Past Talks : May 2024
“Luftwaffe Aerial Reconnaissance photographs (Adolph’s British Holiday Snaps)”, by Nigel Clarke
In deepest, darkest, Dorset there is an area known as Black Ven, which refers to coastal cliffs in the neighbourhood of Lyme Regis. Like much of the Jurassic Coast, Black Ven is full of interesting fossils, rocks and landforms and our speaker, Nigel Clarke lives nearby and wanted to find out more of its history.
His searches led to a wide range of sources, including old photographs, which resulted in a surprise jackpot when Nigel visited a charity shop in Exeter. He discovered a series of crystal clear aerial photographs of West Country locations including his home. Apparently they were a part of a hoard of high quality black and white reconnaissance photographs taken by the Luftwaffe as a part of their war planning against Britain.
It emerged that when a gentleman living in Exeter died, his son discovered a big box of old photographs that his father had hidden away when WW2 ended. The gentleman’s name was Phillips and he was the Army Staff Driver for Lt. General Sir Brian Horrocks. As WW2 was concluding, Driver Phillips was sent to meet General Horrocks at a very recently captured German airfield. While waiting for the arrival of the General, Driver Phillips decided to explore some subterranean bunkers, inside one of which he came across a room with the contents chaotically strewn everywhere. The contents were thousands of aerial photographs, through which Driver Phillips carefully selected photographs he recognised of the West Country and somehow he brought them home as a souvenir.
Suddenly, Nigel Clarke’s local history interests expanded to embrace an entirely new direction of research.
Aerial photography blossomed in WW1, when airforces on both sides of the conflict flew constant, dangerous, sorties over the enemy’s trenches to bring back overlapping photographs. These formed an almost endless patchwork mosaic of the whole war front and surrounding areas. In those days large cameras were mounted on the outside of the aircraft and the observer leaned out of his open cockpit to carefully load and unload enormous glass plate negatives. It looked very clumsy, it was probably a nightmare to undertake, but it worked and much information was gleaned and put to strategic and tactical use.
In the 1930s, with the rise of Hitler, the need for aerial photography was quickly grasped by Germany and both military and civilian reconnaissance flights criss-crossed Britain. Passenger aircraft flying from Germany into London Croydon airport were adapted to covertly photograph selected towns and economic and military facilities by means of cameras hidden within the aircraft. Tourist sightseeing flights were also carried out for the same purpose. Likewise, the Hindenburg Zeppelin made a grand, goodwill tour around the coast of Britain, conveniently flying over Plymouth and Portsmouth naval bases, for example. Not advertised, was the fact that a German intelligence officer was on board taking good quality photographs. As an aside, Nigel related that in the pre-war years, German Intelligence Services were so short of money that they actually sold souvenir copies of photographs to the British public to help cover the cost of the work. As time went by the Luftwaffe were very diligent and thorough in photographing every part of Britain from Land’s End to the Orkney Isles. Not only that, but they also included Ireland, once again with very detailed images of areas of potential importance, such as Dublin – to the retrospective astonishment and alarm of the Irish Government.
It was a comprehensive and huge undertaking. It was also the first complete aerial survey of the United Kingdom. It took until 1947 before the RAF was tasked to carry out Britain’s own detailed aerial survey. If your house was built before then, it will be on one of those photographs.
Luftwaffe photographs were almost entirely taken at low altitudes in the early years from the late 1930s up to 1942. After that time Hitler ventured into Russia and moved a large part of the Luftwaffe eastwards, which made low-level reconnaissance sorties over Britain much more hazardous. It naturally followed that future sorties were carried out at altitudes up to nearly 40,000ft, resulting in less detailed images.
Germany already had a well established reputation for high quality cameras and lenses and Zeiss, of course, played a significant role. The WW1 glass plates were superseded by 35mm film with a perforated edge. This offered practical benefits, not only in lightness of the film and handling, but it also enabled the film to be fed through the cameras via a clockwork mechanism, to provide a continuous pattern of succeeding images. Nigel showed many, many of the photographs from around our south and south west coasts to illustrate in fine detail the extent to which they helped aircrews in identifying their target. As a part of their target briefing all German bomber pilots were issued with a photograph to take with them on the sortie.
Some of the very earliest Luftwaffe raids against the UK were carried out in Scotland and appropriately a wide range of photos were shown by Nigel of the Forth Bridge from various angles, plus of course Scapa Flow, because of its importance as a home to the RN Fleet. Similarly, the extensive facilities at Plymouth Dockyard featured prominently. Plymouth is said to have been the most heavily bombed city in the UK and it is particularly ironic that many children were evacuated from the blitz on London and sent to Plymouth for ‘safety’.
Other photographs showed Kenley Airfield actually under attack with bombs bursts distinctly visible against the ground. Similarly a few photographs showed other bombers clearly against the countryside on their way to the target and afterwards recording for damage assessment.
In all, the Luftwaffe had 23 separate long range photo reconnaissance units, using a variety of aircraft including the Dornier Do 17, Junkers 88, Heinkel III, Me110, etc., plus one photograph showing a camera being squeezed in a Me 109.
As the years went by Luftwaffe reconnaissance over the UK became more infrequent and by D-Day very little coverage is apparent, because most Luftwaffe units were preoccupied with the troubles on the Eastern Front.
Overall, the number of photographs taken by the Luftwaffe is stunning and said to be at least 25 tons worth in Bavaria alone. The main photographic archives were in Berlin and with the approach of Russian forces towards to close of the war, the archives were loaded onto barges – and yes, you guessed it, the barges were sunk and the contents lost. However, there were other enormous caches stored all over Germany and they are what we largely can see today. Having said that, vast quantities were nevertheless burnt at the end of the war because, for example, they showed nothing but the vast plains of Russia with mile after mile, after mile of emptiness.
As the war finished, the US and British Intelligence Services made a rush to collect as much material as they could before the Russians caught on. It was called Operation Dick Tracey after a fictional ‘ace’ detective. A great deal of effort also went into interrogating captured soldiers for information and sources. All of the British material was sent to RAF Medmenham for evaluation, although ultimately at the end of the war most of the material was sent to NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) which is an independent US Government agency. Nigel said that the photographs are still available to be viewed by the public on request, but because it is not American history, they are not being preserved in ideal conditions and in many instances are showing signs of ‘foxing’.
An interesting feature of how the German Intelligence Services used the information was that unlike the British, they did not use Stereoscopes, which we found to be a great benefit in interpretation. Neither did the Germans use a broad range of people to interpret the photographs. The German military was based on a very hierarchical system, whereby only senior personnel were allowed to interpret the photographs. In Britain aptitude was deemed more important than perceived rank and seniority. Consequently, the Germans failed to identify and recognise British radar facilities and were surprisingly easily misled by camouflage techniques used.
All in all, the Germans had far better equipment for photo reconnaissance than the British, but I like to think that Britain had a definite edge on interpretation (but I would say that wouldn’t I).
Today, 80 years on, the photographs are still proving their value and are frequently called upon for research and planning purposes by archeologists, conservationists, historians, local authorities, Government bodies, etc.. A great deal of the British landscape has changed over the years and this wealth of photographs is proving a valuable milestone to mark the changes.
It is an addictive subject and if you want to know more, then do look at the book produced by Nigel Clarke, “Adolph’s British Holiday Snaps” – Luftwaffe Aerial Reconnaissance Photographs of England, Scotland and Wales.
Thank you Nigel for an extremely interesting talk, much appreciated by our large audience in the FAA Museum Auditorium and by our many ZOOM viewers at home in their armchairs. Do join us for the next talk – much more enjoyable than TV.