CAMERA IN THE AIR

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 November 1943, Page 6

CAMERA IN THE AIR

HAZARDOUS SEDVICE

Without the names of its organisation once being mentioned, a iSand of R.A.F. pilots and crews has, since 1939, been carrying out what is undoubtedly among the most dangerous, loneliest, and yet vital tasks of the air war. Everyone has seen the fruits of their labours in the form of aerial photographs of bomb damage in Germany, Italy, and enemy-oc-cupied territory and many other revealing pictures. The pictorial evidence was obtained by speciallytrained men who form the R.A.F.’s Photographic Reconnaissance Units. Now that the history of the P.R.U.’s can be told, it reveals a stirring record of achievement in the face of great difficulties. The P.R.U.’s employ either Spitfires or Mosquitoes, the latter for the very long-range jobs. The aircraft have holes in the fuselage to accommodate cameras for taking oblique or vertical photographs. If Bomber Command wants to know the result of its latest raid, if the Ministry of Economic Warfare, the War Office, or the Admiralty require information about enemy activities, a P.R.U. aircraft braves weather and Axis defence to obtain photographs. Mosquitoes have made long trips which involved refuelling in Russia and Africa, while the longrange Spitfires have photographed targets as distant as Danzig and Be.r- 1 lin. The range of the Photographic Reconaissance Unit based in Britain extends from the north of Norway to Gibraltar, and there are other units 1 oversea. The commanding officer of; the home-based P.R.U. Wing is Air' Commodore J. N. Boolham, A.F.C., of; Schneider Trophy fame. Some idea of the demand for aerial photographs can be obtained from ' the fact that between April and June, 1940, when the unit was in its infancy, 127,350 contact prints were made. In a single day in October/ 1941, 9736 photographs were taken. SQUADRONS TN FRANCE.

When war broke out, a number of squadrons, equipped with Blenheims Lysimeters, and. Battles, fitted with Cameras, moved to .France, and in October, 1939, a special flight was formed to develop high-altitude, high-speed photography. Experience soon showed that an unescorted Blenheim penetrating deep into enemy territory had little chance of survival, and that a new technique was needed. The obvious remedy was to evolve an aircraft which would fly high and fast enough to elude enemy defences, and it was decided to adapt the Spitfire, then corning into mass production. Long-range tanks were installed, and cameras fitted in the wings, and before the first war-time Christmas sections of the Siegfried Line from Saarbrucken to Aachen had been photographed so satisfactorily that the problem had clearly been solved.

Improvements in technique, in equipment, and in camera installs-, tion steadily overcame such difficulties as navigation of a machine in which the pilot must, do the work of a whole crew, freezing cameras and condensation on tenses, as well as the necessity to fiv at greater heights to evade defences. By March, 1940, the whole of the Ruhr area had been covered, and the mosaic photographs then, obtained have been of the utmost value to Bomber Command, which still uses them. By the next month the Spitfire’s range had been sufficiently increased to allow Kiel to be reached lor the first time. When the Germans attacked the Low Countries and France, and Italy entered the war, a P.R.U, flight stationed in the

south of France and sometimes refuelling in Corsica flew over Italy. After the fall of France had caused the 'P.R.U. to withdraw to Britain, it was placed under the operationtil control of Coastal Command—the reeonaissance command of the B.>..A.F.—and it still works under this arrangement, co-operating closely .with the United States Bth Army Air Force and interchanging work with the American P.R.U.’s. Ils work consists almost entirely of strategical reconnaissance, tactical work for the army being carried out by a specialist unit of the Army Co-operation Command.