrier-based dive

turret

was

slim gray pencils that pointed earlier

at the invasion fleet

fire

see

and one of the forward

seaward were fifteen-inch guns that two days firing

you could

—

had

started

until they

were

from the Massachusetts. Since then

bombers had been

more had been heard from Jean

Bart. It

((157))

at

work, and nothing

seemed that the Vichy

AIR SPY

French resistance was almost over now. Across the water the cruiser

Augusta, Admiral Hewitt's flagship, was moving

The new

pictures that the Ranger's photographic plane

taken would show exactly

how much damage

had done, but

it

at this stage

seemed a

Ah! The photos. The ensign and picked out a couple of shape that dwarfs

bit

bombers

shuffled through

them quickly

There she

the long slim

prints.

is,

the other shipping, with her

all

just

academic.

her like a two-stranded necklace of beads.

glance was enough.

the dive

in.

had

He blenched and

And

leaped to his

booms round

the guns? feet.

One

The guns

had not been damaged by the dive bombers so they might very well be ready for action

by now.

And

the Augusta was steaming

within range.

Snatching the photographs, he tore up to the bridge. But barely had an agonized message been radioed to Admiral Hewitt

when

came

there

the shriek of approaching shells. Just ahead of

the flagship two geysers of yellow-dyed water leaped sixty feet into the ah*, bridge. This

drenchmg the Admkal and was the

that straddled the

first

all

the ofiicers

on the

of eleven two-gun salvos from Jean Bart

American

flagship as she hastily retreated.

After that the dive bombers from the Ranger really did finish off those guns;

always

but they say that from then on Admiral Hewitt

set great store

Only a few days

by photographic inteUigence.

after this, reconnaissance

from a North African

Number 4 to Algiers field at

base.

A

was

unit of Spitfires

starting

up

from Benson,

P.R.U., which had been waiting at Gibraltar, flew

on November 13 and began operating from the

Maison Blanche. Their

first

((158))

air-

objectives were the airfields

COMBINED OPERATIONS and quays of Tunis and Bizerta,

as the

Germans were already

pouring troops and supplies into Tunisia. But Maison Blanche

was being bombed often and hard, and when the of Elliott Roosevelt's group

—

the

first

mapping Fortresses

—

arrivals

got there

a few days later, the field was strewn with smashed aircraft, including most of the photographic Spitfires. There was urgent

need for news of the German movements, so

it

was decided that

Lieutenant Colonel James Anderson, the group's operations cer,

should

set off in

tour of Tunisia. This was a fine chance for

prove

offi-

one of the Fortresses and make a photographic

American "P.R."

to

itself.

The following morning Anderson took off from Maison Blanche with Major

Wayne Thurman

Kasserine and there he dropped

on

his

cameras, and

between the

hills

made

as

co-pilot.

down

He

set

course for

to six thousand feet, turned

several long runs over the wilderness

with the solitary road winding along

it.

Then

he climbed eastward and made three runs over Gabes; then trundled on northward up the coast and finally back to Algiers,

landing safely after seven and a half hours' flying. There had not been a single sign of

enemy

opposition.

But then a problem arose: how were the

The newly

films to

arrived R.A.F. photographic section

be processed?

had been bombed

out a couple of nights before. Anderson discovered, however,

had managed

that they

factory

to get going again temporarily in a

some miles away. So

sought out the photographic

—

the very

trailers at

man who

Tigeaux

Walton and

his

off

officer.

as a sergeant

at the

he went to the factory and Flight Lieutenant

had kept things going

time of the

fall

in the

of France.

men were working under ((159))

Walton

extremely primitive

AIR SPY

The

conditions, with hardly any proper equipment.

being thumb-tacked to

broom handles and wound through

developer by hand. There was no way equately,

and the smell of hypo nearly knocked you down. Nor

to dry,

draped from lathe to lathe

Next morning Anderson came back were

the

of washing them ad-

was there any drying machinery, and the wet

hung out

were

fikns

in the

machine shops.

to collect his fikns.

somewhat damp but he took them

still

were being

films

straight

They

to the

Twelfth Air Force headquarters in Algiers. The intelligence officer

he found there was quite excited about them, and not

at

worried by the lack of an interpretation report. Some

all

interpreters

were supposed

be on the way from Harrisburg,

to

but there hadn't been a sign of them

The

yet.

What

thing that mattered was that the targets

did

matter?

it

had been photo-

graphed. The General must see them.

knew what was happening he was being

Before Anderson

escorted into the presence of General Doolittle, and called to

make

commentary on

a running

his

own

upon

photographs. For

the better part of an hour the films were unreeled in turn,

before the end of to

it

the General himself

was pointing things out

Anderson. Thus took place the interpretation of the

can photographic

sortie

and

first

Ameri-

flown over the North African battle-

ground.

That unchallenged

flight of

defenses were in shape

during the naissance

first

Group

The winter

of

—

before the

—was unfortunately not

few months lost

Anderson's

in

German

a precedent;

and

North Africa the 3rd Recon-

more than 25 per cent

of

its

original pilots.

1942 was a time of sad misfortune for American ((160))

COMBINED OPERATIONS "recce," as

was

it

lessons hardly learned.

wanted

to

be

and armies

for the air forces

Many

in fighters,

what they considered a

it

of the pilots were

served,

and of

men who had

and resented having been switched to "sissy job,"

and

their discontent

was

aggravated by the fact that the early photographic Lightning

was not

was it

really suitable for

swift

and

its

successful; but

task.

At low

on the normal

could not outpace the enemy fighters;

was "duck soup of the

German

for the 109s." It

was

it

it

high-level sorties

wallowed about and

also nicely within range

flak.

The American

men from

levels, for dicing,

were in a bad way

interpreters

When

too.

the

Harrisburg arrived on the scene they were installed in

a schoolhouse in Algiers, several miles from the British inter-

who worked in another schoolhouse at Maison Carre, which was in turn many miles from the airfield. The unhappy

preters

Americans, confronted for the

first

time with photographs of the

strange African desert, looked and measured and checked with their recognition charts, their reports

and looked again, and then sent out

hoping for the

best.

But sometimes they were very

wide of the mark, as for instance when they found a convoy of

enemy tanks which had apparently turned up from nowhere. Bing! Out went the report, and the British First Army, which was accustomed to

rely

on photographic

intelligence,

swung

into

appropriate action. Meantime, however, the sensational news had

reached Maison Carre, and the head R.A.F. interpreter decided to

have a look

at the

most recent British photographs of the

spot where the "convoy" had been found.

what

to expect in the desert,

and knows

To someone who knows that a

convoy of tanks

cannot move without making tracks that nothing can hide, ((161))

it

Am was

incredible

—scandalous—

SPY

convoy of camels

that a

resting

should have been mistaken for a convoy of tanks. Out went a British signal immediately:

"For tanks read camels," but the

story goes that units of the First

Army had

already

moved

sixty

miles.

Such was the inevitable

At

working "independently."

point there was no oflScial co-ordination between the

this

American and

British

and the miles that separated

British interpreters,

them made even

The

result of

unofficial haison difficult.

were having

their troubles too,

and the processing and interpreting

tinuity

between the

meant

that sometimes "immediate" reports

issued

till

British

flying

in

however, the

creation

February 1943 led

of

a

to the

and American photographic

Allied Wing, with Eric Fuller

—by

this

and one of the outstanding organizers as his deputy.

From then on both

North Africa.

command

Elliott

of the

new

time a wing commander,

in photographic intelligence

the flying

tion were completely integrated. There to keep pace with the growing

Mediterranean Air

amalgamation of the

units in

Roosevelt, promoted to colonel, was put in

—

were not actually

forty-eight hours after the photographs were taken.

Fortunately,

Command

and lack of con-

was

demand

and the

interpreta-

also a great expansion

for photographs.

In the spring of 1943, the main responsibility of the new

Wing was in

to serve as eyes for the

on Tunis. But there was

was of

AUied Armies

that

were closing

also another big undertaking

which

special interest to EUiott Roosevelt with his early ex-

perience of mapping. Sicily was to be mapped, in preparation for the next

move

after

Tunis was secured. So an extensive ((162))

COMBINED OPERATIONS program of mapping

was

flights

up from Algiers and

started

Malta.

The

who were

pilots

were the

Warburton and

them

greet

come

of the Americans to

first

under

to fall

Luqa

at

battle-dress tunic,

from Malta

sent to fly their Lightnings

airfield,

into touch with

When

his spell.

Adrian

he came out to

wearing old gray flannels with a

and a forage cap shoved onto

blond

his

hair,

he had just "returned from the dead" after being posted missing

He had been

story.

—a

was a

for three days. It

fantastic story

photographing Bizerta when his plane was

managed

disabled by flak, but he

and somehow landed without

to struggle

hurt.

on

end he established that he was

in the

a French plane to

a

and

Spitfire,

and

to Gibraltar.

finally flew

he landed

at last

—"Sorry

on

back

first,

Fm

after

base at

agent.

and was given

There he changed

at

Malta, his

first

up

his

remark was

just

for

it

cameras

—

allegedly

Americans called him

"Warby"; and the things he could do

made them

all.

as the

feel that

perhaps

it

in

wasn't such a bad

Before long Warburton was attached to the

American group; and so from Malta he came air

German

late."

was soon

a Lightning ship

British,

to Malta, picking

Squadron Leader Warburton, at

Bone,

Bone, and shooting down a Ju 88 on the way.

films at

When

fly

as far as

There he was kept under

lock and key for two days, suspected of being a

But

Warburton

typical

La Marsa which became

the

to Tunis, to the

home

of the photo-

graphic wing. But he was always back and forth

On

Warburton

fashion.

La Marsa

in a Lightning,

he had to crash-land.

one occasion he had

He

when

it

began

just

—

in typical

taken off from

to give trouble

and

leaped clear of the aircraft, and a ((163))

AIR SPY

moment

later the cockpit

was a roaring mass of flames; but within

twenty minutes War^urton had borrowed another Lightning.

A

crowd gathered

little

to gaze aghast at the blazing aircraft,

and they asked one another

in horror,

"Where's the pilot? Did

he get out?"

One

American

of the

upward

Malta. 'There he

For

is,"

fast

disappearing in the direction of

he explained to the incredulous onlookers.

months the wing worked from Tunis

six

December 1943

—

at

Army commanders photography was

and during, and time

was

to a plane that

Major John Hoover, pointed

pilots,

came

a

tempo

—from June

for the

that steadily increased,

were coming to

as indispensable to after the assault

on

for the invasion of Italy

realize

them

to

more and more

that

as air support. Before,

Sicily, itself,

and again when the the interpreters kept

constant track of the enemy's doings: on the roads and at the ports, at the airfields

and

at the

marshahng

yards. This intel-

ligence was co-ordinated at the interpretation headquarters near

La Marsa, but

First

Phase interpreters accompanied the detached

flights of

photographic aircraft that went ahead with the armies.

At Tunis

there

was

also

much

targeting

and damage assessment

to be done. Before July 19, 1943, the date of the historic

ing attack on the

map

of the city

Rome marshahng

had

to be prepared,

successive flights over

Rome

which was quite a new

yards and

airfields,

bomb-

a target

and the photographs of three

were combined to form a mosaic

line in target

maps. Four points

Vatican City and three famous churches

—were

—

the

marked with

prominent warnings: must on no account be damaged. The ((164))

— COMBINED OPERATIONS crews of the bombers that took part in the big attack were

and each

briefed with the greatest care,

the photographic map. sortie

man was

But, nevertheless, the

given a copy of

damage assessment

was one of the most anxiously awaited of the whole war.

When Squadron Leader Morgan took off for Rome only a few hours after the attack

itself,

in his Spitfire,

there were other aircraft

standing by in case he did not return. But

Morgan

did return,

with photographs that showed precision bombing of the highest order. Before the next

morning the whole world knew that the

two main marshaling yards had been put out of action, and there

was much damage

at the airfields,

only one religious shrine

city

—

but that in the whole of the

the Basilica of

San Lorenzo

had received any damage.

While the photography from Tunis continued apace, Roosevelt was vast

for

Washington

to

to help in planning a

expansion of photographic reconnaissance. Back at

Marsa told

summoned

Elliott

in October,

he called a meeting of American

them of great things

promotion

all

to

along the

officers

La and

come; there would be opportunities line.

The other excitement was

that

who had accompanied him leading part in the new setup.

Lieutenant Colonel Karl Polifka,

from Washington, was

to take a

"Pop" Polifka was already a renowned

who leader. As pilot

figure

—a photographic

could "do anything," and also a fine organizer and a regular Air Corps officer he had been taking photo-

graphs for mapping before Pearl Harbor, and then early in

he had commanded the

first

1

942

unit of photographic Lightnings,

which operated from Australia. ((165))

Am Soon

Elliott

was

there

was a

off again; this

But

the Conferences.

just before

from America, broke

ing

—

his

he

left,

on November 20, 1943,

and drove with him

Elliott seized

way

the Cairo Conference

to

journey at Tunis. Elliott met him at

only ten minutes from

chance and

time to Cairo and Teheran for

historic occasion at Tunis.

President Roosevelt, on his

the airport

SPY

it.

to the villa

La Marsa.

In his book.

where he was

It

stay-

was a wonderful

As He Saw

It,

he has

described the conversation with his father.

"Would you. Pop?" "What's that?"

my units at La Marsa?" When? Could we tuck it in

"Inspect "Sure!

around

five

later this afternoon?

Say

o'clock?"

Late that afternoon, against the dramatic setting of a Tunisian sunset, the review took place.

A

jeep bearing the President, ac-

companied by Generals Eisenhower and Spaatz, followed by General Arnold in a

staff

car,

passed slowly along the line

and stopped when they reached EUiott. PoHfka and Fuller were presented, and father and son shook hands.

"See the uniforms. Pop? We've got a regular United Nations, right here."

"Americans, of course. French, British, Canadians

.

.

.

what's

that uniform?"

"South African.

And

there are

New

Zealanders and Aus-

tralians, too."

"Looks

like a fine outfit, EUiott.

"Don't worry.

I

am." ((166))

You

should be proud."

COMBINED OPERATIONS

Two months new

with

mand

later, early in

1944, Elliott Roosevelt was busy

projects in England,

and Polifka had taken over com-

of the huge

new

With the advance

Allied organization in the Mediterranean.

main base

into Italy, the

for photographic

reconnaissance was established near Foggia. Almost every other building in the shabby provincial town of San Severo was taken over,

and the

Spitfires

from the nearby

and Mosquitoes and Lightnings operated

airfield.

In numbers the organization was primarily American, but

depended

still

to a great extent

particularly in interpretation.

were nings

fast

on

On

and the

into service,

skill,

the flying side, the Americans

own

developing along their

came

and

British experience

it

pilots

lines, as

began

improved Light-

to take to the idea

of photographic reconnaissance.

"Pop" Polifka was an inspiring leader during the long-drawnout months

when

when

so

inevitably there

Cheery, forceful,

many

things

seemed

was a longing

tireless,

to

go wrong

to get finished

and

in Italy;

get

home.

he was always dashing off in his Light-

ning Rosebud to see his squadrons at their forward bases, or to the Air Force headquarters at Naples, or to Algiers or

England

for conferences.

When

swoop down the

valleys, setting the boulders in the stream

rolling;

he crossed the Appennines he used to beds

and on one occasion, when he took Fuller out over the

Adriatic for a "pick-a-back" flight (which meant

two of them

into the single-seat cockpit), he

"Tell me, Eric, are

the

remarked casually,

we making a good wake?"

Polifka was thirty-three, flying, so

cramming

when he went on

allegedly too

sorties

old for operational

he used to enter himself in the

((167)3

AIR SPY records as Lieutenant Jones. Perhaps the most famous photo-

graphs he ever took were of the valleys either side of Cassino,

from the same

when

level as the flak

Polifka's General

on the

hillsides.

They say

that

saw the pictures he called for Lieutenant

Jones to congratulate him, and started writing out a citation.

When

Polifka appeared with a sheepish grin, the General and he

both thoroughly enjoyed the joke.

There was quite a his

bit of rivalry

between Polifka and one of

group commanders, Lieutenant Colonel Leon Gray, as to

which could take the maddest pace, in

tall stories

risks.

Polifka could usually set the

as well as in actual achievements.

Gray once came back from a mission claiming fighters

had positioned

to attack him,

that

But Leon

two German

one from either

side, so

he maneuvered exactly between them, then nipped smartly out of the way, and

—Wham! —

the two

crash.

((168))

Germans met

in

one

terrific

VIII

The

At

Allied

R.A.F. Bomber

Bombing

Command,

Offensive

during the later years of the

war, photographic intelligence gradually became accepted as indispensable, both for planning operations

The days when many

results.

at

and for assessing

Bomber Command

believed the photographs were over, reports from

their

frankly dis-

Medmenham

were no longer unwelcome (as long as they were worded with

and the stream of distinguished

tact),

house were

Harris'

all in

visitors to

Air Marshal

due course led into the "conversion

room," where they were shown photographs of the devastated

German ently

cities in

an instrument called a stereopticon

nicknamed by some "Harris' juke box." So

—

irrever-

the climate

had

changed considerably since the beginning of the war.

But

ment

it

was not only by means of targeting and damage

that photographic intelligence assisted

Medmenham was the

assess-

Bomber Command.

also helping to find out the esoteric secrets of

Germans' counter-measures; and the story of how Squadron

Leader Claude Wavell and tions of

German

radar

is

his section tracked

down

the inven-

as exciting as a detective novel.

k((169))

AIR SPY It all

started

back

Wembley, when a young

at

scientist

named

Dr. R. V. Jones, one of Churchill's advisers on "the Wizard

War," came out

"Paduoc House"

to

of a certain point

in connection with cover

on the French coast where a beam transmitter

was suspected. He and Wavell

once made friends, and from

at

then on a close partnership grew up, with Wavell giving his entire time to

up

work, while Jones briefed him and followed

this special

was one of Wavell's

his reports. It

with the daring and led

up

The

to the

famous

skill

Commando

raid

Benson was a

which was a great

gulf that

Whenever

pity.

came over

can't this pilots'

to

Medmenham,

was not very often

crossed,

it

bad weather, some of the

always

left

one feehng,

"Why

happen more often?" Both our own work and the

seemed

to get a

tremendous boost from

Gordon Hughes was one often,

Medmenham from

any of us did go over to meet

the pilots, or when, during spells of pilots

which

on Bruneval.

distance of fifteen miles that separated

the airfield at

combined

discoveries,

of a leading photographic pilot,

of the pilots

who came

and he brought others along with him,

the sections

and

find out

during the

first

winter at

Claude Wavell and

to

it.

to

over most

browse around

what was going on. Late one afternoon,

Medmenham, he dropped

in to see

look at an instrument which Wavell

had himself designed and made

for measuring heights

on ak

photographs. "Yes, I've called

it

the Altazimeter," said Wavell as he dis-

played the beautiful gadget that looked like a globe concentric circles of wood.

"We

made

of

have to measure more heights

than any other section, partly for analyzing the installations we find,

and

also to provide low-flying information for the operations ((170))

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE people.

And

this saves a

tremendous

takes only a few minutes instead of

formula

more than

each calculation

thirty.

the tangent of the sun's altitude; so the only data

The Altazimeter does

a slide rule, and

it's

is

the

you need are

photographs, the orientation, and the

latitude, the scale of the

date.

This

height equals shadow length times

you're interested:

if

lot of time;

the rest.

It's

much

as

a time saver as

merely an application of the simple principles

of spherical trigonometry."

Then Wavell suddenly put "Look you."

the Altazimeter aside.

here," he said, "I've got something else that will interest

He produced

coastline, with

a pair of photographs showing a bit of French

an isolated house near the edge of high

cliffs.

"We're on the lookout for a new sort of direction-finding ap-

and

paratus;

picious, but

something near

there's

you

can't tell

on

this

this cover.

house

The

that's

very sus-

scale's too small."

Gordon Hughes looked through Wavell's stereoscope and agreed that the scale was too small. "There!" Wavell pointed to a minute speck near the isolated house. "I think

it

may be

Gordon examined

a paraboloidal transmitter."

the speck,

could even guess that

it

and wondered how on earth one

was a paraboloidal transmitter; but

Wavell should know. Then he suddenly remembered he had to

meet another

He jumped

pilot

—wish

"Sorry stairs

and

"Tell

he'll

him

who had come

over with him from Benson.

to his feet.

to

I

could stay a

bit longer,

but

Tony

Hill's

down-

be waiting for me."

come and have

Gordon was back

in a

a look at this," said Wavell.

few minutes with Tony

Hill.

"What's

the excitement about?" asked Hill, nodding his head in <(171))

all

mock

AIR SPY

"Gordon and

seriousness.

I

ought to be

off

on a beer- tasting

expedition by now."

Wavell explained and showed the small scale prints to

Then he brought

quite animated as he described the

Germans' methods from

"Remember French

what Dr. Jones had discovered of

earlier interpretations.

The obHques

these?

That was the very

derville?

first

was on small-scale cover; you couldn't

we

Manifould took of Au-

that

German R.D.F.

array on the

two rotating transmitters? The

coast. See the

at all, but

Hill.

out some low-level photographs and became

first

clue

see the frames themselves

got a lead because on consecutive prints, taken nine

seconds apart, you could see

a thin shadow and then a thick

first

one. That strongly suggested that a thin framew^ork was rotating. It

was so important that Dr. Jones got a low-level

Sergeant Parrott tried

first

our suspicions. Then

went over, and took

and

his

sortie laid on.

photographs tended to confirm

days later Flying Officer Manifould

six

these. Really splendid, aren't they?

And,

d'you know, they arrived the very night before an important meeting in London.

You can

just

imagine the excitement when Dr.

Jones produced them. There had been reports that the Germans

were using R.D.F., but Hill

had dropped

Wa veil's

was the

his bantering

first

proof."

manner, and was gazing through

stereoscope at the pair of prints.

"Where "It's

this

exactly

Cap

is

this

place?" he asked.

d'Antifer, near

the Httle village there

is

Le Havre," answered Wavell, "and

called Bruneval."

Then he laughed and

turned on the two D.F.Cs., pretending to be angry.

annoy me. You go

in over this place time

never turn on your cameras soon enough." ((172))

"You

pilots

and time again and

— THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE "I'll

get

you the answer tomorrow," replied Tony

The next day Wavell saw on

Hill.

etretat

the board

through of

Hill's return.

asked, "What's

was

restless

Then he phoned him

till

at

hill. So

how

he was after Bruneval. Wavell knew only too well the anti-aircraft defenses were and he

—

strong

news came

Benson and

like?"

it

"Like an electric bowl

"and about ten

said Hill,

fire,"

feet

across."

From

then on the

versally

known

went on

Hill,

new German R.D.F.

as "the

"but

Bowl

transmitter

Fire." "I could see

my camera

packed up; so

I'll

it

was uni-

quite well,"

have another go

tomorrow."

Although

it

same dicing

was an unwritten law that you never flew the

sortie

two days running, because the whole idea

of dicing was surprise, there was

made up

his

no stopping Tony

Hill

once he

mind. Next day he did return to Bruneval, and

brought back "close-ups" taken from so low that you could see into the ground-floor

windows of the steep-roofed house near the

radar installation.

That was the

Hill,

near

Le

said;

and

Tony

Hill always did

A

year later

to dice several targets

Creusot, but had camera trouble. as

do

—by which time he was Squadron D.S.O., D.F.C. —he went out

right to the end.

Leader

sort of thing that

it

was Tony

Hill,

"I'll

go again," he

he went. This time the defenses

were waiting for him, and shot him down to

his death.

Really good low obliques are a most compelling form of intelligence,

and Tony

Hill's

magnificent photographs played a

big part in bringing about the Bruneval raid. But the detailed

planning that was necessary could not be done from photographs ((173))

AIR SPY

however good, and

alone,

menham's most

—had

was

it

at this point that

secret departments

The work

to step in.

—

of the

the

one of Med-

Model Making Section

model makers, which con-

tributed vitally to the planning of innumerable operations all

through the war, was far from a merely mechanical interpreted the photographs just as

much

They

task.

as all the rest of us,

but they translated them into a different language: into solid three-dimensional replicas, instead of into written reports.

At

was being planned, the

the time the Bruneval raid

cellars

of Danesfield were the setting for this highly secret activity. There

Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey Deeley, a peacetime sculptor,

worked

—many

artists.

with a

staff of specialists

There they studied

all

of them also sculptors or

the photographs of the area they could lay

hands on, and with

fret

gradually brought to

life

saw and spatula and paintbrush they

—

in precise miniature

—

the whole set-

ting for the raid.

The Model Section was

full of

and the tapping of hammers

the whir of electric fret saws

as the contours that

had been traced

from greatly enlarged maps were cut out of hardboard one

mounted and nailed

another, and then were after being

smoothed by

electric chisel, the

an unbroken surface with a special

had

this

make cliffs

it

of

set

land form was given

plastic substance,

was pushed gently

into place.

Thus

and

after

the towering

d'Antifer were given their height, and the

little

valley

its

gentle slope. Finally the

model was painted

somber colors

of the winter landscape,

and the model makers

near Bruneval the

into position. Next,

an enormously enlarged photograph, damped to

supple,

Cap

after

set in place

in

with tweezers the Lilliputian buildings and trees and

fences and, of course, "the

Bowl ((174))

Fire"

itself.

Anything over

:

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE three feet high

was shown three-dimensionally, and

if

you stooped

down and looked along the surface of the model, you could see exactly what the Commandos were going to encounter. This was model

the very

that the troops

care before the raid

and aircrews studied with

infinite

on the night of February 27, 1942, when

essential parts of the radar installation

were successfully captured.

During the following year Claude Wavell discovered that the

Germans had produced

a

much

bigger variety of

"Bowl Fire"

paraboloids twenty feet across were being set up in groups of three.

This

work, so

it

new

type of installation was

made

of metal

trellis-

was promptly named "The Basket"; and Wavell

suddenly remembered that the Zeppelin airships had a framework constructed on the same principle. recently been reports of secret

works

He

also

knew

war production

that there

at the

at Friedrichshafen, near the Swiss border.

and two

together, he rushed to

of Friedrichshafen, stacks of

and

examine the

to his delight

latest

had

Zeppelin

Putting two

photographs

he found outside the factory

components resembling the "Basket." Moreover, they

were evidently being used, for the stacks varied

in

shape from

cover to cover.

This discovery was

made

early in June 1943,

Whit Monday, Winston Churchill paid a

and on June

visit to

Medmenham,

accompanied by Mrs. Churchill. In each department the preters

were amazed

subject

and

at Churchill's detailed

14,

knowledge of

inter-

their

his appreciation of their techniques.

Claude Wavell showed him the photographs of the Zeppelin factory,

and told him what was happening

there,

upon which he

turned to Mrs. Churchill and explained to her just

German

radiolocation system worked. ((175))

Then he

how

the

said to Wavell,

AIR SPY

"Have we been there yet?" Wavell

replied that so far the factory

had not been attacked. Churchill made no comment and continued his tour. Six days later sixty Lancasters successful raid

ments of German

turn came, aircraft,

was often necessary

no need

daring and

on the Zeppelin works.

When my own as

made a

was ready with

I

and

was prepared

I

He was about

a piercing look, and asked

Babington-Smith.

When

shook hands and

said, "I

I

my

ago in India, when

if

to go

we

But there was

discussed the aircraft

when he gave me

"Yes, he was

knew him

my

rather

father," he

They had met long

well."

was private secretary

father

them

were any relation of Henry

I

said,

best enlarge-

to explain

to distinguished visitors.

to explain to Churchill. Instead

as fellow specialists.

my

to

the

Viceroy.

The

Churchills continued their tour and reached the Night

Photograph Section.

was

also ready to

My

make

who was

brother Bernard,

in charge,

explanations, and also found they were

not needed.

The work

Medmenham

of the Night Photograph Section at

was a development from Bernard's early researches But by 1943, when

all

the night

at

Oakington.

bombers were equipped with

cameras, the detailed interpretation of their photographs was a vast undertaking,

and the section

at

Medmenham

size accordingly. After the big raids there

of rolls of film to be examined tives

showed quite a

lot

With more and more

more

increased in

were always scores

—Bernard had found

that nega-

detail than prints.

films to

work on,

it

became

possible to

piece together the story of each attack by analyzing what ((176))

had

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE been happening on the ground. One discovery of outstanding importance was that the development of a raid could be deduced

from the pattern

in

which the incendiaries had

position of fires that

had been

form of

was of considerable

"fire plots,"

fallen,

and the

This information, in the

started.

interest to those con-

cerned with planning, especially the Operational Research Sec-

Bomber Command.

tion at

But probably the most important of

ham

did for

Bomber Command was

from day photographs. This was the which was,

Command

the

work

that

Medmen-

the assessment of

damage

responsibility of a section

Medmenham

in fact, older than

from a nucleus of veteran

all

interpreters

for

itself;

who had been

at

it

began

Bomber

with Peter Riddell in the days of the Sylt raid. Soon

after

Bomber Command's "independent" reconnaissance

came

to

an end these interpreters moved

from then on the section expanded

ment Section worked on

rapidly.

by night

shifts

unit

Medmenham, and The Damage Assess-

to

by day: the

as well as

load was an increasingly heavy one.

For the bility,

of

"D.A."

pilots, too, the

and they were

sorties

were a major responsi-

also, of course, especially

dangerous.

them are among the most famous photographic

Some

flights of the

war.

When March

1

Air Marshal Harris began his bomber offensive in

942 with the

raid

on the Renault factory

an almost equally spectacular results.

The day

sortie

was made

at Billancourt,

to

check the

weather was "impossible," but

after the raid the

Flying Officer Victor Ricketts, with Sergeant Luckmanoff as navigator, took off from

Benson

and flew through low cloud

all

in his

the

way

((177))

Mosquito

in

to the target.

heavy

At

less

rain,

than

— AIR SPY five

hundred

he

feet

made

four runs over the factor}'

end of the second run he nearly collided with the

and came back with low-level obliques

The

follow^ing

who took

the

ing after

it

On

Tower

Eiffel

was Flying Officer Fray,

was breached.

the morning of

in a Spitfire,

Dam the May

morn1943,

17,

over Germany, Fhght Lieutenant Ronald

still

who was

Gillanders,

it

at the

that are dicing classics.

famous photographs of the Moehne

while Fray was

damage

summer

—

oncoming day

in charge of the

interpreters at

Medmenham, answered

from the Assistant Director

shift

of

a telephone call

of Photographic Intelligence at the

Air Ministry, Group Captain McNeil.

want you

"I

to

go over to Benson right away," he

be there when the aircraft lands.

as to

dams

the

moment you

"What dams?" asked

out.

Only

just

interpreter

about the

get the negatives."

Gillanders.

There was a loud explosion

and Gillanders was

And phone me

said, "so

end of the telephone,

at the other

told to 20 to the Industry' Section

and

find

through the wall from Gillanders' desk was the

who had been working

months on the dams

for

in

preparation for the raid.

At Benson tion;

there,

there

ever}^one

was tense excitement

in the First

from the Station Commander downward was

and they crowded round Gillanders

"light table" to

as he bent over the

examine the negatives. The

first

showed nothing but flood water. Then he came

Dam. With

Phase sec-

photographs

to the

Moehne

the cr}'stal-clear negative in front of him, he

McNeil. "There's a gap right

two hundred

feet across.

And

in the

center," he said,

the water

—solid:' ((178))

is

going through

phoned "about it

solid

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE was

It

German

in the

cities

summer

became

of

1943 that the area bombing of

so extensive that

new methods had

be

to

invented for assessing the damage. At an earlier stage the interpreters used to report

on damage incidents

street

by

street,

but

j

when

the big

raids started this

fire

method

and

lost its point,

I

an ingenious

before long one of the interpreters developed

machine

—known

as

Damometer"

"the

—

making

for

quick

measurements of the acreage of devastation and also estimating degree. But at the end of July,

its

Hamburg came

in,

it

the photographs of

seemed more a question of measuring by

the square mile than by the acre.

damage was

when

so vast that

it

The mosaic

Hamburg

of the

covered a whole large table.

Medmenham,

Just at this time Field-Marshal Smuts visited

and when he reached the Damage Assessment section Gillanders to

it

fell

show him round. The Hamburg mosaic was

showpiece of the moment. Smuts came up to the

table,

and

to

the Gil-

landers pointed out the extent of the devastation, sweeping his

hand up

right across

to find

saw

left

Hamburg

with a dramatic gesture.

what impression he had made, and the

him

utterly deflated

and speechless. The

He looked

sight that he tall

old

man

with the pointed beard was shaking his head slowly from side to side,

and there were

"Hamburg was

tears in his eyes.

a beautiful city," he was saying, "a beautiful

city."

While the R.A.F. was forging ahead with area bombing, the U.S. Eighth Air Force was beginning to operate over

Germany

with very different ideas. At the Casablanca Conference, the

Combined Chiefs

of Staff

had directed the Americans ((179))

to

go

AIR SPY

ahead with precision daylight

R.A.F. was to

attacks, while the

bomb-

continue with night bombing. But could precision daylight ing really work? Fortresses to

Or would

German

the

abandon precision and work

most cherished concepts of American to the

at night?

air strategy

compel the

One

was

of the

be put

to

test.

Along with

the

bombers of the Eighth Air Force came a

squadron of photographic Lightnings; and

War

a World

warm,

I

aviator

commander was

the most popular

and a powerful influence

he had broken

Hall,

whose

and clear-thinking drive were to make

Jim Hall was a well-known thirties

its first

from Texas, Major James G.

friendly personahty

him perhaps field

fighters

and respected American

for

in his

Anglo-American co-operation.

figure in

American

flying records to

aviation. In the

pubhcize an anti-Pro-

and since then he had mixed business and

flying

so often that he was nicknamed "the Flying Broker." But

when

hibition group,

Pearl Harbor

came he was

for operational flying. ever, he got

When

back

forty-seven, supposedly

With help from

much

too old

Elliott Roosevelt,

how-

into the Air Corps.

he reached England, Hall found he was expected to

keep the work of

his

squadron "independent," but from the

start

he insisted that reconnaissance photography must be co-ordinated

all

early in

Benson

along the

line,

and

it

was

1943 the 13th Squadron satellite airfield.

This

largely thanks to

settled at

him

Mount Farm,

that

the

move was warmly welcomed by

the R.A.F. photographic pilots,

and thus began a very happy

relationship.

By the end of the year, two more squadrons had arrived at Mount Farm, and the American pilots were really getting the ((180))

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE feel of the

work. But they were finding, as the Mediterranean

squadrons had, that the performance of the Lightning was not

good enough

Wulf

for the job. It

fighter, the

Fw

was

at this time that the

new Focke-

190, was having such devastating success

had looked

over Germany, and a

little

photographic

could not meet the challenge. But fortu-

Spitfires

nately a re-engined Spitfire

earlier

was

it

just

as

if

even the

ready for service. So once

again the British photographic planes were flying faster and higher than anything else in the sky. Nevertheless,' the threat of the

German

fighters

was an ex-

tremely serious matter in 1943, not only to photographic reconnaissance, but to the whole of the daylight

The Casablanca on the enemy's tories

was of

had given high

where newly completed

fighters

Once over

oil

without

it,

effort.

priority to attacks

aircraft industry, particularly the

the wall round the orchard,

all.

and

directive

bombing

assembly fac-

would be destroyed. This

which had

to

be cHmbed

first

huge amphibious operations could be staged,

or any other vital target system could be attacked; but

surmounting

it

little

worthwhile

could

be

accom-

phshed.

Such was the background when

I

myself, because I

was

in

charge of interpreting aircraft factories as well as aircraft, suddenly found myself deeply involved behind the scenes in the operational planning of the Eighth Air Force. craft factories that I shared with Charles

Sims was

injected with a sense of urgent responsibility.

evidence that

we

The work on

once

Those scraps of

pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle

of a fuselage outside

at

air-

—a glimpse

an assembly shop, the coming and going of ((181))

AIR SPY lorries at the loading bays, the floor areas of the

we found

positions of the aircraft (which

more than mere numbers) things

—

workshops, the

meant much

usually

meaning we found

the

was going to be weighed against the

in all these

lives of the Fortress

crews.

There could be no more mistakes very early days of thinking

is

had been very keen

schmitt fighter, the

Me

I "found'*

bad one

made

I

failing that

to find

can beset an

where a new Messer-

109F, was being produced, and in

one

(in fact

it

was a Ju 87)

was questioned

riedly retracted

it,

the

at

my

once by the Air Ministry, and

names

Me

my

promising-

at a

looking factory at Lemwerder near Bremen. Although fication

in the

section, before I learned that wishful

about the most disastrous

interpreter. I

enthusiasm

my

like a

identiI

hur-

109F and Lemwerder had been

linked together in print; and the thing echoed on for months,

column, and somehow managed

like scandal in a gossip

into reports live

it

and appreciations and target material.

down

eventually, but

course before I

I

it

my own

learned to question

I

was a good

I

to creep

managed

lesson.

to

Very soon

interpretations as a matter of

reported anything, and in choosing

my

words

developed the caution of a writer of diplomatic communiques.

It

was early

who had come tives Unit,

in

1943

that I

first

over to England as a

met Charles

member of

the

Enemy

an American gr^up concerned with target

He was making

a special study of

German

targets for the Eighth Air Force, so he at

P. Kindleberger,

Medmenham and

I

was

and thoroughness. After

at

this,

Objec-

analysis.

aircraft factories as

came

to visit

onc9 impressed by Wjhenever I Went to

his

my

section

enthusiasm

London

for the

'*

82))

M

II

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE Air Ministry's regular meetings on enemy aircraft production, I

used to try to see Kindleberger unofficially as well. "Kindleberger doesn't miss a thing,"

my brief case down at the

my desk. I was just back on May 10. "He thinks

on

Air Ministry

Bremen

is

I said to

Sims as

I

dumped

from the meeting that

Focke-Wulf

very fishy indeed."

"What does he think Furney, a bouncing

Bremen?" asked Hazel

so fishy about

is

little

brunette with a useful talent for inter-

who had recently joined my section. you know, we haven't had a decent cover

preting aircraft,

"Well, as

and

since the Fortress raid in April,

we to

as

or

in our last

said 'No statement' about activity.

of

Bremen

monthly report

But Kindleberger wanted

know what I sensed was happening, so I told him that as far we could see, on the bad photographs, the place looked more less dead, but we couldn't actually say that in our report be-

cause the covers weren't clear enough."

"Why wasn't he "Because

pleased?" asked Hazel.

the factory

if

month, according to the have repaired

it

right

"And even though tion

would have

ally he's very

was

official

So

started again

me

by now,"

I

added. "No, actu-

may have been You know it was the

worried that the fighter production before the raid. far,

and they

lost sixteen Fortresses.

soon as we get a good cover, he wants us to do a report

on everything about the factory given

Air Ministry estimate, they'd

the raid did quite a lot of damage, produc-

American attack so

just as

190s a

away," said Sims.

moved away from Bremen biggest

really turning out eighty

a

fist

of the places

that

may

give a clue.

where Focke-Wulf

have started subsidiary production, so we could ((183))

is

And

he's

supposed to

start

checking

AIR SPY

on those

right

away

—

if

they're covered." I glanced at

my

notes.

*Tosen. Sorau, Coubus. and an airfield in East Prussia called

Marienburg."

To me and my

section

it

was exciting and encouraging

our work was obviously so badly needed: but

Force,

it

to take the

targets for the

Eighth Air

was a time of grave concern. That April attack on the

Focke-W'ulf factor}'

enemy

recommending

at

Bremen was

fighter production,

had misfired through

thing

Charles Kindle-

who had

berger. and to Colonel Richard D. Hughes, final responsibility' for

to

that

formation on the

German

the

and now

serious effort against

first

it

looked as

fault>' intelligence.

the whole

All available in-

would have

aircraft industry

reviewed afresh, in the light of the

if

to be

sinister possibility' that dis-

was already well under way.

persal eastward

Spurred on by Kindleberger, Sims and

got out ever}' back

I

cover of Bremen over the past three years, and in Jime, when

new photographs

of the

Focke-Wulf

duced a voluminous report lating to

and

up it

entitled ''Photographic

in.

we

pro-

Evidence

re-

at

the

many kinds that production of Fw 1 90s had been Bremen factor}' about sk months before the

American attack right

came

Focke-Wulf Production." The main thing we found was

confirmation of

stopped

factor}^

till

— and although

there were fighters at the airfield

April, they were never an}n^'here near the flight shed,

looked

as

if

they were a Luftwaffe imit based there for

the defense of Bremen.

We

were also able to give some starthng news of

dispersal, for

Marienburg had been photographed once, nearly a year earher. In the light of our growing knowledge of

was

clear that fighter production

was

((184))

German methods,

in full

swing even then.

it

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE Shortly after our report went out I was

summoned

to

London

to attend a special

American meeting on the whole question of

the dispersal of the

German

moment,

aircraft industry. It

for the expanding force of

ing a serious

menace

R.A.F., and a

to

German

was an important

fighters

was becom-

both the Eighth Air Force and the

new bombing

directive

the Chiefs of Staff, putting attacks

on

had

been issued by

just

fighter factories in absolute

priority.

Kindleberger had told right-hand, left-hand,

Kingman Douglass,

me

and center-hand," and also about Colonel

the top

Ministry (who in the First

on the Western

about Dick Hughes, "Tooey Spaatz's

American

War had

liaison officer at the

Air

flown reconnaissance sorties

front), but I never expected they

would actually

be at the meeting. But there they were, and with them round the table

were many famihar faces:

Wing Commander Charles

Verity, head of Air Ministry targets, with several of

my

other Air

Ministry customers; Colonel George Jones from Eighth Air Force Intelligence;

and of course Kindleberger, with Eddie Mayer,

his

fellow researcher on aircraft factories. I

was cross-questioned on the main

especially I

was asked

Marienburg. This "Yes,

it

I

if

I

findings of

could confirm

my

my

report,

and

statements about

could do emphatically.

did have the look of a Luftwaffe base being adapted

for aircraft production," I said.

"Why

are

you sure?" asked Kindleberger.

"There were fourteen 190s,"

"But that needn't mean

I

fighter

began. assembly.

They might be

using the field for training or as a fighter pool for the Eastern front." ((185))

AIR SPY "Yes, but one of the things that gave them away was the gun-

You

testing range.

which

position,

see

it

had been

more or

is

factory airfields, and the

less

new

up with a covered

fixed

standard practice at

aircraft shelters

were of a

firing

German type we

see at factory airfields too."

"Anything else?" asked Mayer.

way

"Yes, the

the fighters were parked.

The

test pilots

have

quite different habits from the G.A.F."

Marienburg had

—no doubt

of that

be photographed again as soon as possible

to

—and

in future every scrap of evidence point-

ing toward dispersal must be checked at once by

But the meeting decided Marienburg could not

that the

finally

was not long

weeks

heard that salvaged

Marienburg

series of

"So we can

we

look at

call

this

new

graphs in the box

One year.

it

question of production at

be judged on photographic evidence

alone. There later I

Medmenham.

to wait, however,

Fw

and only a few

190 nameplates bearing a

numbers had been found. a factory now," I said to Sims, "even before

cover." I flipped through the stack of photo-

file

and picked out the run over Marienburg.

glance showed that a lot had happened since the previous

There was a whacking great new hangar, and a new

runway

too.

airfield

was so

safe. In

much

Nothing was camouflaged, presumably because the

Germans thought they were

far east that the

excitement

we

set

about interpreting the photo-

graphs.

I

Some weeks telephone rang.

after this, late It

on the evening of October

was Major Jack Leggett

at

9,

my

Eighth Air Force

Intelligence.

"Babs,

it

—a

was Marienburg today ((186))

terrific attack,

and

right

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE on the nose! At

least the strike pictures are swell,

we won't know the whole The following morning

story

till

but of course

tomorrow."

a Mosquito took off for East Prussia

from Leuchars, the photographic reconnaissance base land.

Squadron Leader Lenton was the

Haney

had

also

Me

the navigator. Their

main

target

pilot,

and

in Scot-

Pilot Officer

was Marienburg but they

Gdynia and Danzig. Just before Danzig two

to cover

109s tried to intercept them, but the Mosquito escaped with

ease,

and went on

field.

When Lenton

to

photograph the Focke-Wulf factory

air-

arrived back at Leuchars he was received

He had been

with joyful incredulity.

reported shot

way out. managed to get hold

down and

parachuting over Sylt on his

When graphs,

Sims and

we could

I

of Lenton's photo-

hardly believe our eyes.

"That's five out of six of the pletely," I exclaimed,

main buildings burned out com-

"and look

at

all

the

190s smashed to

pieces."

"No mistake

this time," said Sims.

Focke and Mr. Wulf back But only a week

after

"That ought to

set

Mr.

for a bit."

Marienburg, the Eighth Air Force suf-

fered such disastrous losses in attacking the Schweinfurt ball-

bearing factories that American daylight operations over Ger-

many were

entirely

suspended

—

until long-range fighter escorts

could be provided. During those dark days at the end of 1943 there

was one consolation, however,

for those

passionately in daylight precision bombing.

who

still

believed

The Marienburg

photographs served as a reminder of what could be done, what

had been done, and what would surely be done the

list

again.

Meantime,

of aircraft industry targets was reviewed each ((187))

week

in

AIR SPY

London, against the day when precise attacks could be carried out over the heart of Central Europe.

By

this

several

time

my

section

Americans

in

had grown considerably and included

addition to the R.A.F.

we moved

interpreters. Early in 1944,

into

and W.A.A.F.

two spacious upstairs

rooms, a former bathroom and a former bedroom, with windows that looked out

towers

—

some people would have

or ivory towers, as

Sims

I put

southward from one of Danesfield's gray-white

in charge in the

bedroom, and

ex-bathroom with two interpreters and a

We

I

called them.

shared the palatial

clerk.

were working away as usual, noses to the stereoscope, with

our pace geared to the urgent but regular tempo of keeping up with cover of the

German

aircraft factories,

expectedly, the breakthrough came.

It

February 1944, the famous week of after

months

when

was the

suddenly, un-

week

last

of

when

brilliant frosty days,

and waiting, the bombers of

of impossible weather

the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces, escorted by long-range fighters, let

go with everything

and established

As soon

air

at the

as the strike reports

began

that something quite unprecedented

bewildering in,

enemy's aircraft industry,

supremacy over Germany

number

of

to

come

in

was happening.

damage assessment

with photographs that looked as

for the

if

sorties

it

first

time.

was clear

And

then a

came pouring

they had been taken during

the attacks.

The late:

burg,

factories that

Sims and

I

had contemplated so long and

Bemburg, Gotha, Brunswick, Wiener Neustadt

—

the

fighters that threatened the

Fiirth, Oschersleben,

Regens-

assembly centers for the night

R.A.F. as well as those for the ,

((188))

Me

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE

Fw

109s and

190s

—were hardly

shadows and hiding the holo-

that billowed up, casting strange

caust below.

And

on the snow-covered

tered aircraft, the black splodges

looked as

if

smoke

visible for the surging

airfields,

made by

thick with scat-

bombs

the blast of the

thousands of Gargantuan bottles of ink had been

hurled on the ground.

Such was the photographic record of

which

that historic week,

for the Allies was comparable in importance to the Battle of Britain; for

it

meant

on D-Day

that

and

cally lacking in strength,

attack in

on

oil.

Inevitably

German production

it

it

Ofiicers'

caused profound repercussions both

policy and in Allied plans. Before long

a few months later

Mess when

crowded anteroom

—

I

criti-

opened the way for the

also

me and my

these repercussions inevitably affected

One day

was

fighter opposition

I

section.

had been lunching

in the

caught sight of a familiar figure in the

—and a group

Peter Riddell. So he was back

captain! After nearly three years, Riddell

had returned

to photo-

graphic intelligence, as Senior Air Staff Officer to the R.A.F's. first

photographic reconnaissance group at Benson.

seen Peter Riddell for ages, and

I

did not

know whether he was

aware that the one-woman section which he had ago

at

Wembley was now

the great attacks

twelve times

on the German

its

had not

I

initiated long

and that

original size,

aircraft industry

had been

based on our reports. But he evidently did, and he greeted with

warm

congratulations.

Then he added

cheerfully,

me

"But of

course aircraft factory interpretations soon won't be needed any

more."

I felt as if

he had taken up a knife and stuck

into me. Surely the to be attacked?

German

aircraft industry

But perhaps Peter Riddell was ((189))

would

right.

it

straight

still

have

Greatly dis-

AIR SPY turbed,

I

went back

the notes I

to

my

section and tried to concentrate

was preparing for a

on

talk

on

aircraft interpretation at

the R.A.F. Staff College. I

need not have worried, for Peter Riddell's sweeping prophecy

was only partly

true.

Although

1944 most of

after the spring of

the Germans' big aircraft production centers were in such ruins that they were hardly worth attacking, yet the

Me

262 and

the

Me

the incredulous dismay of

AlHed

aircrews,

made

to attack jet production.

tories

were high on the target priority

and urgent demand But

this

time

of the dispersal

it

for our

was

and

tories,

my team it

set to

was a search

jet fighters,

far

the

combat, to

and plans had

to

be

list,

which meant a new

interpretations.

This time Speer was in charge

—determined

work

in

So once again enemy fighter fac-

different.

program

tion invulnerable. So in the I

new

163, were already appearing

summer

to

of 1944,

down

to hunt

make

aircraft

produc-

when once again

dispersed aircraft fac-

and wide throughout Germany, follow-

ing up reports and scraps of news to the most unimaginable hiding places: to lunatic asylums and chocolate factories, to vast fantastic

underground workshops,

to firebreaks in pine forests

and tunnels on autobahns. The search had a about sible

it,

had

for one's usual standards of to

feeling of unreahty

what was possible or impos-

go by the board; the only thing was

to

go ahead and

report honestly the strange facts that the camera had recorded.

On

our photographs we followed the new dispersal up the

valleys of the Bavarian Alps, to httle villages in Silesia, to the

Baltic coast,

made

and the Polish border. In 1943, the Germans had

a habit of plastering camouflage paint over their dispersal ((190))

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE factories,

which was a great help to

see at a glance

us,

we could then

because

which plants were being used for war production.

But the Speer regime evidently realized that

when you

convert

buildings from other uses the most effective camouflage

camouflage

we had

to

at all.

As

they

become more

became more

subtle too,

tenuous clues: for the smallest increase in road to a factory

and

when

and we watched

new

tion of faint lines that

tells

have been passing over the

At

of lines at an airfield,

life

a

tries to

looks

field

again and again

grass.

—

faint pale lines

reflection of light

And

from the

the fading of that tracery

the grass has resumed

game Grandmother's

wheels

feet or

growth, means that feet and wheels have been absent. the children's

comes

room

the airfields where assem-

an interpreter where

when

most

for the

for "track activity," the accumula-

which are actually caused by the myriad flattened blades of

methods

the special look that

busy, just as in everyday

rumored we watched

no

extensions, for the slightest

rail traffic, for

it is

lived in or a house looks inhabited.

bly was

subtle in their

is

Steps,

its

It

upward was

like

where Grandmother

look round so unexpectedly that she catches you actually

moving. Often we could not say more than "possibly" or "probably," but

when we could

working on bombers,

jet

aircraft

like the little

where we found some tory

establish definitely that a factory it

was promptly blotted out by the

Bavarian shoe factory

Me

262 wings

lying about.

at

Wasserburg,

That

little

was completely destroyed, but the manager was not

and when to inspect

did you

after

VE-Day

was

the Allied ground-check

and measure the damage,

know?" ((191))

his

fac-

killed,

team arrived

one question was,

"How

AIR SPY

One day

August 1944,

in

Medmenham

to see

I

went down

to the print library' at

whether there was any cover of a

linle place

Min-

called Kahla. in the Thuringian hills near Jena, as the Air istry

had

""partly

several reports of a large

underground.**

map

found the

I

cover trace which showed

new

jet-fighter f acton* there

sheet I wanted,

had been photo-

the areas that

all

and the

graphed. Good, there was cover of Kahla, but unfortunately not a

new one

—nothing

December. However, something

since last

might have already started by then. So

and took them

Unce: ~y stereoscope liule strips

my

upstairs to I

collected the sortie boxes

section.

searched the valleys with their neat

and the

of fields,

I

rolling hills covered

dense

^;^itb

pinewoods. but the \irgin countryside had not been touched.

There

v.

No new

anything but farming.

as not a sign of

branch railways or spoil heaps.

I

went back over

roads or

and

again,

it

—

searched ^ith special care along the fringes of the woods

was the

sort of place

that

where a tunnel entrance might hardly show.

Some months earlier I had \isited a British underground factory so I knew what to look for. But there ^^5 i::hing. Still, that .er to make sure. was six mcr.tlis ago. We'd have to have ne v :

was delighted

Just a vseek later I

Kahla had been an\"thing

:

:

•

s^<^

en the board that

graphed, and hurried to check whether

rj::::

had harrened.

cameras had

to

A

disappointment was in store:

e:ea Kahla aU right, hot just where

I

the

wanted to

look there were thick patches of ckMid, so I couldn't see a thing. Tr.is c::en

the "Job"

but

this

later.

happened, of course, and you

was photographed again. Sometimes

time good

As

I

new

fastened

pictures of

my

eyes

had

just

Kahla came

it

was a long wait,

in only three

on ihem, amazed «192))

to wait until

at

what

I

days

saw, I

I

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE was glad at the

the

Air Ministry

new German

spirit in

news with someone

that I should be able to share the

who would

really appreciate

began

dispersal

I

For since

it.

had discovered a kindred

Walt Rostow, an American economist who had come

over to work on target analysis with Kindleberger and had

German

joined the Air Ministry section concerned with industry in the

When

I

summer

had gazed

at

aircraft

of 1943.

Kahla

for long

enough

telephone and asked for an extension at

I

"Monck

reached for the Street," the

Air

Ministry's underground offices.

"Captain Rostow? I've go^the new Kahla pictures, and there is

an underground factory a few miles west of the town. There's a

tremendous

lot

going on; they're tunneling in

at least

two places

into a long steep spur of hill covered with pinewoods,

are several hutted camps,

and a branch railway

and there

line is nearly

finished."

Kahla was only a beginning, and to

be founded on

fact,

ground program was

We

it

became

as report after report

Harz Mountains was one of the

at

Langenstein in the

furthest advanced,

made to help how to attack these new targets Shortly after this a new section was

Rostow's instigation a model was

gigantic

busy

entirely

at

Walt

if

they had to

started at

Med-

devoted to underground factories, and the

German burrowings kept

until the

and

the planners to

—

try to figure out

menham

German under-

clear that the

in deadly earnest.

found that an underground factory

be attacked.

proved

a large team of interpreters

end of the war.

But there was

still

one more report for

on a German underground

factory. ((193))

my

section to issue

By March 1945,

the long

AIR SPY

narrow mountain

Kahla had been ravaged on the grand

at

and along the summit of the trances, a strip

ridge, high

had been shorn of

trees

scale,

above the tunnel en-

and

leveled,

and a wide

concrete runway laid down; while between the runway and the

tunnel entrances below there was a conveyor something like a funicular railway. Here, in this fantastic Wellsian setting,

saw

for the

first

time

jet fighters that

we

had been assembled under-

ground. I

marveled over the photographs with Sims and with Ursula

Kay,

my

chief aircraft interpreter.

There

at the top of the

veyor were two smallish planes, and a third was side a building near the tunnel entrances.

The

down below

prints

conout-

were not very

sharp, but there was no mistaking that long nose, and that high tail,

and that swept-back wing. They were

"I'd rather not be

one of the Kahla

Me

262s.

test pilots,"

chuckled Sims.

'*Must feel like taking off from an aircraft carrier that's got

beached!"

The question whether in\Tjlnerable never

tion

had

the underground factories really were to be put to the test, for jet

produc-

underground had barely started when VT-Day came. But we

know now what we might have been up

against, even

if

we

dis-

count Goering's wild claim that Kahla alone had a production capacity of

And the

more than a thousand

during those

last six

Me

262s a month.

months of the war

underground dispersal was going ahead

in

Europe, while

at frantic speed, the

Germans were developing yet another technique make their jet production immune from bombing.

for tr\'ing to It

was a most

imaginative and clever dispersal of final assembly, and Urstila «194))

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE and

I

kept pursuing

"We'll have to think of a I

said to Ursula.

don't

"We

want people

up

right

it

till

name

a

few weeks before VE-Day.

for these

new assembly

them

can't possibly call

factories;

places,"

and we

to think they're just ordinary airfield dispersal

areas."

"What about 'Leipheun Dispersal the

first

"Yes

Units'?" said Ursula.

one we found was near Leipheim

—good

Now

idea.

let's

see

"As

airfield."

where we've found them:

Leipheim, Neuberg, Obertraubling, and Schwabisch-Hall. All four of the main I

assembly

jet

adjusted under

my

airfields in

Bavaria."

stereoscope the latest photographs of the

Bubesheimer Wald, the dark plantation of pine southward from Leipheim

airfield

the Stuttgart-Munich autobahn.

never

know

that anything

trees that reaches

beyond the broad sweep of

At a quick glance you would

was going on, but there

it

was. For

nearly half a mile, two stretches of the straight grassy avenues

which served

as firebreaks

had been screened from our view by

camouflage netting fixed horizontally between the

on

either side, at a level just high

long narrow buildings. With

my

lines of these buildings faintly

could measure them with just

bit of

of the day,"

I

tree

trunks

to clear a couple of very

stereoscope

I

could see the out-

through the netting, and then

Leitz magnifier. Their width

wider than the wing span of an

"What a

On

my

enough

Me

I

was

262.

luck that the pictures were taken in the middle

I said,

"so

the other covers

we can

it's

really see

in such

down

into the firebreak.

deep shadow."

followed the track from the woods back to the autobahn,

and gazed towed

at the

blurred image of an

Me

into position for take-ofl[ along a ((195))

262 which was being

dead

straight stretch of

AIR SPY the

highway

ment when different

—blurred because

the airplane

the photographs were taken, so

position on each of the two

was examining. The Germans were even though Montgomen* was

We

just

Then

to America.

and think ahead.

at

was

move-

in a sUghtly

prints of the stereo pair I

still

turning out

jet fighters,

Llineburg.

had time

to read

it

before he went

was VE-Day and time

it

had heard

I

it

in

on the ""Leipheim Units" on April 26,

issued our report

1945, and Walt Rostow

home

was actually

that I

was wanted

to clear

up

to interpret

Japanese aircraft and industry- in the Pacific theater, and would

soon be posted

to

Washington. As

a couple of verses

had scribbled

I

might as well keep those.

Between

It

turned out

I

my

files I

in pencil. "Yes," I thought, "I

was a wonderful time."

the pines at

Leipheim

The sunhght can be glimpsed. gentian time at Jenbach,

It's

There's edelweiss at Imst;

The

roses

bloom

The Wismar

sea

at Kreising, is

green.

At Oberpfaffenhoffen Wild orchids have been

Down

in the

Monck

The sun can never

Why

seen.

Street cellars

shine;

should they care

if

lihes

Were found

at

But when

Wiener Neustadt

The It

To

at

Langenstein?

grass begins to grow,

makes ring

came on

a splendid reason

8—7—2 —0. 0196.)

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE The

Allied

bombing

offensive against Oil,

mated the dearest ambitions of the attack,

was fought

to

its

which consum-

believers in strategic precision

finish during the last year of the war;

but the battle could never have been waged successfully had not

photographic intelligence been watching the enemy's

system for analyzing and assessing first,

industry

1940, and building up over the years a unique

ever since

At

oil

when only

it.

the western edge of

Germany had been

photographed, the work of the interpreters was centered on the plants that extracted oil from the hard coal of the Ruhr; but

soon, as the Spitfires reached out further afield,

began

to confirm that the

brown

coal,

Medmenham

Germans were producing

and were planning

oil

from

to develop this technique

on a

portentous scale.

Squadron Leader Hamshaw Thomas, by then

in charge of

industry interpretation, was fascinated by the Germans' brilliant exploitation of their

chemical

to find out the capacity of the

new

and he determined

skills,

For a

plants.

start

he visited

the few synthetic oil plants in Britain, and talked long and

summer

searchingly with the experts. Then, in the

Leuna, near Merseburg, was photographed for the he

first set

eyes

on the gigantic synthetic

oil

first

plant that

of 1941, time,

and

had been

constructed alongside the existing chemical works.

The

straight roads that

tangles

marked

were followed by narrower

along which the

oil

flowed as

it

whole area into rec-

off the

lines

—

the massive pipes

progressed from stage to stage.

These helped him to trace the sequence of the processes, and to deduce which equipment must be for brown coal crude

oil,

and which

for the final product. ((197))

tar,

which for

Next he measured up

AIR SPY the storage tanks, but data

all

on the tanks alone could not give

a rehable indication of the plant's capacity. All the different installations

removal

had

to be analyzed: the gas producers, the sulphur

units, the

hydrogenation

compressor houses, and

stalls, in

which the

When

he had accumulated

process took place at

critical

pounds

a pressure of ten thousand

enormous

finally the

to the square inch.

all this

information he consulted

again with the British experts, and together they were able to assess the photographic evidence in the light of

known

Thus gradually

for estimating the

maximum

productive capacity of a synthetic

interpretation of

By

was evolved

a reliable system

its

oil

standards.

plant from the

various units.

the beginning of

1942 Medmenham's concise estimates

of production capacit}' were causing a revolution in intelligence

on enemy

oil,

but the picture was

had been reports of a new but

its

Then

far

from complete. There

synthetic oil plant in Czechoslovakia,

exact location and potential output were not known.

a clue

came

up. Certain

had been smuggled

men

still

with

oil

to

German

technical journals which

England contained advertisements for

experience to

work

at a

place called Briix in the

tr}'

for cover of such distant

Sudetenland.

By

this

time

targets, for the

it

was possible

strength of the advertisements

Early in

May

to

Mosquitos had come into operation; so on the it

was decided

to "lay

on"

Briix.

1942, when successful cover was obtained. Flight

Lieutenant Peter Kent, a young put in charge of interpreting the

oil geologist oil plants,

his eyes.

No wonder

to Briix.

They would need a small army.

who had

just

been

could hardl}- believe

they were advertising for personnel to go

((198))

A

vast industrial

com-

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE plex was under construction on a

site

a mile and a half square.

For days and weeks he interpreted and measured, calculated

and

discussed.

At length he came up with

when complete would have

plant

was going

year. It

From

his

to

the finding that the oil

a capacity of 750,000 tons a

be a second Leuna.

meticulous study of Briix Kent was able to estimate

what percentage of the planned capacity was actually

and

after this, as gradually the

system was photographed, he became more and more experi-

oil

enced

at

judging the actual extent of a plant's activity, by corre-

he found

lating the evidence

detailed

at

each stage of the process. The

knowledge he thus accumulated

also

ume had

of the

work on

oil

industry had increased so

six interpreters helping

was the

made

that he

was

Soon the

vol-

meant

able to locate the most vulnerable aiming points.

it

in use;

whole of the German synthetic

much

that

Kent

him, including two Americans.

And

by Kent and

special experience acquired

possible the purposeful planning

and

his

team that

the overwhelming

policy of attrition of the offensive against oil which began in

May

1944.

The

score of the greatest

bombing

offensive against a single

industry was chalked up every day on the "oil scoreboard" which

covered a whole wall beside the interpreters. the

names

Leuna,

On

the

left

were

of the thirty-five most important plants, starting with

Briix, Politz, Gelsenkirchen;

see the comparative figures for the

tion of each.

The

and

at

a glance you could

maximum and

actual produc-

dates of the last attack and the last cover of

each were also marked up, and the date when the next cover was wanted. This

last

entry was a very significant one, for on

depended the timing of the next

attack.

((199))

Kent and

it

his assistants

AIR SPY

could estimate

how

raid, so the idea

was

long repairs were likely to take after each

by photographic cover

to recheck

appropriate interval, and to stage the next attack the repairs

The

had been made and production had ''oil

Medmenham

was a

scoreboard'"

Douglas Kendall used to explain

Even when

feeling

was running quite high

of all time, or whether

was

there

was no doubt

to be

watched by photographic

that

it

was an

begun. showpiece, and

in planning

and

optimum

in fact the

was merely "one of

it

an

with pride to visiting V.I.P.s.

it

ligence circles as to whether oil

just

after

moment

intel-

target

these panaceas,"

excellent strategic target system

intelligence.

Not

a "quicksilver"

target like the aircraft industry, that could be dispersed under-

ground or tions.

in pine forests,

was

it

tied to

its

monumental

This meant that an interpreter like Peter Kent,

from years of experience

just

the combined effort of the the precise points where

it

One cloudy morning

who knew

what he was doing, could guide

American and

British Air Forces to

would have the most

in

installa-

1944 the

shattering effect.

intelligence officers at the

Eighth Air Force headquarters looked eagerly forecast for the following day. It

was the moment

at the

weather

to start

making

definite plans for the next day's operations.

"Good bombardment weather

for

Leuna coming up,"

said

Jack Leggett as he handed the forecast to Fhght Lieutenant Ivor Boggiss, liaison officer from

cover for weeks now.

We

Medmenham,

"but

we

must have a mission

haven't had laid

on

this

morning."

Messages flew over the telephone to the eral

was wild for lack of

P.I.,"

effect that "the

Gen-

and within a few hours a Light-

((200))

THE ALLIED BOMBING OFFENSIVE ning took

off

from Mount Farm. At the controls was Captain

Jacob Dixon, an experienced American

pilot,

times previously succeeded in photographing

one of the most heavily defended

more

flak ringed

dezvous with

round

it

who had

Leuna

targets in all

and

set

several

time

this

Germany, with

than the city of Berlin.

his fighter escort

—by

He made

ren-

course for his mission.

That afternoon Jack Leggett started making ready for the four

and

o'clock operations conference,

Met

the

office.

first

he checked again with

Leuna

Yes, the forecast of good weather for

could be confirmed. Next he phoned Reconnaissance Operations

and was shocked returned,

"Better see

more from But the

Captain Dixon's plane had not

to hear that

and was long overdue, presumably if

we

lost.

can't get Peter Kent's section to say anything

earlier covers," suggested Boggiss.

interpreters

were adamant. They went over the most

recent photographs again, but rang back just before four o'clock to say they couldn't possibly estimate whether

operational again without

new

at the operations meeting,

and a

nine that evening.

actually

cover. Leggett explained all this final decision

The conference was

the headquarters' Fighter Controller if

Leuna was

just

came

in

was postponed breaking up

till

when

and asked Leggett

he could have a word with him about something urgent.

"It's

Command. They've passed it on moment Leggett could not imagine

a phone message from Fighter

from one of the bases." For a

why

a message from Fighter

but as soon as he read the over Leuna with Dixon the escort planes. at

He

.

first .

Command

should concern him,

few words he knew:

"We

arrived

."It was from the pilot of one of

read out the rest of the message.

"We were

26,000, but found the area so covered with cloud that ((201))

we

AIR SPY

could see nothing whatever of the target. Dixon told us to stay

up where we were, and he was going down paused a moment worked down into still

in horror,

to 14,000." Leggett

and then went on: "He gradually

we heard him again. He and was going down to 10,000.

the cloud, and then

could not see the target

Then we heard Dixon's voice I've seen the target. Tell

again. 'I've been

them

hit,'

ing out.

On

.

.

.'

is

working again.

That's the end of the message

the strength of Dixon's message

it

said, 'but

chimneys

I've seen the

northwest corner are smoking normally. Tell quarters that I'm sure the plant

he

in the

Bomber head-

Now

I'm bail-

—

yes, that's all."

was decided

to attack

Leuna, and on the following day the bombs of the Eighth Air Force rained down on the largest of the German synthetic plants, putting

it

But the happy ending Captain Dixon,

oil

out of action yet once more. to this story

who had landed

came

safely

the following year.

by parachute and had

been made a prisoner of war, was in due course liberated by the Allied armies, and his gallantry was recognized by the U.S. award of the Distinguished Service Cross.

((202))

IX

The

JVlucH

Battle Against the

V- Weapons

has already been said and written about the Vergeltung

weapons, both from the German and from the Allied viewpoints. It

ranges

all

the

way from

the preliminary propaganda about

Wunderwaffen, and from certain equally exaggerated postwar claims for the Allied counter-measures, to official histories and authoritative first-hand accounts.

There

is

much, however, that

has never been published. Almost every account of the battle of wits alludes to the

intelligence in analyzing

extent of

its

role

major part played by photographic

and assessing the

threat, but the full

and the great variety of ways

have hitherto been kept

V-weapon

which

it

helped

say, only

one of

in

secret.

Photographic intelligence was,

I

need hardly

many complementary sources of information. The agents who risked their lives in Germany and the occupied countries, the interrogators who questioned the prisoners of war, the men and women who combed through trade magazines and monitored German broadcasts, the technical experts who examined Vweapon fragments;

these were only a few of the vast incongruous ((203))

AIR SPY

team

that supplied the

at the top, there

likely to

The

have to

not the story of

tell is

the

without missing a single clue.

how

photo-

V-weapon mystery singlehanded,

graphic intelligence solved the

It is

rather a strangely paradoxical

and conspicuous

story of conspicuous successes it

all

upon whose judgment depended what action

be taken.

story that I

tain stages

investigation. Finally,

were the intelligence experts who weighed

varied evidence, and

was

raw material of the

At

failures.

cer-

brought to the over-all intelligence picture a rapid

accuracy and precision, and also a wideness of vision, that simply could not have existed otherwise; while

and perseverance of both

pilots

and

at others,

interpreters

all

the skill

were completely

fruitless.

On May

15, 1942, Flight Lieutenant

in his Spitfire high

way

to cover

D. W. Steventon flew

above the western shores of the

Swinemiinde

after

Baltic,

on the

photographing Kiel. Far below

and ahead lay the island of Usedom, with

its

long belt of wood-

land facing the Baltic, and separated from the mainland by the

River Peene. at the

He happened

northern

to notice that there

tip of the island,

with quite a lot of

ments nearby, and he switched on

At Medmenham,

the

was an

his

airfield

new develop-

cameras for a short run.

Second Phase

interpreters puzzled over

some

strange massive ringlike things in the

field,

and they worked out the pinpoint and noted down "heavy-

woods near the

air-

constructional work," and then turned their attention to destroyers off Swinemiinde.

The

sortie

then went on to the Third

Phase sections as usual, for interpretation on different specialized subjects. I

remember

flipping through the stack of photographs ((204))

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS and deciding the scale was too small to make it worthwhile looking

Then something unusual caught my

at the aircraft.

eye,

and

I

stopped, to take a good look at some extraordinary circular em-

bankments. noticed the

"No,"

I

glanced quickly at the plot to see where

name Peenemiinde. Then

looked

suppose."

And

But when the

I

Somebody must know

are.

full

its

when

library, for future reference

I

wonder

about them,

my

mind.

rounds, no one had staked a claim

of photographs were set in place

Medmenham was

rested, as far as

all

then dismissed the whole thing from

sortie finished

for the mysterious "rings" at Peenemiinde,

boxes

at the prints again.

thought to myself, "those don't belong to me.

I

what on earth they I

I

was, and

it

and the cardboard

on a

shelf in the print

required. There the matter

concerned, for the next seven

months.

Meantime,

as

we now know, General Dornberger and Wern-

her von Braun were working day and night at their rockets, and the

first

known

fully

as the

successful

V-2

—

woods on October of the flying aircraft over

—

later

took place at the experimental station in the

3,

bomb,

launching of an A-4 rocket

1942; while in December an early version

the F-7,

was launched from below a large

Peenemiinde.

In that same December reports of "secret weapon

trials" in

this

area began reaching London, and began to cause concern.

The

fact that the

Germans were developing long-range weapons

was already known

known

to British intelligence, for a

as the "Oslo Report," giving

plans for

new weapons,

communication

advance information on

including rockets, had reached

via Oslo as early as the

autumn

of 1939.

But

London

like those first

photographs of Peenemiinde that Steventon took by chance in ((205))

AIR SPY

1942, the "Oslo Report" had been ence

By

when

filed

away

—

for future refer-

required.

the beginning of 1943, there was a large and thriving sec-

tion of

Army

interpreters at

the needs of the

War

gence. In Februarys of this section,

was planning

Major Norman Falcon,

was warned by

true,

it

this

War

the

the officer in charge

it

K

this

order. So photo-

might well be something very

What about

work" which had meant nothins briefing

projectors,

country from the French coast."

meant a weapon of a new

unusual. Peenemiindel

enemy

Office that the

"some form of long-range

graphic evidence relating to

Soon a further

ministered to

Office in matters of photographic intelli-

to operate

capable of firing on

were really

Medmenham, which

came from

that "heavy constructional

to

anvone the vear before?

the

War

Office,

where

it

had

been calculated that a rocket capable of reaching London from the

French coast would have

to be

launched from a sharply

inclined projector about a hundred yards long.

Falcon's interpreters, with several to

work

elliptical

new

on. prepared a detailed statement.

embankment and

covers of Peenemiinde

They reported

a huge

three circular earth banks "not unlike

empt>" resenoirs.'' These were facts that could not be denied, but

they did not in the least tally with the h}pothesis of a projector a hundred yards long. Nothing seemed to tally with anything.

Such was the embryonic stage of weapons" when early

in April

to the Chiefs of Staff.

But

it

British intelligence

on

"secret

1943 the evidence was presented

was convincing enough

to bring

about the appointment of an investigator-in-chief: Mr. Duncan Sandys, then Joint Parliamentar}' Secretar>^ to the Ministry of ((206))

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS

The Chiefs

Supply.

taking the "secret

mined

of Staff,

weapon"

how

to find out just

and the Prime Minister himself, were threat seriously

serious

enough

it

Repercussions of Mr. Sandys' appointment were

The Air Ministry

ately.

weapon

be deter-

felt

immedi-

once instructed Group Captain Peter

Commander

Stewart (then Station a secret

at

to

was.

Medmenham)

at

on the highest

investigation

mander Hamshaw Thomas, who by

this

priority.

to institute

Wing Com-

time was directing

all

Third Phase work, was put in charge, while an interpreter named Flight Lieutenant

Andre Kenny and

to search for clues of experimental cially at

two of

work and production,

Peenemiinde. At the same time,

his

Army

interpreters

side of the investigation, tial

three others were assigned espe-

Norman Falcon and

were to concentrate on the military

which meant primarily watching poten-

launching areas on the French coast. Meantime, a special

flying

program was

cans at

on

laid

Mount Farm

—

—shared by Benson and

the Ameri-

to insure that every square mile of the

French coastal area from Cherbourg

to the Belgian frontier

had

been photographed since the beginning of the year.

So the photographic search for in April 1943. for,

ahhough

No

secret

weapons began

in earnest

one really quite knew what they were looking

the Air Ministry did suggest that the interpreters

should be on the lookout for three things: a long-range gun, a

remotely controlled rocket aircraft, and "some sort of tube located in a disused mine out of which a rocket could be squirted."

On

April 29, Andre

to report

what had so

Sandys were

Kenny

far

set off for the

been found

his scientific advisers,

at

Ministry of Supply

Peenemiinde. With Mr.

two of them had recently spent

((207))

AIR SPY

awliole dzy area, so

him

that

2:

Medmenham. Kenny

Mr. Sandys could

izj.:

island c: Usecczi. at Kolpin.

s-ee

the

lie

main mstaUaticni were

the

all

spread cut plans of the whole

He drew anention

and showed

of the land,

at the

northern end of the

power

to the big

station

near the town of Peenemiinde, with power lines radiat-

ing throughout the experimental station, and he explained the

likdy functions of the huge new workshops among the

most obviously be plans

Then he pointed out of hangars,

the airfield further north, with

and beyond

it

some reclamation work

the landing area was going to be extended. to the focal point of interest, the

how he had come

explained

tures within

Tnen

imu-ental

There

some kind.

its

neat

low

indicating that

ali

eyes returned

•'earthworks" in

Kenny produced eniargements and more

die woods, and

He

trees.

for large-scale production of

plans.

to the :?::: usi?n that the struc-

some of the earthworki

tl re

mil::,

est

stands for

launching missiles. Trj.s .v_s :he nrst

time that Mr. Sandys haa ::r.r into touch

with a photographic interpreter, and he -^as

much

surprised and

impressed by the amoimt of de:::nea information the ra:::r:aphs

could

Before the meeting broke up, he was

yield.

vinoed that the tical,

and that

vs

its

hole Pe^enemunde circular

hnmy

was an experimental

site

consta-

and dl^tical earthwoiks were probably

for testing rockets.

On May first

9.

19-3. Mr. Sanays ':,\:zi '.^eanirnham. where

talked with the

Indus::;. 5r::i:n this

rn

^:a:e ne

iie.;.

proper.

interpreters

Then he eame on

and

vsith

Kenny

rhih.ess

q^ervicned

me

to the .Aircraft Section, as at

aircraii"'

as to

well

as

whether

((208»

4

in the

was con:em:na hnnseli with the search for a

::n::oi]ed

He

Army

I

as

"Te-

with rockets

had seen any

aircraft

^

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS at

Peenemiinde which

was nothing helpful

could not identify, but at

I

could say.

I

None

this point there

of the existing covers

were sharp enough or of large enough scale to give the sort of information that was needed. However, from then on

had

that the airfield

Four times cover, taken

in

knew

be carefully watched.

to

June Peenemiinde was photographed. The

on June

report quite a lot of

umn

I

2,

was a good

new

clear one,

first

and Kenny could

a "thick vertical col-

detail, including

about forty feet high" on a fan-shaped stretch of open

foreshore.

And

then on June 23, Flight Sergeant E. P. H. Peek

came back with photographs

that were exceptionally good. Fly-

ing in his Mosquito high over the experimental station, he

had

been completely unaware how much was going on down below June sunshine, but back

in the brilliant

was plenty on.

Two

for

Medmenham

Hamshaw Thomas and Kenny

rockets

horizontally

at

—

actual rockets

there

to feast their eyes

—had been photographed,

on road vehicles within the confines of the

lying

elliptical

earthwork, and even today after fourteen years that superbly clear photograph

makes

Kenny must have The

setting

felt

was

it

easy to imagine the stab of elation

when he saw them.

clear in every detail too.

Above

the rockets

towered a structure resembling a massive observation tower; and the steep encircling slope of the earthwork might have been sinister

Germanic stadium. Beyond the great oval were

and seaward,

at the

some

the woods,

end of an approach road, there was the fan-

shaped stretch of foreshore. Kenny's cautiously worded report described "torpedo-like objects thirty-eight feet long,"

but by the time the news had been

rushed to the Prime Minister they had been definitely labeled ((209))

AIR SPY as rockets.

And

within the next few days Mr. Churchill directed

that photographic intelligence should be enabled

means

sible

weapon

It

to

make

a

maximum

by

contribution to the

at this point, in

June 1943, that

I m}-seLf

was

something positive about the experimental work

miinde. for on the same sortie that showed those

were several runs over the

My

airfield.

"an}thing queer." and the four

body. This was the

first

time

was able

I

to analyze

the Messerschmitt hquid-rocket fighter, the

proNisionally

Me

named "Peenemiinde 30"), but

had been photographed

within a few hours,

The process

of going

back over

it

Peene-

to

watch for

all

found any-

satisfy-

and measure

163 (which

was not the

Peenemiinde, as

at

by turning up

at

taiUess airplanes that I

little

able

first

rockets there

first

was

brief

taking the air on June 23 looked queer enough to

it

secret

investigation.

was

to say

time

even.- pos-

I

we first

found out

the previous covers.

earlier

photographs was some-

thing that was happening the entire time in the \'-weapon investigation.

For the sequence of photographic

flights

and of

inter-

pretation finds did not run smoothly parallel to the sequence of

what was actually happening on the German ground. That the

way

likely

that photographic intelligence works.

to

throw new

light

and the date of "first

So field

lag

first

was

was

examined. So. quite apart

between the date of actual photography

the interpreter's report,

*'first

photographed" and

seen" often did not refer to the same cover at it

find

not

on earher photographs which had

meant nothing when they were from the normal time

Each new

is

in the case of

my

tailless aircraft.

all.

Peenemiinde

air-

had been photographed eleven times before June 23, but ((210))

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS almost

had

and poor

the covers were of small scale

all

about those

tried in vain to find anything useful to say

woolly-looking photographs.

It

—

an overlay of tracing paper

had been

quality. I

like peering

through

you could see blurred shapes but

you couldn't possibly even hint what they were. But now that

had actually seen the they frequented,

I

tailless aircraft,

little

same strange

tainly represented the

had ever recognized

—

shapes which almost cer-

flying machines.

The photographs taken on June 23 I

and knew which buildings

could go back to those earlier "bits of blotting

paper" and pick out pale blurred

marks"

showed the

also

was able

I

go back and identify

to

Duncan Sandys had the

ing side by side with the

torpedoes."

confirmed

aircraft

—and

in this

earlier streaks.

War

Cabinet that

was probably proceed-

work on rockets and "airborne rocket of the "Peenemiinde 30" definitely

The photographs

this

airfield

already reported to the

development of jet-propelled

first "jet

fan-shaped marks,

single, dark,

from which dark streaks led out across the case also

I

—although we now know,

of course, that

it

did

not have any direct bearing on the secrets of the V-1 and the V-2.

Meanwhile, the photographs of northern France were providing ominous evidence. Early in July a ground report

had reached

London

named Wat-

linking secret

ten near Calais.

weapon

Two months

activity with a village

earlier the

Army

interpreters

had

reported on a clearing in the woods near Watten, but the spot

had not been photographed

since. This

was quickly remedied,

and the new cover showed that a great deal had happened interval.

some

Work was

well ahead on what

was

in the

clearly going to be

gigantic concrete structure. Suspicious-looking preliminaries ((211))

AIR SPY

were also going ahead area,

and

all

in the rocket-range

from main

three sites were rail-served

which many

to

two other places

at

lines

—a

fact

of the British rocket experts attached great im-

portance. For by this time they were talking of forty-ton or fortyfive-ton rockets,

and

would have

missiles of this weight

brought to their launching

sites

by

rail.

These

theories,

in par-

could not bring himself to believe that a forty-ton rocket

feasible proposition.

He

that a pilotless aircraft

felt

scribed in one of the ground reports as "an air

—

be

however,

were by no means universally accepted. Lord Cherwell, ticular,

was a

to

much more hkely Both in London and

to be

^was

at

given

the

de-

mine with wings"

an immediate danger.

Medmenham

trating confusion in the secret

now had been

—

weapon

was a time of

it

investigation,

code name Bodyline

frus-

which by

—a

time

of

groping in the dark, of trying to lay foundations in a swamp. It

was

as

though the parts of two or three jigsaw puzzles had been

jumbled together, and

was sorely tempting

it

one answer, only one weapon.

to try to find only

seemed a triumph when two

It

or three bits of puzzle fitted together and could be identified as

"Rocket"; and not

fit

it

was

all

too easy to ignore the bits which did

in with these.

In spite of the conflicting views about rockets, however, Dun-

can Sandys was convinced that the secret weapon threat was

made to attack Peenemiinde. 1943, when Bomber Command made

a grave one. Soon the decision was

On

the night of

their

famous

destruction the whole

delay

it

August

raid,

17,

were

forty aircraft

was caused.

We know now

V-2 program, though

lost,

that

it

but considerable seriously delayed

estimates of just

caused vary from four weeks to ((212))

six

months.

how

long a

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS

Then

on August 27, the U.S. Eighth Air Force

ten days later,

attacked Watten.

The

V-2s, as General

Domberger

on the "launching

attack

calls

it,

shelter"

for

could not possibly have

been better timed, for a huge mass of concrete was in process of hardening

when

bombs came down, and within a day or

the

two a chaotic jumble of rigid

neer,

and immovable.

Sir

who was asked

photographs, said,

to

steel,

props, and planking was utterly

Malcolm McAlpine,

comment on

would be

"It

the

the eminent engi-

damage assessment

easier to start over again."

cording to General Dornberger, the

German

Ac-

engineer in charge

shared his view.

During the spring and summer of 1943 there had been two

main currents of the

nemiinde

itself;

weapon

secret

work of Kenny and

and that of the

Falcon and

his

struggled to

make

interpretation at

his helpers,

Medmenham:

concerned chiefly with Pee-

Army

interpreters

under Norman

second-in-command. Captain Neil Simon,

who

sense out of the early developments at Watten

and the other "heavy

sites" in

France. In September there was a

readjustment of responsibility. Douglas Kendall was given direction of the

whole investigation by

Falcon agreed that the the scope of their

weapon

work

interpreters involved should

expand

to include all types of possible secret

activity.

Kendall was by of

Army

Hamshaw Thomas, and Norman

this

time a wing commander, and in charge

Second Phase, the Model Making Section, the topographical

reporting,

and much

else.

for interpretation, but

toward the

Army

In the daytime he never had a

when evening came he always

Section, eager to see ((213))

moment

gravitated

any new Body line

finds:

— AIR SPY

any new "unidentified

woods

and

activity,"

of the Pas-de-Calais, any

trees being felled in the

dumps

of building materials in

the httle valleys of the Cherbourg peninsula signs of

new railway

—and

especially

any

spurs.

Almost every day there were

sinister

new

be

to

activities

examined. Near Mimoyecques, not far from Cap Gris Nez, a

new railway spur was being tunneled

right through a

hill,

and

was surmounted by three phony "haystacks" which might very well hide nearly vertical shafts. This might

tie

in with those

peculiar rumors of rockets that were going to be squirted up

from underground, but what more could one say? At Sottevast and Martinvast, near Cherbourg, there were burrowings and scrapings and

new

railways spurs; and at Siracourt, Lottinghem,

and Wizernes, between Calais and the Somme, the same goings-on; but

sort of

such an early stage that they might develop

all at

into almost anything.

In retrospect,

it

not surprising that the heavy

is

so hard to understand for they were not,

system of launching of

sites

them were intended

mammoth

launching

in

for a single type of

fact,

sites

weapon. Four

as "launching shelters" for V-2s;

sites for

were

a related

two

as

V-ls; and Mimoyecques was to

have housed a multi-barreled long-range gun which never materialized at

At

all.

'

the Ministry of Supply,

on October 21, Duncan Sandys

decided the rocket danger was so grave that the whole suspect area must be rephotographed. For the third time a flying pro-

gram involving about a hundred separate

a

hundred separate

sorties,

\

was

laid

on

each consisting of hundreds of photo-

((2H»

\

sorties

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS had

graphs, every one of which ing the

first

to

week of November the

menham. Each day

box

the

mountains around the

Army

care.

Dur-

of this hit

Med-

be scanned with full effects

files

up

stacked

interpreter

towering

in

whose job

it

was

to

"watch France": Captain Robert Rowell. Doggedly he plowed through the piles of prints, searching for railway spurs and for scratchings and burro wings that

had not been there before.

not yet a hunt for actual rockets, of course, but

hunt

a

definitely

rocket-launching Into

rocket-launching

sites

—

not seem to

1943, a major

4,

fit

for

was very rail-served

sites.

came suddenly,

rocket-conscious atmosphere there

this

on November

to

for

it

was

It

in

anywhere.

add a new complication.

new

On

A

discovery, which at

the contrary,

few days

it

first

did

merely seemed

earlier,

a report had

reached London from an agent in France, telling that the construction firm he

worked

in the Pas-de-Calais,

for

was engaged

in building eight "sites"

not far from Abbeville.

He

could not under-

stand what they were for, though he strongly suspected they had to

do with

secret

they were.

weapons; but he could describe exactly where

On November

3 the eight places in question

were

photographed.

When Neil

the specially flown sorties

Simon

offered to lend a hand,

arrived as

swamped with work. Later they puzzled they had found

—

in

at

Medmenham,

Rowell was already together over what

some disappointment. There was something

"starting" all right at each of the eight pinpoints,

evidently the

same "something"

railway anywhere near,

let

it

was

each case. But there was no

in

alone

and

new

sites.

((215))

rail

spurs leading to the

—

— AIR SPY

Late that

everjjir.

when Douglas Kendall

got back from a day's

meethigs in L-z^rz. he made straight for the

With Simon and s::es

a

one

z2.:'z

RcTsei: he looked quickly at each of the eight

rmly

in a

wood, and each apparoitly

settled dovra to gaze at the site

advanced.

was near Yvrench.

It

in a

which was

wood

cal'ei

TTnee of the buildings were unlike anythinz he in his his

— —they were

Except

life.

mind back

hiTTi

of

to

have

yes

B:j

I'^z

like sczieh in:

farthest

e

Cirre. e:

Tity

to winter sports before :he ^ ix, for they

.een ::

:k

rtmzzzz

xtJjc

"Sh is

T-:

Section.

standard buildinzs. some of them strangely shaped.

set of nine

Then he

Army

::

he

thoo^

aloud "That's what they .::> hhe

:iz~ seemed to be :ze-:::ih and the :h::i

^zz e_:i

1"

plan

vkw, had one

Iile z ZLZz^i's skis laid

down on

15

skis."

sh:re::

gently curving eid. They ..ere

their sides.

Through the early hours of the mocning the Bc^yline r:e:e:s

clearing

inter-

meisureh ii^ :re:hed, compared and discussed. Each

and each

dump

each

pit,

of building matmals, each

5emic
ctf

the oveniding qoestion c^ the day: "^^hat

connection with rockets?" But at die end (^

was incondosiTe. These new

sites

jectiles of sozie srrt. but they bore

diat

had heen rcu'd so

versy

±a:

:r V.

Tnese new

L rndon. ere raring sites,

it

die

the answer

might be for launching pro-

no

relaticm to anjihing else

far.

^"hen :he report on these ei^t oirious reeirie-:^

it all

is

sites

reached

its

added no fuel to the flames of contro-

mere ^ercely than ever

^hiie

apparendy not for r:.^e:;

-

:

in Bodyline circles.

ey might be intended for, were

The two schools of thought about ((216»

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS secret

weapons

that

had grown up during the past

were by now coming into the group

conflict.

Duncan Sandys

six

months

himself led

which believed that the long-range rocket was the

only weapon that really mattered; while the others, including

Lord Cherwell, stuck were one or two that

to their guns in differing

group

scientists in this

from him. There

who even maintained

Peenemiinde was a gigantic hoax and that the rockets

photographed there were dummies. Things reached such an impasse that the Prime Minister himself intervened. Sir Stafford Cripps,

examine the

facts

really existed at

and

if

secret

weapons

what was the nature and extent

so

A meeting was called for the morning of November

of the threat. 8,

appointed

then Minister of Aircraft Production, to

and decide whether the German all,

He

1943, at which the primary evidence was to be examined.

In the big conference

room

at the

Cabinet Offices, Sir Staf-

ford Cripps sat at the head of the great U-shaped table, and on

him was a splendid array

either side of

and

air marshals, as well as

Prime Minister and a

At one

side of the table, in the

first

bottom three places, were Douglas

Andre Kenny.

evidence to be presented consisted of reports from

agents and other secret sources.

and lacking

in detail.

were also allusions to of of

and admirals

representing the

train of distinguished scientific advisers.

Kendall, Neil Simon, and

The

of generals

Duncan Sandys

Some

of

it

It

was, on the whole, vague

referred to rockets, but there

pilotless aircraft.

Then came an

analysis

German propaganda, which tended to confirm the existence German secret weapons, but only in an indirect manner. It is

a startling thought that those ((217))

first

witnesses gave the

sum

AIR SPY

primary evidence from sources other than

total of

aerial photo-

graphs. If no such thing as photographic reconnaissance had

and

existed,

bottom of the of

the

if

interpreters

table, those

had not been waiting

the

at

vague ground reports and the analysis

propaganda would have been the only

basis for Sir Stafford

Cripps's judgment.

The opening

stages of the meeting can, indeed, be

compared

opening stages of the meeting which once took place

to the

in

ancient Babylon, in the days of Belshazzar the king:

Then came

in all the king's wise

men: but they could not

make known

to the king the interpreta-

read the writing, nor tion thereof.

As

was, however, the better part of the meeting at the

it

Cabinet Ofl5ces was given over to discussing the photographic evidence. First of all

Kenny spoke about Peenemlinde;

had been seen

there

and the

effects of the

in France. Kendall described

was a pause, but

"Apart from the hea\7 to suggest secret

weapon

R.A.F. attack. Then

Watten and the other heavy

the questioning switched to

last there

the rockets that

what had been found

Sir Stafford

sites,

sites

at each.

At

had one more question.

have you any other information

activity in northern

France?"

"Yes," replied Kendall, "we have."

The what

as

attention of the meeting, which

one hea\y

electrified.

site after

had been wilting some-

another was discussed, was suddenly

There was breathless silence

as Sir Stafford asked,

"What have you found?"

"A new

sort of installation, almost certainly a launching site ((218))

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS of

A

some kind.

whole system of them

is

being built in the Pas-

de-Calais."

"How many "Up

are there?"

we'd found nineteen."

to midnight last night

"Nineteen!" "Nineteen!" echoed round the table.

"Probably more have been found by now," went on Kendall.

"We've only had time to search part of the Bodyline area."

"Why do you weapons?" asked

"They are not

think they have anything to do with secret Sir Stafford. like

any known military

Kendall, "and they were is

all

installation," explained

started at once.

And

each of them

apparently going to have a firing point aimed at London." Sir Stafford

two days, so

immediately decided to adjourn the meeting for

as to give the interpreters a

complete their search for the new

sites,

day and two nights to

and

to prepare a detailed

analysis.

By

the time the meeting reassembled

of twenty-six "ski sites"

a total

had been found. But no clues had yet

been discovered to show what

sort of missile they

were meant

In the report which Sir Stafford Cripps submitted to the

for.

War

Cabinet a few days

aircraft

He

on November 10

later,

however, he judged that

pilotless

were a more immediate danger than long-range rockets.

also advised that photographic cover of

Peenemiinde and of

the danger area in France should be kept up.

The

"Stafford Cripps meeting" helped to cause

a general

shakeup in Bodyline. Duncan Sandys's special investigation came to

an end, though he continued to advise on rockets; and on

November 18

the responsibility for both intelligence

planning counter-measures passed to the Air ((219))

Staff.

and for

AIR SPY

A

fortnight after the

had been

sites

identified.

meetmg no The

than ninety-five ski

less

majonxy were

vast

Calais, with their firing points on the "London

were also groups

and

in the

in the Pas-de-

line,''

Cherbourg peninsula aiming

at

but there

Plymouth

Bristol.

"We've got

to find out

what

they're for

and how they w^ork,"

said Kendall to Falcon one evening, as they returned to the

Army

Section after dinner in the Mess. "I don't feel we've really proved yet that they're not for rockets."

They were joined by Robert

Rowell and Neil Simon, and the four of them, surrounded by a sea

of photographs,

plunged once more into argument and

counter-argument. "If the 'ski buildings' really are for storage,

most

likely thing."

began Falcon, "the shape and

things to be stored in

Kendall put the stereoscope,

them

latest

and gazed

just

cover of the Bois Carre

over ten

at the entrance, so as to in

of the

site

under a

yet again at the absurdly long flat-roofed feet long,

but their

feet.

"WTiat we've got to check," he said,

moved

size

fairly limited."

is

windowless buildings. They were nearly 260 width was only

which seems the

make

"is

the radius of cur\^ature

sure whether a rocket could be

and out."

"I've calculated that a thirt}'-eight-foot rocket, like the ones

at Peenemiinde. could just be

said Simon, "at least without

maneuvered

its fins

into a ski building,"

on."

Perhaps that was why the third ski building was always shorter than the other two, thought Kendall.

the smaller components of the rocket. ((220))

It

might be for

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS "So there are no grounds for ruling out rockets as far as the actual ski buildings are concerned," he said. "But I think the firing points are a different story."

He

position a different pair of photographs,

set in

showed the

furthest

which

advanced of the oblong platforms, and

his

on the platform's narrow extension on which was

eyes fastened

a row of two-foot upright concrete studs

twenty feet apart, like a

buttons

set of

—

six pairs of

down

them,

the front of a

double-breasted coat.

"Yes," agreed Falcon, "I think so too. Because

if

you were

going to put up an apparatus for launching rockets at a steep angle,

you wouldn't

start

by making a platform with a long row

of concrete studs."

"Those studs are put in Rowell,

something

"A

"if

just the sort of foundations

you were going

to set

up

you'd need,"

steel posts to

support

like a bridge."

bridge," repeated Kendall, "perhaps something like an

inclined bridge."

"In other words a ramp," remarked Falcon.

be any use

at all for

"And

launching rockets, because

a rocket at such a low angle

it

would

fall to

if

that wouldn't

you launched

the ground almost at

once."

"But

if

the thing

had wings

to give

"then you would want to launch

it

it lift,"

argued Kendall,

from a ramp and not

ver-

tically."

"You

couldn't get a missile with wings round the

the ski buildings,"

There was

Simon pointed

out.

silence for a minute. ((221))

comers of

AIR SPY

"What about end of

the ver\- small concrete building at the other

"Have you any

ideas about that?"

Kendall laughed.

who

from the studs?" Rowell asked Kendall.

the platform

'Don't you think that's for the gentleman

"An

presses the button?" he said.

interesting job,

no doubt,

but judging by the strength and the shape of the building think

it

might be a

They went on

bit

uncomfortable

I

should

at times."

to discuss a square building

which

in

even

case was placed exactly in line with the firing point. Kendall

turned up some low obhques of the Bois Carre the square building very clearly, with

its

site,

which showed

wide entrance facing

toward London. ''What was the width of the door?" he asked Simon.

"Twenty-two

feet across."

"Twentv'-two.

put onto

it

Hm. So

just

supposing the missile had

in this building,

its

wing span would have

its

wings to

be

less than twent}'-t\vo feet. Right?"

"And

if

the wings weren't put

on

till

the last minute,"

added

Falcon, "the components could be stored in the ski buildings."

"But why should the square building be so carefully oriented to

London?"

said Kendall. "It

The

setting directional control.

directed automatic pilot,

I

must be something

missile could

to

do with

have a magnetically

suppose."

Before the end of November, Kendall had issued a report suggesting that the missile to be fired from the ski sites was a flying

bomb. He

also described in detail the likely firing pro-

cedure. But his seemingly overconfident interpretation was not

immediately accepted by some of rockets.

On December

1

who were

still

thinking in terms

Douglas Kendall, accompanied

((222))

I

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS once more by Neil Simon, was summoned to an intelligence meeting

Cabinet Offices, to try to

at the

and

justify his theories

claims.

I

must now go back a

work was reaching, on

the sidelines of the secret

gation. First I should emphasize that until

weapon

watch Peenemiinde

my

for "anything queer,"

airfield

investi-

November 1943 my

contact with Bodyline consisted of two things only: to

my own

to describe the stage

little,

brief

my

and

discovery and analysis of the "Peenemiinde 30" and the marks left

I

on the ground.

knew nothing

"ski site"

I

had no idea

Kenny had found

that

rockets,

name

of the "Stafford Cripps meeting," and the

—

would have had no meaning whatever for me

had ever heard

it

if

I

it.

On November

came and asked me

13, however, Kendall

to

search afresh at Peenemiinde for an aircraft which might be pilotless.

a

bit,

me

My interest in the secret weapon hunt had been flagging

but Kendall's enthusiasm revived

something

than a

fighter.

specific to

it,

especially as he gave

look for: a very small

This was the

first

time

I

aircraft, smaller

had been briefed

in these

terms.

Something smaller than a photographs, so

famous

set of

went

I

fighter

would only show up on good and fetched the

to the print library

photographs on which

I

had

earlier

found the

"Peenemiinde 30s."

It

and, sure enough,

did find a midget aircraft on those splendid

I

was by

photographs. The absurd sitting in a

little

far the best of the early covers,

object

was not on the

corner of a small enclosure some

airfield,

but

way behind

the

hangars, immediately adjoining a building which I suspected, ((223))

AIR SPY

from ings

was used for

design,

its

testing jet engines. Similar build-

had recendy been put up

engiQe factories.

say about

it.

look that

named

I

was about twenty

all

German

20.*"

"'Peenemiinde

but there was precious

feet,

The midget

it

at several of the

aircraft

as

little

aero-

span

its

could

I

had the aggravating cotton-wool

light-colored or shiny objects

acquire on aerial

photographs, owing to the "light spread'" that blots out shadow

and prevents detailed interpretation, and

also

makes

things look

deceptively larger than they are.

But Kendall, and

Golovine

also

certain that the "Peenemiinde 20"

urged I

me

got out

to continue

more back

my

at the

was

Air Muiistr>\ seemed

ven.-

important, and they

search. So during the next t^vo

covers, intent

on probing

weeks

into all the

most

unlikely comers.

It

so

happened

that,

while this search was in progress, on the

morning of November 28. 1943. across the Berlin. It

Nonh

pilot

series of attempts to

photograph Berlin had

went missing was quietly emerging

and most talented of the Mosquito

Merifield

(when war broke out he was

graduate

at

way

—

a

landmark

time the whole of northern

Merifield

failed.

pilots at

as the stead-

Leuchars.

It

and

his

first

of great signincance: for the

Germany was

navigator.

was

a nineteen-year-old under-

Oxford) who in March 1942 had flown the

cover of Kcnigsberg first

tn.'

its

for '"D.A." cover of

was Squadron Leader John Merifield, who since

Alistair Taylor iest

Mosquito was on

was a time of steady bad weather over Central Europe,

and a whole

The

a

Sea from Scotland to

Filing

within range.

OflScer

\Mialley,

ap-

proached the Berlin area from the north, but when they reached «224))

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS the city they realized that they

would not be able

any

to take

photographs there. The cloud was solid below them. Merifield

knew, however, that they had

come

it

was much clearer on the Baltic

in that way.

coast, as

So he turned northward and

course for the alternative targets that had been picked for

There were some shipping targets

at briefing.

Swinemiinde, a flock of at

at Stettin

set

him and

a suspected radar installation

airfields,

Zinnowitz on the island of Usedom, and various other odd

One

jobs.

after

another Merifield photographed them. After

Zinnowitz there was

made The

still

some

film

left,

a point of using up every scrap.

airfield at

What

Peenemlinde. That would

westward Merifield switched on

and Merifield always targets

about do

just

were it.

left?

Flymg

cameras as he reached the

his

northern tip of Usedom, and they clicked away as he crossed the airfield.

Then home!

Three days

later,

his case at the

on December

1

,

meeting in London, explaining step by step

he believed so strongly that the ski flying

bombs,

was by

this

I

while Kendall was arguing

was

still

sites

why

were for launching

combing Peenemlinde

for midgets.

There

time a big accumulation of back covers, and re-

examining them was an undertaking of some magnitude.

The

fact that I

had found the "Peenemlinde 20" near a build-

ing I thought was an engine test house led

me

further afield than usual, toward the no-man's land

between the area

marked

I

was

the edge of the

of the Industry

and

officially

eyes

which lay

watching and the woods that

main experimental

Army

my

to cast

station

—

the

domain

Sections.

There were four rather fancy

modem

((225))

buildings set

by them-

AIR SPY

open

selves in the

dynamometer

here,

which

was sure housed some

I

had made a

test beds. I

sort of

close study of test beds,

because Walt Rostow and the American target experts had

wanted

to

know

numbers

the

dence of potential output.

I

at

each German factory

had consulted with

—

as evi-

on

authorities

the subject at

Farnborough and the Ministry of Aircraft Production

as well as at

one of the Rolls-Royce

anyone

at

Medmenham would

factories,

contest

my

and

I

did not think

right to appropriate

these buildings at Peenemiinde. I checked the activity near

from cover

crumb

and

to cover,

surprisingly, I thought, I did find

one

them with the "Peenemiinde 20."

On

of evidence to link

several dates there

them

was an object resembling a midget airframe

outside one of them.

This

excursion beyond the

first

encouraged

me

to try

my

official

bounds of the

luck in other directions, and

to follow the dead-straight

I

of the island.

To

foreland, but

on the

there

passed

marshy

was a great deal going on

long-term project of land reclamation for extending the I

I

and went on toward the extreme edge

the right lay an untouched stretch of left

decided

road which led northward along the

eastern boundary of the airfield toward the Baltic shore. the limits of the airfield

airfield

—

the

airfield.

could see the plumes of smoke from the bucket-ladder dredgers

chugging away offshore, and there were several suction dredgers with their long spidery pipes straggling over the huge semicircle of land

which showed up with the hard black and white of

constructional its

work

against the settled grays of the airfield and

surroundings. I

was not

in the least interested in the dredging or the land

reclamation, which

anyway did not "belong" «226))

to

me. There was

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS

Medmenham whose

a separate section at

and report on developments

sole job

So

at airfields.

I

was

to

ignored

watch

the por-

tentous reclamation scheme, and pursued the straight road leading to the water's edge. Right at the I

did not understand

—

end of the road was something

unlike anything I had seen before.

Charles Sims was working at the other side of the room, and I

"Do come and have

said to him,

Sims came over and looked, but

a look at something here." like

nonplused by the unusual structures bent

down if

you wanted

Rumors

me

eariier;

aircraft I I

me

he was completely

had stumbled upon.

I

again over the photographs.

"Surely," I said to Sims, "this

put up

I

to launch

is

something out to

of "launching rails" for secret

and ever since

I

you would

the sort of thing

sea, isn't it?"

weapons had reached

had been briefed about

had been on the lookout

for a catapult of

pilotless

some

pondered over the photographs and reviewed what

kind. I

had

found. There were four of these strange structures. Three of

them looked very much for the operator different,

and

it

was evidently a tell

that

like the sort of cranes that

have a box

and a long movable arm. But the fourth seemed was the one that drew sort of

my

ramp banked up with

—

from the shadow

supporting

attention most. It

earth

—you could

rails that inclined

upward

towards the water's edge. "I'd better check with the Industry interpreters,"

was

my

first

thought. "They probably

about these things already." So

I

know

all

took the prints along to the

Industry Section, and was told that these "things" had been

looked at long ago, and interpreted as something to do with the dredging equipment.

Back

at

my

desk, I gazed at the photographs again. "I don't ((227))

AIR SPY I thought.

believe

it,"

phoned

his office.

not be back

till

Kendall was in London,

knew

November

I

would

was

I

asked that the

fairly late. I

he should be told I

must show them to Kendall." So

"I

like to see

told,

I

and might

moment he

arrived

him.

was a new cover of Peenemiinde, flown on

there

28, but I

had no

right to claim the photographs before

various sections with higher priorities. Late in the afternoon,

however,

"Do

said to Ursula Kay,

I

try

and get that new cover

of Peenemiinde," and off she went to track

When but

it

the door opened, I looked

was Douglas Kendall,

his brief case.

He

looked a

still

down.

up expecting

to see Ursula,

with his coat on and carrying

white and

bit

it

tired, I thought.

"I hear you want to see me, Babs," he said.

"Yes,

I do.

want you

I

to look at

Peenemiinde. Don't you think

it

something

found

I've

might be a catapult for

at

pilotless

aircraft?"

showed him one of the

I

single prints,

for a minute that I thought he

and he was so

silent

must share the views of the

Industry Section.

Then he

my

set

stand

said, "That's

Let's see the pair,"

stereoscope over the two photographs.

why he was immediately

launching pilotless "I

itl

know

it

is."

these along to the

He was gone

aircraft,

so certain.

then?"

I

I

and he quickly couldn't under-

"You

think

it is

for

asked.

He took up the photographs. "I'll just take Army Section. You can have them back soon."

before Ursula returned, proudly carrying a box

file.

Together she and

was

as to

I

looked

at the plot,

and

whether the run over Peenemiinde

my

time to include the launching place. Fortunately ((228))

chief anxiety

airfield started in it

did

—

just.

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS Only the pair.

first

The

print of the run

showed

it,

A

before.

stereo

was poor, but even with

quality of the photographs

ramp was something

the naked eye I could see that on the

had not been there

was no

so there

that

tiny cruciform shape, set exactly

on the lower end of the inclined

rails

—

a midget aircraft actually

in position for launching.

Late through that night trace

I

worked

feverishly with Kendall to

back the history of the "Peenemiinde Airfield

found that the

first

experimental

ramp had been

Site."

We

built late in

1942, during the interval between the earliest two covers of the area. Kendall himself

measured and analyzed the ramp and then

an immediate report.

started drafting

But the ramp near the Baltic coast that

airfield

was reported by

was not the only one on the

Medmenham on December

1,

1943. John Merifield's sortie had brought another piece of exciting

news

as well.

The Air Ministry had asked

for photographs

of the "suspected radar installation at Zinnowitz" because they

had heard

that

launched from interpreter,

Section, at the

a Luftwaffe unit was plotting flying

this location.

So Claude Wavell,

as the top radar

and Neil Simon and Robert Rowell

in the

Army

had been searching the wooded shoreHne. And almost

same moment

that I

was looking

at the earlier cover,

and asking myself what on earth the ramp near the be, they

bombs

airfield

could

had found, between Zinnowitz and the village of Kempin,

eight miles

away down

the coast of

Usedom,

a launching site

with firing points aiming out to sea, which also matched up with the foundations for ramps at the ski

sites.

Luftwaffe center for training the personnel to operate the launching sites in France. ((229))

It

was, in fact, a

who were

going

AIR SPY

Before daylight next morning, Kendall's report on both Peene-

miinde and Zinnowitz was on

estabhshed beyond doubt.

Crossboyv! This code

known for certain that countered

to be

first.

way

to

London, with the news

most imminent cross-Channel threat was

that the nature of the last

its

It

bomb

this point

when they came, might be

it

—

the V-1

seemed

—was

and

that the target for launchings flying

bombs

Wlien was

in

sites

was something

it

bombs

The

ski

each

at

seemed possible two thousand

like

each twent>--four hours.'

this

deluge of flying

bombs supposed

That was the next question, and Kendall and the preters

the danger

of an appalling magnitude.

were nearly a hundred

as there

was

it

that the V-1 attacks,

buildings pro\ided storage space for uvent\- flying site,

bomb.

to be a flying

word superseded Bodyline, once

the flying

At

was going

at

begin?

to

Army

inter-

had been busy working out the answer even before

was asked. So many

sites

had been photographed

in

it

France

that the average time

needed for the early stages of construction

could be calculated

ven.-

and the photographs of

accurately,

Peenemiinde and Zinnowitz helped

to

fill

in the rest of the stor\'.

Kendall discussed the technical problems with several interpreters

who were peacetime architects, and estimate that the minimum time for was 120 days from

start to

finish.

finally

construction of a ski

The

ski sites

had obviously got

site

So the target date for the

beginning of the attack might be about

Medmenham embarked on

came out with an

to

sLx

weeks ahead.

be bombed, and

at

once

the huge job of providing material

^ One hundred per r^enty-four hours was the average during the main flying-bomb offensive.

((230))

actually

launched

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS method of

for targeting. Kendall also invented a

readiness of each

moment when

site,

so that attacks could be timed for the

construction was far advanced but not too danger-

ously near completion.

He worked

locating a hundred points to each

out a "points system," site,

When new

each individual building.

to

assessing the

al-

and a certain number

cover came in the inter-

preters assessed the readiness of each building in points, their total represented the percentage of readiness of the

and

whole

site.

But

at the

end of December 1943, when the Allied

really let fly at the ski sites

—

the heavy

bombers of the Eighth

Air Force were brought in with devastating flattened,

whether

system of ski

sites

against the flying

it

was nearly ready or

was a shambles. The

air forces

effect

—

not.

Soon the whole

first

every

site

round of the

bomb was an overwhelming

was

battle

victory for the

Allies.

When had

the

bombing of

the ski sites

tried frantically to repair all the

grew heavier the policy seemed

first

began, the Germans

damage. But

to change,

as the attacks

and repair work was

concentrated on the firing point and the square building. "So those must be the real essentials," thought Kendall, as he saw this

happening

The

at site after site.

elaborate storage "skis" and certain other buildings at

the sites were not essential to the actual launching, although they

would have been the

Germans

At

the

D-Day

essential to the really

heavy bombardment that

originally planned.

end of April 1944

—Robert

—

little

more than a month before

Rowell was examining a new cover of the ((231))

AIR SPY

Cherbourg peninsula when he suddenly gasped. Near a

Belhamelin something peculiar had been constructed

called

between two farm buildings. it it.

village

—a long

was

Ah! The beginnings of a

in a field,

It

—

could be

yes,

it

must be

firing point.

yes,

in

And some way from

it,

was a heavily camouflaged square

essential installations! It

—

embedded

concrete platform with pairs of studs

was a launching

building.

site

The two

of a new,

much

simpler variety, and the camouflage and dispersal was extremely subtle.

The Germans had

and had made new plans with Allied

ski sites,

bombing

well as Allied difficult to spot,

These

evidently learned their lesson over the

finds

in mind.

The new

interpreters as

sites

were horribly

but within a few days twelve had been identified.

sounded

new Crossbow

off a

alarm, and for the

The whole area

fourth time a special flying program was laid on.

within 150 miles of London, Southampton, and Plymouth was to be

photographed yet again. At Medmenham, Kendall put

fifteen

more

By

interpreters onto

Crossbow work.

the beginning of June, sixty-eight "modified sites"

had been

found, most of them oriented to the "London line." But one rather puzzling thing the

ramp and

came

to light.

Once

the concrete bases for

the square building were laid nothing

pened. Could there be a holdup somewhere? No. ing to plan that the "modified sites" were

answer to

this

was found not

center at Zinnowitz.

ing

site,

France but

in

left

It

more hap-

was accord-

The

unfinished.

at the

V-1 training

New cover showed that an additional launch-

of the modified type,

was being completed

there.

So

Kendall and Rowell were able to observe the manner in which

one of these

sites

was made ready

meters long were brought to the

for use. Sections of rail six

site,

((232))

and there they were

fitted

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS together and erected; while prefabricated parts for the square

building were also assembled on the spot.

The very day before D-Day Kendall broke Crossbow meeting

in

London.

the ski sites which

news

to a

Its

grave imphcation was, of

in

France, and also perhaps

course, that the modified sites

some of

this

had seemed

to

be abandoned, could

be made ready for use within a matter of forty-eight hours. The first

warning would be the arrival of components for the ramp

and the square

building. It

was therefore agreed

that

if

this

were

be sent to the Air Ministry

seen, a signal should immediately

with the code word "Diver."

During the

bow

first

priorities

gram. "We'll

few days

after the

Normandy

landings, Cross-

counted for nothing in the reconnaissance pro-

just

have to make do as best we can with chance

we must

covers of the sites," said Kendall to Rowell, "but all

the interpreters very carefully,

portant

it is

By June late that

to spot

and

tell

them how

vitally

11 there were special Crossbow sorties again, and

evening photographs of nine of the

at

im-

any components."

sites,

which had not

been covered since D-Day, were brought to Kendall.

one look

brief

them, and sent off the "Diver" signal.

early hours of the

morning of June 13 that the

It

first

He

was

took

in the

V-1 landed

in Britain.

During the hectic weeks and months that led up to the sending of the "Diver" signal, the attempt to solve the mystery of the other secret

weapon

—

the V-2 rocket

—had

of necessity taken

second place. But a few new clues had been found. In

March 1944

a report had reached ((233))

London

that the

Germans

AIR SPY

were making rocket

trials at

a place called Blizna in the wilds of

southeast Poland. Could Blizna be photographed to confirm or

disprove the report? Yes,

from Benson,

it

could. Blizna

was a thousand miles

Germany, but only

right across

six

hundred from

San Severe, the photographic reconnaissance base

on April 15 a Mosquito from above the

in Italy.

So

and

far

Italy set off for Poland,

and marshes of the Vistula-San delta photo-

forests

graphs were taken of the clearing where the rocket launching

had been reported.

Back

at

Medmenham, Kendall and

pored over the photographs there were

no rockets

as at Peenemiinde. ever,

on

May

5, a

—

the

Army

interpreters

the place smelled of Crossbow, but

be seen, and none of the big earthworks

to

When

Blizna was covered a second time, how-

rocket happened to be in the open.

And by

comparing the photographs of BHzna with those of Peenemiinde, it

could be established that the rockets had four

the huge trailers used for

moving them were

fins,

and

that

of a special design.

This tied up with ground reports of special road vehicles

known

as Meillerwagen.

Such scraps of evidence were very valuable, but they could do little

to clarify the strongly differing views of the various authori-

ties in

London

as to

launched. There was of July,

amid the

how still

the rocket

worked and how

it

was

no agreement, when, toward the end

stuttering of

approaching V-ls, the

War

Cabi-

net began to be seriously concerned about the possibility of

imminent rocket

attack.

The whole

charged with high urgency.

It

investigation

was a challenge

was once again

to

Medmenham.

Kendall decided that the only thing was to go back over the previous covers of Peenemiinde. ((234))

Many

of

all

them had been

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS

weapon

interpreted at an early stage of the secret at a

when

time

the most

dominant theories

investigation,

insisted

on a huge

rocket that could not be launched vertically and could be

only by

rail.

Now

number

there were a

moved

of reports of vertical

launching and the evidence of the old photographs might appear in quite a fresh light.

Kendall made his way to the long narrow room where the

Crossbow

interpreters worked,

They agreed

to tackle the

huge

and sought out Robert Rowell.

which would mean re-examin-

job,

ing thirty-five sorties. Evening after evening Kendall returned to the task. Stooped low over the photographs, he

remain motionless for minutes

Medmenham

preters at

once

at a time.

One

said, 'T don't

the photographs speak to me,"

would often

of the best inter-

look for things;

I let

and that was Kendall's approach.

Gradually the old photographs began to

tell

a startUng

new

story.

He

re-examined the great earthworks that dominated the

on the fan-shaped

scene, but then his attention focused

of foreshore that lay to seaward.

from the

elliptical

a parade ground.

and then "Yes,

at last sat it's

earthwork,

it

He checked

At

the

end of the short road

looked almost as bleakly bare as it

patiently

from cover

it.

The Germans wouldn't

out good reason."

to cover,

back.

asphalt," he said to Rowell. "I've found

started laying

stretch

He

when

they

lay all that asphalt with-

returned to his stereoscope.

Then

after

a minute or two he handed a pair of prints to Rowell.

"This last

is

June.

the 'column forty feet high'

Have

which was photographed

a look and see what you

make

of

it."

Rowell looked, and then gave an explosive laugh. ((235))

AIR SPY

"A column

my

forty feet high,

foot!

It's

a rocket sitting

on

its

fins!"

Kendall smiled and nodded. "That's asphalt.

why

The fan-shaped foreshore must be

operational launchings.

The

elliptical

they needed the

a practice site for

earthwork was for the early

experiments."

Rowell laughed again "So that really sites

have

ingly once

—loud

the end of the theory that the launching

is

went on Kendall, looking search-

be rail-served,"

to

more

and long.

was innocent of any-

at the stretch of asphalt. It

thing resembling a railway line.

"And

the only signs of an opera-

tional launching site will be a bit of concrete or asphalt."

"They wouldn't even have

"A

said Rowell.

bit of

From September

8,

1944, when the

against England, throughout the zle

first

w^as

launched

months during which the

"driz-

of rockets" continued, innumerable sorties were flown to

upon thousands

terpreters searched thousands in only

two cases

the suspected spots

—where

clearings in

—could any

exist.

sites,

and the

site

As General Dornberger

in-

of photographs.

woods were found

suspicious signs be reported.

one single operational launching not

just as well."

V-2

pinpoints that had been reported as launching

But

would they?"

to bother with that,

any main road would do

was found. In

explains in his

at

Not

fact they did

book V-2, the

rocket could be launched from "a bit of planking on a forest track, or the

a

overgrown track

V-2 launching

pass overhead

site

when

was

if

itself."

The only hope

of spotting

a photographic aircraft happened to

a rocket

was

set upright

being fueled. Other-

wise there was virtually nothing to see, for the Meillerwagen were ((236))

THE BATTLE AGAINST THE V-WEAPONS easily concealed

and even

if it

under

occurred

was a one

trees. It it

in a million chance,

would not provide a

target for attack,

as the "sites" were completely mobile. Nevertheless, the frustrating search

had

to

go on.

Such impotence, such lagging sources,

was something quite new

The ground rockets

To made

it

main launching

Hague

for photographic intelligence.

The Hague,

area. Eventually,

On December

it

was on photographs of The

it,

park. Evidently

as well as a launching area.

weeks of the new year, however, the Allied

first

on the Haagsche Bosch succeeded

out of

inter-

thirteen of them, "con-

The Hague's main

was a forward storage point

attacks

found by the

first

29 there were

cealed" under the trees in

During the

the thunderous roar of

only too clear that the Haagsche Bosch was the

that operational rockets were

preters.

this

behind reports from other

reports were very emphatic at this time, as one might

the residents of

expect.

far

and London had a

Germans

in driving the

brief respite

from V-2s. But then

Where were they coming

the rockets started coming over again.

from?

On

1945 Flight Lieutenant

the afternoon of February 26,

George Reynolds, one of the day

shift of

picked up a sortie box and opened the

The Hague.

"Jolly

good

quality,"

Crossbow

plot. It

was new cover of

thought Reynolds,

glanced through the stack of photographs, and he

he was

just

due

to

hand over

time to start looking through

through the

sortie

The

it,"

look at

((237))

off.

he

sorry that

called across the

had come

as

I'll

have

He began working

he thought.

Come and

million-to-one chance

felt

to the next shift. "But

and then suddenly

Rowell, "Robert! Quick!

interpreters,

room

to

this."

There

it

was, clear

AIR SPY as

you

like,

a V-2 rocket sitting on

clustered round. So this

its fins,

with fueling vehicles

was the new launching area: Duindigt

race-course in the northeast suburbs of

The Hague. Could

it

be

a storage area too?

But the Germans were managing

to dispense with forward

storage points altogether. During the following month, until the

V-2 attacks ended on March 27, 1945, only an occasional rocket

on a Meillerwagen was

to

be seen.

If Hitler's ideas of sticking to

shelters"

had prevailed, the

tale

massive concrete "launching

would have been very

There would have been something to of the matter

is

bite on.

different.

But the plain

fact

that General Dornberger's almost ridiculously

simple conception of

how

the V-2s should be launched defeated

Allied photographic reconnaissance.

((238))

X The Last

A FEW

Stages in

Europe

weeks before D-Day the concept of

graphic reconnaissance which had finally as the ideal

was implemented on the grand

strategic photo-

come

to

scale. It

be accepted

was the same

simple concept that had been demonstrated in embryo in the

days of ihe Photographic Development Unit, a flexible organization supplying all three services, with

Benson became the hub of a

large, delicately

bination. There a joint committee rectly to the

Combined Chiefs

one central control point. balanced com-

(which was responsible

di-

of Staff) co-ordinated the priorities

of the flying program; while geared to this committee and to one

another were the American "P.R." headquarters at High

combe, the squadrons interpretation unit at

at

Benson and Mount Farm, and the

Medmenham.

There were two squadrons of Mosquitos and two of at

Wy-

Spitfires

Benson, belonging to a newly formed British photographic

connaissance group under the

Boothman Air

—winner

Staff Officer

command

of the Schneider

was Peter

Riddell, ((239))

of Air

Trophy

who

re-

Commodore John

in

1931. His Senior

also shared with

an

Am

SPY

American colonel named Carlton G. Ketchum joint committee. at

Meantime,

at the

in guiding the

Eighth Air Force headquarters

High Wycombe, EUiott Roosevelt presided over a new U.S.

re-

connaissance wing, under which came the four American squad-

Mount Farm. His Photographic

rons at

InteUigence Staff OflBcer

was Harvey Brown.

At Medmenham, before

D-Day

well as in fact.

By

form a separate

one of the nel that

was

in the course of the reorganization

that the unit

possibility that its

pretation Unit

it

this

became Allied

means a

serious danger

was averted: the

American elements might be withdrawn

unit.

fell to

The

to

direction of the Allied Central Inter-

Douglas Kendall, and

in partnership with

most experienced of the Americans, Lieutenant Colo-

Wilham

J.

final stages of the

work

in the preparations for the

Nor-

O'Connor, he steered the

was Medmenham's share

mandy

in official status as

landings.

The immeasurably for the landings

vast

depended

and complex undertaking of planning

many ways on

in

photography. Years

before the final choice of beaches was made, for instance, interpreters

had been watching the whole shoreline of northern

France. At different tide levels, and at different times of year, the shifting stretches of sand

and

mud

between high- and low-

water marks were examined. The cycle of

effects

caused by

seasonal storms, the size and shape of underwater reefs and sand

banks, the positions of breakwaters and beach exits carefully recorded, so that

when

the time

came

—

all

were

the planners

would have the information they needed.

The work project.

of the

Army

interpreters

They had been watching

had also been a long-term

the coastal defenses for

((240))

more

THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE than three years, and constantly updating their records. They

knew

every gun emplacement, every pillbox, every wire entangle-

ment, and every trench system of the whole Atlantic Wall. Another tremendous undertaking all

was the

detailed interpretation of

radar installations along the Channel coast to a distance of

twenty miles inland. This was

vital to the success of the attacks

which silenced enemy radar before the landings.

made D-Day

Preliminary models of the whole Channel coast had been

from photographs

But for the actual

as early as 1942.

340 models were mass-produced

briefings,

Models were

also

made

in synthetic rubber.

of typical waves that might be expected

on the beaches, based on photographic data gradients,

and

on the

statistics

and

tides

as to the

beach

currents.

In addition to the models, astronomical quantities of photo-

graphs were needed for the briefings, and at

this

time

ham's photographic section was turning out something

Medmenlike

seven

million prints a month.

Such were only a few of the contributions

D-Day. Both the Americans and the

was a

fully

AlUed achievement.

Elliott Roosevelt, in his

It

to the planning for

British took part in

what

seems worthy of mention that

book As He Saw

It

(which

is

for the

most

part painfully anti-British), pays the following tribute to his

R.A.F. colleagues:

In view of the criticisms which to

some

down

I

have expressed in regard

of the British warmakers, I

that these R.A.F. ofiicers with

mid- January up

until

D-Day and

am anxious to set it whom I worked from

thereafter until the final

Nazi capitulation were a group of consummately knowledge((241))

— AIR SPY able officers, thoroughly familiar with their job and individually

and severally

as

hardworking and

have been possible to

find.

sible for the small

sion

know

itself. I

men

Not only were they

credit to their country, but they

were

win

as anxious to

the war as quickly as possible as any group of

it

would

a constant

in large part respon-

percentage of losses suffered in the invaI

speak for

all

the

American

worked with R.A.F. reconnaissance experts them a considerable amount of

officers

who

in according

the credit for the success of

our arms in Europe.

It

was during

this

time that the Americans lost one of their

greatest friends. Early in 1944, for a

burton was at

Mount Farm. By

few weeks, Adrian War-

then he was a wing commander,

with the American D.F.C. as well as five British decorations

D.S.O. and bar, and D.F.C. and two bars. Even though he had

been grounded, following a serious motor smash in Tunis, presence buoyed up the Lightning

He was

not supposed to

Lightning for a to photograph targets

flip

some German

of the

pilots.

but on April 12 he took off in a

across the Alps to San Severo.

on the way back.

him some

fly,

airfields

on the way

An American

way spoke with him

and then saw him continue

his

his

pilot

last

southward

burton never reached San Severo, and

He was out,

going

and more

who accompanied

near Lake Constance, flight alone. till

this

But War-

day

his

fate

remains a mystery.

The sky over southern Germany was soon increasingly dangerous place. ((242))

to

become an

THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE

On

the afternoon of July 25, 1944, a Mosquito took off from

Benson

photograph targets near Stuttgart and Munich. The

to

was Flight Lieutenant A. E. Wall, and Flying

pilot

Lobban was

Lobban had landed

there

Me

with a Messerschmitt

—

Italy,

It

was the

July 28 he

came over

Wall was safely back to

he described his escape. his targets,

closing in

Lobban

on them

told

Medmenham. He said that, him

fighter.

in

England, and on

I listened breathlessly as

just after

photographing

was

that a strange-looking plane

at terrific speed.

Many Me 262s had been

engagement

time an Allied

first

plane had been intercepted by a jet-propelled the next evening

S.

saying that Wall and

after a twenty-minute

262.

A.

no news of

navigator. Late that night there was

them, but finally a signal came from

By

Officer

They knew

it

must be a

photographed on the Bavarian

jet.

airfields,

and they had been warned that they might meet them. Wall turned the Mosquito as sharply

was going so in a

and

huge

fast that

it

as

he could, and the

jet

overshot by miles, and then swung round

circle to attack again. Six times the jet got into position,

six times

Wall made a

tight turn to

evade

it.

Then

at last

over the Austrian Tyrol he escaped into cloud. It

was strange

German

fighters

to hear his story, for

my own

had been quite the opposite

experiences of

to Wall's.

For several

years I had been busily engaged in pursuing them. Since

it

was

a very absorbing chase, which met with some success, I think it

deserves to be described in

The watch

that I kept for

some

new

detail.

types of aircraft, especially

was a separate undertaking from the watch on the tories,

jets,

aircraft fac-

although the same photographs often gave news of both. ((243))

AIR SPY

But

in

own way

its

it

proved to be

just as valuable, for I

new

often describe and measure the

could

prototypes, so that their

performance could be estimated and recognition drawings prepared, months or even years before they appeared in combat.

In the at

last

chapter

I

my

have told of

search for pilotless aircraft

Peenemiinde; but keeping an eye on Peenemiinde was a minor

compared

to the long-term

whole German

aircraft industry.

task

began

It all

as early as 1941,

On

only a few weeks.

which

when my

a Rostock sortie

could not identify,

I

watch on the new types of the

sitting

I

section

had been going

found a large

on the Heinkel

aircraft

airfield

at

Marienehe. This discovery greatly interested Michael Golovine at

who at that time was badly new Heinkel bomber, the He

the Air Ministry,

in

tion about the

177.

knew

that

any reports

ciated.

But

it

I

I

issued

on new

need of informa-

aircraft

From

then on

would be appre-

was a haphazard business, because

in those days

the factory anfields were never "laid on" as reconnaissance targets,

and were photographed only occasionally by chance.

Then, early in 1942, Bomber four consecutive nights.

they would

mean

My

several

photographs

I

new

ticular,

so well.

was that

covers of the Heinkel works; and interpreters

pored over Marienehe

were beautifully sharp, the best

went from building

attacked Rostock on

special interest in the raids

damage assessment

after the

Command

had

at leisure.

finished with the

The photographs

At

the time of the attacks

half -finished

assembly shop. At

I

to building, not looking for anything in par-

but eager to see what had happened at the factory

and many

and

thirty-six-inch variety,

it

I

knew

wat producing He Ills,

bombers had been rescued from the main

first I

lingered over the damage, which for ((244))

THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE those days was considerable, but then an apparition suddenly

stopped me. Alongside the debris was a slim long-nosed airplane quite unlike anything I elegant,

carriage

had the

it

—an

to Sims,

scribing

its

sort of high tail that

airplane of a

bombers look it

had ever seen before. Streamhned and

like

new

means a

tricycle

lumbering reHcs. In great excitement

and then immediately

under-

made

generation, which

started measuring

I

it

the

showed and de-

design for Golovine.

Late that evening, as

I

bicycled back to

my

billet, I

wondered

whether we got that preview by a narrow margin. But actually

made no

difference whether Heinkel's

under cover five hours.

five

The image

He

of the first

was permanently on record after this

put the prototype

minutes after the photographs were taken or

Heinkel claims was the

Soon

men

it

280, the fighter which Ernst

twin-jet aircraft in the in

Medmenham's

world to

fly,

files.

Golovine arranged for monthly meetings to

discuss all the latest

news on German

aircraft,

both from photo-

graphs and from other sources. These conferences, later nick-

named

"astrologers' meetings,"

were great fun and extremely

wing com-

helpful too. Golovine used to take charge, with a

mander, two squadron leaders, three self sitting

fighters jets

round the

table,

and rumors of

flight

heutenants, and

and we discussed

fighters,

and then

all

in turn

first all

the bombers.

mythe

The

were of course much the most interesting thing that was

coming along.

At

the

first

meeting

I

explained

why my

reports

on new types

were so few and far between.

"You

see,

it's

only by chance that the factory

covered, and even then the scale

is

((245))

airfields are

sometimes so small that you

AIR SPY

Ju 52. The Junkers factory

can't identify a

been covered factories.

at all yet,

And

at

nor the Arado or the Henschel parent

of course we've never seen Rechlin.

were flown, must be

littered

"I suggest." said Golovine, "that

ment on the need

new

with

.

.

."I was

where acceptance

certain that the G.A.F. airfield at Rechlin, trials

Dessau has never

types.

you should prepare a

for regular cover,

and

I'll

see

state-

what can be

done."

The

were beyond

results

my

wildest dreams. In the

autumn

of

1942 more than

to

appear were put on the flying program for monthly cover,

fifty airfields

where prototypes were

likely

with emphasis on the need for good scale. This meant that during the years that followed I

and was able the

German

to report

had a regular flow of

first-class material,

on a great many of the

latest

aircraft industry.

There was never a dull moment from then war, what with the asymmetrical

Bv

the end of the

till

141, the twin-fuselage

Heinkel ghder tug, and the last-ditch "composite they were the light

more orthodox

—

products of

relief.

aircraft."

The main job was watching

But

for the

types which might go into large-scale production

especially jet fighters.

Ever since streaks

had noticed the fan-shaped marks and the long

I

on the

airfield at

for pairs of such aircraft,

even

summer

of 1943

if

marks

Peenemiinde,

that

I

had been on the lookout

would betray the presence of

twin-jet

the planes themselves were out of sight. In the

we began

to find pairs of "jet

marks"

at airfield

after airfield. I

had a fortunate chance of showing these photographs

man who was

the world's greatest authority ((246))

on

jet

to the

propulsion,

THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE Frank Whittle. Then a group captain, he came

ham

by what

I

had found, and

a result of

later, as

special cover of certain British airfields to

He was

with a party from the R.A.F. Staff College.

thralled

compare the marks made by the

was flown, and

British

I

me most

showed him

my

best photographs of the tailless aircraft

brave-new- world; although what those

on good photographs, were

when

the Luftwaffe got

them

when

Me

before

163s

is

In a

all.

Me

before

^

I

warned

visible

aircraft.

on the

Me

163 went out

just over a

year

operated. But in spite of our regular cover of factory

sight of

it

color,

memorandum

163 without

stations, there

was

still

element of chance in the spotting of new types, and

my first

looked

literally

the sort of thing one might well interpret as

and experimental

airfields

and

163s are not light-colored their wings some-

earliest report it first

Peene-

at

sinister

them and painted them a darkish

an "object" rather than an

My

163s

white butterflies. Later,

little

times "fade out" completely; and an of support

jets.

the pictures

wrote to try to help Second Phase interpreters

I

that

means

Me

looked very

Me

they often didn't look like anything at

which

was able

valuable advice.^

miinde, and in mid- 1943

like,

en-

this visit,

I

and the German

Group Captain Whittle stayed some time examining and giving

Medrnen-

to visit

an

Me

262

until

a considerable I

did not have

February 1944, only

six

months

went into combat. From then on, however, we became

In his book Jet, Sir Frank Whittle mentions that on the

way back

to the

was quite a lot of leg-pulling about the time he had spent with me, and also some conjecture as to what my perfume was. So perhaps I should put on record that the perfume in question was Guerlain's L'Heure Bleue, which I used rather too lavishly in those days, on the theory that the masculinity of W.A.A.F. uniform needed a little counteracting. Staff College there

((247))

AIR SPY extremely familiar with the aggressive-looking

many hundreds I felt quite

He

of

them were

when

sad

found that

my

280, had been dropped in favor of the

what had gone wrong. at Heinkel's

for

I

built before the

We knew

jet;

end of the war.

first

jet fighter,

Me 262,

the

and wondered

had been a hitch because

there

branch factory outside Vienna we found airframes

He 280s parked

on the

disconsolately

from the lack of track for weeks.

twin

little

activity that

But Heinkel kept on

and could

airfield

tell

no one had been near them

the bitter end; so the Aircraft

till

Medmenham kept on watching him. And when Ursula Kay brought me new pictures of the Vienna factory taken on Section at

December looked

6,

like a

1944, I was fascinated to see what in plan view

He

younger brother of the

280. Family likenesses

were coming out in the new generation. Unfortunately the photographs were not good, and the shiny surface, for

showed

at all.

reflected so

it

On my

desk

at

sions,

much Hght

Medmenham

silhouette cut out of cotton wool.

We

however, and could report that

had a

airplane must have

little

it

that

no shadows

looked

could estimate

it

like its

a

flat

dimen-

was photographed

at the

end of the runway, with "a number of vehicles and personnel" nearby, which indicated that something interesting was going on. It

was the He 162, the so-called "People's Fighter," and Ernst

Heinkel, in his book

He

1000, mentions that December

was the date on which the prototype made

its first

6,

1944

twenty-minute

test flight.

The only two the

Me

jets that really

163 and the

cially the latter,

Me

looked

counted in World

War

II

were

262; but these two between them, espelike

having disastrous ((248))

effects

on Allied

THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE

when

photographic reconnaissance

summer

they began operating in the

of 1944. Before this there

was only a small margin

between the performance of the British photographic planes the best of the

improvements the jets

Me

Fw

German

Both

fighters.

the time, but except for the short period

all

arrived, however, all precedents

Spitfire,

and the

Me

fifty

miles an hour faster than the fastest

actually rocket-propelled) could leap

swoop down

American

upward

performance. But in fact the

stop to our reconnaissance, although at

The Benson jets

firing

tactics

enemy

pilots

and then

it,

circle

first

if

the

jets

enemy has

did not put a

there were serious

soon developed a special technique for

by exploiting

enormous turning to let the

was

to attack.

fighters of better

evading the

jet

homesick

"like a

pilots described

In theory, unarmed planes cannot operate

losses.

the

went by the board. The

163 (which although often called a

angel," as one of the

when

When

190s were ahead, the British held the lead.

262 was more than

and

were bringing in

sides

and

their

two main weaknesses:

their short endurance.

fighter overtake

you

until

it

The

their

trick

was

was almost withm

range and then turn sharply away to right or

left.

The

which Wall had used so successfully could not

fail if

you

had the nerve. But the see the jet in time.

really essential thing, of course,

The Mosquito crews had

was

to

the advantage here,

with two pairs of eyes. The solitary Spitfire pilots had to keep turning their heads, and in the rising incidence of the

Americans

summer

complaint

in their Lightnings

them the only answer was

known

of

1944 there was a

as "P.R. neck."

had the worst time of

all:

The for

fighter escort.

All the photographic pilots had to be more than ever on the ((249))

AIR SPY alert for "contrails";

they

on guard against

above him, and

He found get

jets.

There

is

a story that

from Benson saw the beginning of

pilot

where

themselves, and on watch for them as the

left trails

danger signal of approaching fire

flying at a height

at

once started climbing to

he didn't seem to be gaining on

any longer. Then suddenly

and the

dawned on him

it

first

Spit-

faint white trail

try to get

it,

one

above

it.

trail didn't

that the "trail"

was the crescent moon.

The

from San Severo, who were doing much of the

pilots

photography of southern Germany, had to reckon with the continually. Captain S. Pienaar,

was the

first

to

one of the South African

Me

encounter an

262.

On

off,

his

and the Messerschmitt made a

Mosquito were total of twelve

attacks. Pienaar eventually escaped into cloud,

somehow

to limp

The summer

pilots,

August 15, 1944, he

had an even worse time than Wall. Parts of shot right

jets

and managed

home.

of

1944 was a hectic time

for Italian-based

photographic reconnaissance. There were the ever-increasing

demands

of the armies

and the

tactical air forces,

methods of interdiction and saturation depended

whose new entirely

on

photographs for their speed and accuracy. At the same time, covers of distant targets in the Balkans, Czechoslovakia, and

Poland, as well as in southern Germany, were wanted before and after the raids of the

And on

top of

American

all this,

strategic

bombers based

much photography

at

Foggia.

of southern France

was needed for the Allied landings on the Riviera.

Two

days after the landings, on August 17, Karl Polifka came

into his headquarters at

San Severo and flopped down exhausted. ((250))

THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE It

was a scorching day, and he was

pilots

back from Corsica. His

just

had been busy photographing the Frejus beaches and then

the advances inland, and, needless to say, Polifka the thick of

it

had been

in

himself.

"That makes 170 combat missions," he told Major Morris Esmiol, his executive

officer.

Then he went on: "The French

boys with the 23rd Squadron are tickled to death

at the idea of

going over to France," and added thoughtfully, "too bad about Saint-Exupery. They've sure taken

it

to heart." It

had been a

serious responsibility having a world-famous author as one of

your

pilots. Polifka's usually

sunny face was clouded.

In the context of AUied photographic reconnaissance, Antoine

de Saint-Exupery, or "Saint Expry" as the Americans called him,

was a problematical French Lightnings

who

celebrity

when he was much

insisted

on

flying

too old and absent-minded. But

the record of Saint-Exupery's persistent devotion to photographic flying

something so unique that

is

beginning to His

first

its

it

When

the

was helping

German

1940, the group kept numbly on with

May 23

its

had been during the winter of 1939, when

of the French Air Force

over the Rhineland.

the retreat, and

must be traced from

end, aside from the main course of events.

taste of

Group 2-33

it

was struggling

Saint-Exupery

made

offensive

its

to

keep watch

came

in

May

reconnaissance during

to operate

from Orly when on

the flight over Arras

which was

to

be

the inspiration for his most famous book.

When

the remnants of the group finally reached Algiers, Saint-

Exupery was with them, and then he afterward went to live in

New

left

the Air Force

and soon

York. There he wrote Flight to

((251))

AIR SPY Arras, and best-seller

it

was published early

in 1942.

and "Saint-Ex" became a

Immediately

literary lion.

he heard that Group 2-33 was coming to

life

was a

it

Then suddenly

again. It

was

to

be

adopted by the Americans in North Africa.

At once he longed

to

be back with them, and he managed to

get to Algiers just before Tunis

before he was allowed to three

—twenty

fly

String-pulUng was needed

Lightnings, for he was then forty-

years older than most of the photographic pilots.

Although he had flown more than pilot,

fell.

six

thousand hours as an

airline

Saint-Exupery was not in fact very good at flying Light-

nings,

and he admitted

mined

to keep on,

Marsa on

as

much. But he was

and on July 27, 1943, he took

his first operational sortie

photographing his

drawn down

as

utterly deter-

still

targets,

to

exaltation, exclaiming,

way back when he was

have a look

the coast: Agay, his sister's home.

from La

over southern France. After

he was on his

by a magnet

off

He

at a little

returned in a

"You cannot imagine what

it

town near

mood

of

feels like

to see one's country again!"

Only

five

days

later,

however, he was in the depths of despair.

After a minor mishap (he overshot the runway at finished

up

in a vineyard with a

damaged

La Marsa and

propeller and wing)

he was told that he would have to be grounded.

For eight miserable months Saint-Exupery

lived in Algiers,

with no proper job and too unhappy and nervy to write. Then, in the spring of 1944, his old friend General Chassin arranged to

have him attached to

his

own bomber

squadron, then at a

Sardinian base. But Saint-Exupery begged Chassin to get

him

back to photographic reconnaissance.

By

this

time General Eaker was in conmiand of the Mediter((252))

THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE ranean

air forces; so

it

was

to

Eaker

that the

two Frenchmen

appealed, and the American general unwilHngly agreed to allow

Saint-Exupery

he rejoined

more missions with

blissfully

down some

his old unit. In

mid-May

Alghero in Sardinia, and the next two

joyfully, at

it

months were set

five

happy. During

this

time Saint-Exupery

of his last impressions of photographic recon-

naissance.

Once again flights.

They

I

am

experiencing the joys of high altitude

are like a diver's plunges into the depths of

the sea: one enters forbidden territory, decked out in bar-

barous equipment, encased in a framework of dials and instruments and gauges; and high above one's country one breathes oxygen manufactured in the United States. of

New York

in the skies of

France

—

isn't it

The

air

odd? At the

controls of this light, fleet monster, this Lightning P-38, there

is

no

feeling of

and immobile

at

movement,

but, rather, of being fixed

one and the same moment, over a whole

continent.

The photographs one

brings back are submitted to stereo-

scopic analysis, as organisms are examined under a micro-

work

exactly

the vulnerable

body of

scope; the interpreters of these photographs like the bacteriologists.

They seek on

France traces of the virus which devours

from the

effects of these

One can

die

enemy strongholds and depots and

convoys which, under the

And

her.

lens,

appear

like tiny bacilli.

then those hours of poignant meditation as one

flies

over France

—

from her

though by centuries. All one's tender memories

as

so near

and yet so

((253))

far.

One

feels

separated

AIR SPY

and

associations, indeed one's very raison-d'etre, are to

found

there, stretched out, as

in the clear glint of the sun;

it

and

be

were, 35,000 feet below,

more

yet,

inaccessible than

the treasures of the Pharaohs under the glass-cases of a

museum.

By in

the

first

week

of July 1944,

when

his unit

Corsica, he had already exceeded

moved

his five flights.

to

Borgo

He was

having a whole series of minor accidents and amazing escapes,

and

his

squadron commander, who was gravely concerned about

him, decided to confide to him the date of the landings, which

would mean

that he could

he begged for

The

got his way.

he took

off

Grenoble

just

on

—

one more

secret date

that "one

flight,

fly

over enemy territory. But

and

as

it

was "Saint-Ex" he

was not mentioned. Early on July 31

more"

flight

—

for cover of

Annecy and

the flight from which he never returned.

Throughout the strategic

no longer

final stages of the

war, the vast program of

photography over Europe continued from Britain and

from the Mediterranean, and

also

from several

distant outposts

where for a time Allied detachments were sent (R.A.F.

Spitfires

operated from a base near Murmansk, and American Lightnings

from Poltava

in the Ukraine).

But an even vaster number of

short-range reconnaissance sorties were being flown from behind the Allied lines.

Both the armies and the

way

across

tactical air forces that fought their

Europe were equipped

for photographic reconnais-

sance on a prodigious scale.

Each day

that weather permitted, these "private fleets" of air((254))

THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE craft Sped

back and forth taking photographs, and the

autumn

also continued through the lengthening

and

the British

nights, for both

Americans were making use of

the

activity

flashlight

reconnaissance to keep track of the enemy's nocturnal movements.

And then suddenly at the end of the year came a shattering blow. On December 16, 1944, the Germans launched their offenArdennes; and during the turmoil

sive in the

after the break-

"Why

through the question that leaped to every mind was: the photographs question.

us

tell

was coming?"

it

Rash claims had been made

It

was a very natural

to the effect that photo-

graphs supplied 80 per cent of

all intelligence.

of photographic planes in the

European

interpreters,

it

didn't

And

theater,

with swarms

and armies of

seemed there must have been a bad

slip-up

somewhere. The atrocious winter weather had helped the enemy

—

that

was obvious.

And

in

many ways

the

Germans had been

extremely careful and extremely clever, while the Allies on their side

had become dangerously overconfident. But,

there

had been a serious

failure of intelligence. It

nevertheless,

needed to be

looked into thoroughly.

On

January 14, 1945, an investigating mission with three

American and three

British

and Harvey Brown,

set off for the

members, including Douglas Kendall snow-covered Western front,

and during the next fortnight they traveled seventeen hundred miles and visited twenty-four different units.

They found

two American groups responsible for photography the breakthrough

174

sorties

had managed,

during the

first

half of

that the

in the area of

in spite of the weather, to fly

December; and although some

of the covers were cloud-obscured, the interpreters ((255))

had found

AIR SPY

and reported a considerable amount of abnormal information

—

the

raw material of

intelligence

been converted into a form in which

ever,

it

activity.

—had

could

tell

This

how-

not,

a coherent

story.

One

evening Kendall and

had very

talked

it

all

over. Kendall

definite views.

"We've got to to the

Brown

and make people think of P.R.

try

whole European theater even now," he

tion to Httle bits of the front.

And we must

in relation

said, "not in rela-

try to explain that

unco-ordinated interpretations are sometimes not

much more

use than undeveloped rolls of film. If the Ardennes photographs

had gone on

to

an interpretation unit that was in a position to

review the whole front,

I

bet you the significance of what was

happening would have been spotted. The 'penny-packet' system just doesn't

work."

"But are you

sure,

Douglas?" queried Brown. "First Phase

reports often have to be acted that each

"They

how

army must have worked

of course, but the

mean

for a

there.

same

moment

sorties they

setup."

That was a much narrower

more

Mind

you, I don't

the spot should be prevented from laying

want. But there's no reason

efficient,

front,

Phase can be dispensed with; or

shouldn't be properly co-ordinated. infinitely

believe

I

reminded him, "and you know

principle applies.

that First

commanders on

on what

own

didn't in Italy," Kendall

well things

that the

its

on within a few hours.

The whole

and much more

flexible

why

thing

all

P.R.

would be

and economical

too." It

was

changes.

far too late in the war, however, to introduce

The

Mission's report,

recommending

major

that there should,

((256))

1

I

— THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE at least,

be a high-ranking Director of Photographic Reconnais-

sance responsible to the Supreme Commander, was read, and discussed,

and then

filed quietly

away.

All through the war, those concerned with photographic intelligence

had been too busy

were doing

in the

same

as the Allied armies

much about what

to think

But

line.

in the early

the

Germans

months of 1945,

were closing in on Germany and elaborate

plans were going ahead for group checks of various kinds,

began to give

it

many

thought. Various questions raised themselves.

Had German technical skill led to great achievements or not? What areas in Britain and on the Eastern front had been covered? And most important of all, where was the German "library" the record of

Before long

was

they had photographed during the war?

all it

was established

that the

at Zossen, just south of Berlin,

that

it

would

fall into

said definitely

prints

and

films

where

and there seemed no doubt

had been moved, but none of

it

to;

though one hinted that

had been dumped

VE-Day came and

print library

Russian hands. Soon, however, reports

began to come through that

them

German

went.

By

all

the

in a lake near Berlin. this

time Harvey

Brown was

attached to the Supreme Headquarters in France, and there he

met a W.A.A.C. Captain named Alice Davey, who had

just

over to Europe. Both of them were intent on finding out as as possible about

German

"P.I." Alice

Davey,

come much

who had been

helping to compile interpretation manuals in the Pentagon, was wildly enthusiastic. She helped with

and gradually a picture began

many

of the interrogations,

to build up. It

picture; a horrible warning as to

was a

what photographic

((257))

terrifying

intelligence

AIR SPY

can become

if

based on the wrong concepts, and staffed

is

it

almost entirely by uninspired plodders.

One day

she

came

Harvey Brown's

into

wad of German who

with a

office

penciled notes. She had been questioning the elderly

of the interpretation school. "He's just a poor

had been head

worn-out old man." she told Harvey, "and he hasn't a clue where the library is."

The usual

They were both glumly thinking

story.

when

that perhaps they would never find the library at aU,

the

telephone rang and Harvey answered. Suddenly he sprang to his feet,

clutching the receiver as

if

it

might get away.

"What's that? Where? Yes, of course

He

rang

off,

and

I'll

come

once."

at

moment was dumbfounded.

for a

'What have they found?" Alice Davey was dancing with excitement.

"And where

"Can you

believe

Berchtesgaden. The

check teams. near

it,"

man

his cap.

ters of the

Harvey

said in

"That was from

slowly.

charge of one of the joint ground-

—

full

of bundles

of

photographs."

He

"I'm off!"

the following

Harvey Brown

W^ere?"

says they've found a lot of big boxes in a barn

Bad Reichenhall

grabbed

On

He

is it?

at

day Kendall flew out

Bad ReichenhaU. In

to Salzburg

and joined

the improvised headquar-

ground-check team there were rows upon rows of big

green boxes

photographs

full of

gether Kendall and

—

the

Brown picked

German

print library.

out some of the bundles at

random. They were big twelve-inch-square prints size for the gigantic aerial

was cover of

Then

the next bundle of prints

a port

—

the standard

cameras the Germans used. The

sortie

which they recognized

as

showed unfamiliar

the Eastern front. ((258))

To-

first

Southampton. terrain:

it

was

THE LAST STAGES IN EUROPE "The Germans took good photographs,"

said

Brown.

"Yes, very good. That's what you'd expect. Beautifully sharp,

and the

seems

scale's not bad. It

never even got to

first

all

the

more amazing

"D'you know what Alice Davey has

now? The

that they

base with their P.I." definitely established

were trained to work on single

interpreters

And

instead of with stereoscopes.

they hadn't a notion

prints,

how

to

use comparative covers."

"No!" said Kendall incredulously.

"The Germans seem is

a machine

quality,"

all

have thought that because a camera

to

you've got to do

is

to

improve mechanical

went on Harvey. "All the interpreters were non-com-

missioned, you know, except for one officer in

command

of each

unit."

"Old von Fritsch was

when he

right

best photographic reconnaissance

mented Kendall. "But

know what

'best'

it

said that the side with the

would win the war," com-

seems that Hitler and

his pals didn't

much anyhow. They is the people who we might have made if it

meant, and didn't care

never found out that what counts most in P.I. are in

it.

They made

all

the mistakes

hadn't been for our team of individualists."

"Did you say our teamV "Yes," replied Kendall,

"it

was a team.

itself."

<(259))

A

team in

spite of

INDEX Aachen, 24 Admiral Hipper, H. M. S., 115, 122 Aeronautical Research and Sales, 8

Batum, 129

Aeroplane, The, 10, 43, 77, 148 Agay, 252 Air Corps, U. S. Army, 147 Air Council, 35, 38

Belcher, ex-policeman, 18, 53

Aircraft Interpretation School, 82 Aircraft Operating Company, 26, 27, 34, 40, 64, 82 Air Ministry, 19 Air Staff, 46, 56

Algiers, 163

Allenby, General, 5 Allied Central Interpretation Unit, 69 Altazimeter, 170-71

American Civil War, Amsterdam, 71

Belgium, 46 Belhamelin, 232 Benson, 76 Bergen, 118 Berlin, 9, 12, 101-102 Bismarck, battleship, 114, 120, 122 Bizerta, 159, 163 Black, J. W., 3

Blizna,

116,

119,

234

Bodyline,

111,

213,

216,

219,

223

3

Anderson, James, 159, 160 Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? 67 Annecy, 254 Antwerp, 71, 72 Ardennes offensive, 255 Army Air Forces Intelligence School, 152 Arnold, General, 150, 166 As He Saw It, 166, 241 Augusta, 158 Babington-Smith, Bernard 92, 93-96, 102-103 Babington-Smith, Henry, 176 Bader, Douglas, 143 Baku, 129 Barratt, Sir Arthur, 32, 33, 45, 46, 48, 49, 51, 52

"Basket, The," 175 Batchelder, Samuel L., 152 Battle of Britain, 73 Battle of the Atlantic, 114

Boggiss, Ivor, 200, 201 Bois Carre, 220, 222

Bomber Command, 41-42, 56, 69, 83, 85, 92,

43,

46,

100, 169, 177,

212, 244

Boothman, John, 239 Boston, 3 Bottomley, Air Vice-Marshal Norman, 88 Boulogne, 72 Bowhill, Sir Frederick, 56, 124 "Bowl Fire, the," 173, 174, 175 Brachi, David, 109-112, 120-121 Bremen, 183, 184

Brenner Pass, 52 Brest, 122, 124

Briefed to Attack, 137 Brittany, 114 Brown, F. Martin, 152

((261))

INDEX Brown, Har\'ey C.

Jr.. 147-49, 151, 255-56, 257-59 Brown, Squadron Leader, 83, 84 Bruneval, 170. 172-73, 174 Briix, 198, 199 Burton, Flying Officer, 129

152,

240,

Cairo,

135-36,

Calais,

71, 72

144,

in,

Casablanca, 157 Casablanca Conference. Catania, 136

5,

30

179,

181

The. 98 Central Interpretation Unit, 105 Chamberlain, Neville. 84 Chassin, General, 252 Cherwell Lord. 212. 217 Churchill, Sarah, 154-55 Churchill, Tom, 45 Churchill, Winston, 13, 37, 40, 73, 99, 155. 175-76. 210. 217 Clayton, Captain, 120-21 Coastal Command. 56, 57, 124 Cologne, 25 Colvin. Howard, 137-41 Corbishley, P., 76 Cornwall, 114 Cotton. Sidney, 7-13. 14-26, 27-28, 29-34, 35-36, 37-40, 41-42, 43^W, 45-46, 47, 48, 49. 51, 52, 53, 54. 55, 56-57, 58, 59. 65, 69, 105, 109, 128, 130

Coulommiers, 48 Cox, Charles, 145, 146

Crossbow, 230. 232. 233. 234, 235, 237 Cunningham, Admiral, 131, 133

Danzig,

187

Davey, Alice, 257-58. 259 Da Vinci, Leonardo, 19

Commander Edward,

36,

157, 160 Dornberger, General, 205, 213, 236, 238 Dortmund-Ems. 90 Dowding. Sir Hugh. 22 Dunkirk, 55, 72, 73, 130 Diisseldorf, 25

Eaker, General. 252 Eighth Air Force. U.

S.. 179, 181, 200, 202, 213, 231 Eisenhower, General, 153, 166 Emden, 36, 37 Eritrea. 9 Esmiol, Morris, 251

187,

188,

Eupen, 24

man, 121 Camera, 108

Eval, Celtic holy

Evidence Falcon.

in

Norman,

221 Fane, A. P.

206, 207, 213, 220,

F., 86,

87

Famborough, 226 Ferte, Joubert de

la, 4 Fifteenth Air Force, U.S., 188 First World War, 4

Flight,

Craig, Pilot Officer Quentin, 61. 76 Cripps, Sir Stafford. 217, 218, 219

Damometer, 179

Lt.

47, 66, 109, 115, 124

Doolittle, General,

Centocelle, 3 Central Blue,

Danesfield, 104 Daniel, Glyn, 67-68

Denning.

Dimblebv. Geoffrev, 105-107 "Diver" Signal, 233-34 Dixon, Jacob, 201, 202 Dodecanese. 9, 130-31

166

Camera design, advances Cap Oris Nez, 70

D-Day, 233 Deeley, Geoffrey, 174 De Havilland, Geoffrev, 125 Delhi, 144

43

Flight to Arras, 49, 251-52 Flushing, 62 Foret de Guines. 71

Fray, Flying Officer, 178 French Air Force, 33, 48 French Deuxieme Bureau, 7, 130 FuUer, Eric. 86. 93, 162, 166, 167 Fumey, Hazel, 183

Garrod, Dorothy, 154 Gdynia, 187 Geisenkirchen,

((262))

199

INDEX George VI, King,

German

Herschel, Raymond, 82, 137-41 Heston, 55, 58, 59, 70, 74, 75 Heston Flight, 18-19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 31, 128 Hewitt, Admiral, 158

74, 75

257-58

print library,

Germany, 6 Ghormley, Vice Admiral,

145

Gibraltar, 144, 153, 158

Gibson, Guy, 143 Gillanders. Ronald, 178 Gilruth, Margaret, 10 Glaisher, James, 3 Gliders, 141-42 Gneisenau, 114, 122, 124 Goddard, Brigadier-General George W., 150-51 Godfrey, Admiral, 37 Godwin, John, 112 Goering, Hermann, 10, 194 Golovine, Michael, 148, 224, 244, 245, 246 Gort, General, 45, 53

High Wycombe, Hill,

Hitler,

Holiday, Eve, 80, 116, 117, 119, 127 Hoover, John, 164 Hornum, 83, 87 Horsfall, Sergeant, 127 Hughes, Gordon, 122-123, 170, 171 Hughes, Richard D., 184, 185 Icarus, 19

53,

160

81 Heinkel, Exnst, 245, 248 Heliopolis, 136

Herdla, 117

26,

64,

67,

68,

72,

77,

105-106, 125, 145, 147, 200, 213, 216, 217, 218, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234,

187

10, 26, 41, 64, 65, 71,

74 Hemswell, 83, 84 He 1000, 248

107

132, 133

Kendall, Douglas, 33, 34, 48, 50-51,

Harris, Air Vice-Marshal Arthur, 83, 84, 108, 169, 177

40, 64, 67,

News,

S.,

Kay, Ursula, 194-95, 228, 248 Kaye, Minton W., 150 Kelson, chauffeur, 27, 52, 54

83, 84, 85, 197, 207, .209, 213

Hemming, "Lemnos,"

London H. M.

Kahla, 192-94

Hammerton, Flight Officer, 71 Hamshaw Thomas. Hugh, 5, 68-69,

152,

238,

Jane's All the World's Aircraft, 82 Jean Bart, battleship, 157, 158 Jet, 247 fn. Jones, George, 185 Jones, R. Idris, 132-33 Jones, Dr. R. V., 170, 172 Joubert, Sir Philip, 124

Haig, Sir Douglas, 4 Haldane, J. B. S., 90 Hall, A. H., 20, 21, 22-23 Hall, James G., 180 Hamburg, 179

Harrisburg,

130,

73,

12,

Invasion Threat, 55-82

Haagsche Bosch, 237 Habbaniya, 128, 129

Heath, Walter,

Adolf,

Illustrated

Grille, yacht, 12

Pilot Officer,

239

259

Illustrious,

Gray, Leon, 168 Greenhill, Flying Officer, 116, 117 Grenoble, 254 Grey, Charles, 10 Grierson, "Bunny," 111

Haney,

41, 86,

Tony, 171-73

240, 255-56 Kenny, Andre, 218,223

207-208,

78,

153,

79,

154,

219, 220, 228, 229, 235, 236,

209,

217,

Kent, Peter, 198, 199, 200, 201 27-28, 36,

Ketchum, Carlton G., 240 Kiel, 47, 204 Kindleberger, Charles P., 182-«3, 184, 185 Koenig, Egmont, 152 Kolpin, 208

((263))

INDEX Medhurst, Air Vice-Marshal Charles, Lacoste, Gerald, 45, 53, 66, 71 Lamboit, Paul, 18, 44 Langenstein, 193

104.

107,

143

Mediterranean Air Command, 162 Mediterranean Watch, the, 128

Lanveoc, 124

Medmenham,

La

Meillerwagen, 234, 236, 238 Meriiield, John, 224-25, 229 Merignac, 78 Messina, 142 Meurisse, M., 4 Milch, General, 10

Rochelle, 53 Laws, Victor, 30 Le Creusot, 173 Leggett, Jack, 186, 200, 201, 202

Le Havre, 72 Lenton, Squadron Leader, 187 Lespair, Colonel, 33, 34, 52 Leuna, 197, 199, 201, 202 Libya, 9 Lille,

25, 46,

S. J., 76 Mimoyecques, 214

Lindemann, Professor, 98-99 Linton, David, 68, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 127 Lloyd, Sir Hugh, 137-41 9,

18, 21, 23,

24, 25, 36, 37, 43, 47, 52

Longmore, Sir Arthur, 131, 133 Lottinghem, 214 Luckmanoff, Sergeant, 177 Ludlow-Hewitt, Sir Edgar, 41, 42^3, 88, 91 MacArthur, General, 151 Macphail, Hugh, 44, 129, 135-36 Maison Blanche, 158 Maison Carre, 161

130-31,

Section, 174, 213

Moehne Dam,

178

Moore-Brabazon, J. T. C, 4, 30 Moran, Sergeant Paddy, 134, 135 Morgan, Squadron Leader, 165 Mount Farm, 180, 201, 239, 242 Nadar, see Toumachon, Felix Nancy, 48 Negretti, Henry, 3 Neuve-Chapelle, 4 Newall, Sir Cyril, 8, 16-18 Night photography, 96 Niven, Robert, 9, 13, 15, 18, 21, 24, 25, 42, 43 Normandy Landings, 233 Norstad, Lauris, 151

Oakington, 93 O'Connor, William

Marseilles, 76

Martinvast, 214 Massachusetts, U. S. S., 157 Matthews, E. J. Ramsey, 67 Mayer, Eddie, 185, 186 Sir

Model Making

Naval Intelligence Division, 28, 35

Malta, 9, 18, 131, 133, 142, 144, 153, 163 Manifould, Flymg Officer, 172 Mapplebeck, G. W., 4 Marienburg, 184, 185-86, 187

McAlpine,

240

Millen,

48

Lobban, A. S., 243 Longbottom, Maurice,

110, 153, 169, 204,

Malcohn, 213

J.,

240

Ogilvie, P. B. P. (Pat), 92-93, 94, 96.

100-102 Sarah, see Churchill, Sarah Operational Intelligence Center, 109, 124 Operation Torch, 154 Oslo Report, 205-206 Ostend, 72 Oliver,

Paduoc House,

65, 74, 76, 170

McCormick, Gooderham, 146 McKnight-Kauffer, Ann, 80, 122-23 McLennan, General, 3

53 Parrott, Sergeant, Parsons, Ian, 51

McPherson, A., 13 Meaux, 33, 34, 48, 49, 52

Pas de Calais, 71, 77

Paris,

2,

52,

172

4

Paynter, Captain, 132, 133

((264))

I

INDEX Peck, Air Vice-Marshal Richard, 14, 15, 16, 18, 23, 31, 43 Peek, E. P. H., 209 Peenemiinde, 205, 206, 208, 209, 210, 217, 218, 223, 225, 228, 229, 230, 244, 246 Peirse, Air Vice-Marshal Richard, 14,

38-40 Photographic Development Unit, 35, 36, 43, 55, 64, 239 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit, 59, 63 Pienaar, S., 250 Pippet, Flight Lieutenant, 49-51, 53 Poland, 12, 234 Polifka, Karl, 165, 166, 167-68, 250-51 Politz, 199 Portal, Sir Charles, 99 Pound, Sir Dudley, 37-39, 113 Prinz Eugen, 120, 122, 124

St.

Eval, 70, 114, 115, 122

Saint-Exupery,

Antoine

de,

Omer, 71 Sandys, Duncan, 206-208, 211, 212, St.

214, 217, 219

San Servo, 234 Sardinia, 9

Saundby, Air Vice-Marshal, 107 Scharnhorst, battleship, 114, 122, 124 Schone, Herr, 10 24 Second World War, 6 Second World War, The, 99 Seclin,

Sherwell, Noel, 75 Siegfried Line, 25, Silesia,

Simla,

33,

34

190 144

Simon, Neil, 213, 215, 216, 217, 220, 221, 222, 223, 229 Sims,

Charles,

148,

181,

186, 187, 188, 194, 227,

Quackenbush, Robert

S.,

Jr.,

145-47

Ricketts, Victor, 177

190,

239

214

98 Slocum, 44-45 Slocum, "Slogger," 60 Smuts, Field Marshal, 68, 179 Soest, 107 Sottevast, 214 Spaatz, General, 166, 185 Special Survey Flight, 24 Spender, Humphrey, 26 Spender, Michael, 26-28, 36-37, 47-

Rome, 164-65 Rommel's Quay, 139

48, 64, 65, 66, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74,

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 156-57 Roosevelt, Elliott, 155-56, 159, 162, 165-67, 180, 240, 241 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 166 Rostock, 76, 244 Rostow, Walt, 193, 196, 226 Rotterdam, 71 Rowell, Robert, 215, 216, 220, 221, 222, 229, 231, 232, 233, 235-36 Royal Aircraft Establishment, 20, 92 Royal Air Force, 18, 19, 34, 83 Royal Flying Corps (R. F. C), 4, 6

Royal Naval Air Service, 7

184,

245

Slessor, Sir John,

Riddell, Peter, 65-66, 68, 69-70, 72, 74, 79, 80-81, 82, 86, 87, 88, 104,

105, 143-44, 177, 189, Ring, Spencer, 44, 61, 63

183,

Singapore, 144 Siracourt,

Ranger, U. S. S., 157, 158 Rechlin, 246 Reynolds, George, 237-38 Richthofen, General, 10

48-49,

251-54

79, 105, 114,

115-16

Spender, Stephen, 26 Spires, Sergeant John, 133, 134, 135 Starling, Jean, 81 Stephenson, Alfred, 68 Stereoscope, 78-79 Sterling, Marvin B., 153 Stettin,

76

Steventon, D. W., 204, 205 Stewart, Peter, 104-105, 107-108, 143, 207 Street, Sir Arthur,

56

Stringer, Harry, 23, 100

Stubbs, Lionel, 18, 19

((265))

INDEX Suckling, Michael,

116,

117-20

Swinemiinde, 204 Sylt, 85, 87, 89,

90

Synthetic oil plants, 197-202

Taranto, 132 Taylor, Alistair, 44, 60-61, 62, 63, 125-27, 224 Tedder, Air Vice-Marshal, 19-20 Teheran, 166 Telecommunications Research Establishment, 98 Thurman. Wayne, 159 Tigeaux, 33, 48, 49 Times, The, 85 Times of Malta, 135 Tirpitz, battleship, 36, 114 Toulon, 76 Toumachon, Felix, 2-3 Tri-Metrogon system, 150 Tunis, 159. 164 Tuttle, Geoffrey, 32, 44, 47, 52, 57 58-59, 60, 61, 62, 63-64, 75

U-boat production, 109-113 Underground factories, 193-94 United Services Club, 17

VE-Day, 257

W.A.A.F.. 59, 64, 76, 81 Wager, Bill. 67-68 Wall, A. E., 243 Walton, Flight Lieutenant, 49-50, 53, 159-60 Warburton. Adrian, 134, 135, 136, 137,

138,

140,

141,

163-64,

142,

242

Warden, Thomas Muir, 86 Watson, Sir Norman, 62 Watten, 211, 213, 218 Wavell, Claude, 67, 169-73, 175-76,

229 Weaver, Flying Officer John, 61

Wembly,

36, 37, 41, 47, 55, 64, 65,

109 Whalley, Flying Officer, 224 Whittle, Frank, 247 Wick, 70, 116, 126 Wigington, Flying Officer, 115 Wild machine, 36, 37, 40, 67, 74 Wilhelmshaven, 12, 13, 36, 37, Wilson, Angus, 86 Windsor, "Schloss," 86 66,

70, 74,

Winterbotham, Frederick, 6-8, 128 Wise, "Bill," 44, 61, 62, 63 Wood, Cynthia, 86 Wright, Wilbur and Orville, 13,

14,

15,

16,

Charles. 185 Braun, Wernher, 205 Fritsch, General, 6, 259 Vuillemin, General, 33 V-weapons, battle against, 203-38 Verity,

Von Von

3,

Yvrench, 216 Zeppelin raids, 89 Zinnowitz, 225, 229, 230, 232 Zossen, 257

((266))

11, 12,

18,

Venour, Walter, 53, 66, 71

109

19

Set in Linotype Times

Roman

Format by Marguerite Swanton Manufactured by The Haddon Craftsmen, Inc. Published by Harper & Brothers, New York

04