PHOTOGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE

It was 1945. Germany had been defeated. I was in America’s Oklahoma to be awarded my wings and commission. Only experienced pilots were now required for the conflict in the Pacific, so I found myself on the stripped-down, grey-painted Queen Elizabeth liner bound for England. 

As newly promoted officers had to learn to be and act as officers, my first posting was to Harrogate where young RAF pilots were taught to behave like gentlemen. 

It was then that we were offered various airforce tasks, there being enough pilots for the ongoing Pacific conflict and peacetime needs. 

I had flown in Warwicks on air/sea rescue missions over the Bay of Biscay during the war as a trainee pilot, so opted for air/sea rescue on the water - and was given a position, barely known to me, of being a Photographic Intelligence Officer. 

The headquarters for this skill was RAF Medmenham. Here wartime operators were the first to identify V2 German rockets being assembled at Penemunde - a momentous discovery.

I was taught to use a stereoscope - two simple clear lenses set in an equally simple metal stand. If positioned above two areal photographs taken one directly after another, the result of these, when placed almost together showed up as a landscape in three dimensions, thus providing much more information than two-dimensional photographs.

During the war, reconnaissance aircraft, like spitfires and mosquitos on our side, and ME 109s on the other, took many series of photographs over sights of military interest of each other’s territory. The results of these photographs, taken from high altitude, revealed secrets of great importance to the interpreters.

Armed with this knowledge, I was posted to another commandeered grand country house, RAF Newnam Courtney, and given a stereoscope and a series of German areal photographs taken of an oil installation in the northern Caspian. 

Military hardware needs fuel for war and the Germans wanted to know where it was extracted from the earth and its whereabouts. We had captured many of their areal photographs of oil installations. 

With my stereoscope, German areal photographs and now with my three-dimensional view of the installations revealed, I had to work out the complex’s capacity, transport links, expansion prospects and general infrastructure. Why? 

There are, sadly, always wars or conflicts of one kind or another going on, and countries with the best intelligence have the greatest chance of survival. 

When great conflicts come to an end we tend to think that they will not happen again - wars to end wars and all that stuff. But they do. So we might as well prepare for them, however insignificant this information may seem at the time. It might always come in handy. But let’s hope that it doesn’t.