100,000 Aerial Photos Found

[stephen]

We had a thread a week or two ago about what may have happened to all the aerial photos taken in WWI and what mysteries might be solved (or deepened) by finding them. Well, a good portion of the British photos (100K of them) are at the Imperial War Museum as one of you good people told me. I quote in part from a letter received from a very kind gentlemen at the IWM named David Parry:

"The collection was transferred to the Museum from the training files of the RAF School of Photography, Farnborough, after the First World War.

This cover exists in the form of original glass plate negatives. Prints are produced to order based on references in a map card index, keyed to the usual map scales in use by the British forces during the First World War. The index can be consulted, by appointment, at the Photograph Archive; no catalogue of its contents is available at present. The Museum holds very few reference file prints for this material, so the quality of the images produced from the negatives cannot be determined before printing.

The index separates the photographs, initially into the year in which they were taken, and then by the British Army GSGS map reference, (not, it should be noted, by place name or location). To approach the index, therefore, the relevant full map reference is essential."

So there ya go. Dunno nuthin' about French, German or US photos yet, but a big, sloppy pile of Brit photos have been found. Now all I need is a set of free airline tickets and a week in London.

[Scotty]

that is alot of coal to shovel just to find a diamond..

I suppose that there would be recon photos of German/Austrian aerodromes that may prove interesting, but what else would be found of value? are we talking thousands of photos of trenches? do you think that a search of so many photos without much structure or guidance be worth the cost in time and money?

vbr
Scotty

[Darryl]

Stephen,

drop me a line if you want info on the map references.

regards

Darryl

[stephen]

Scotty: Depends entirely on what you're looking for. My personal goals are to find 1) A G Lee's Camel perched in the middle of a field between Fontaine-Notre Dame and Cambrai... he describes it to a T and the landmarks all still fit perfectly. I've walked the field myself and photographed everything and its turned into a personal fetish... I just gotta know exactly.. to the foot, where his Camel rested, then start finding the German positions that opened fire on him... and 2) to find a photo of the ridge over the Somme on the morning of 21 April, 1918. Why couldn't it be there? It was just another airplane shot down over just another set of trenches... every Brit recon plane at the front went on about its business like nothing ever happened. Its total randomness, pure chance whether it was ever there or not.. and the very fact that a photo is not known to exist means that it very well could... because no one is looking for it.

Daryl- Many thanks. I might take you up on that someday, but not in the near future. Another one of those long term things... I'm not even done with Luke yet.

[Cliff]

Just finished reading "The Red Baron's Last Flight" which covers that day in detail.
The British map reference of the crash site/brick works is 62D.J.19b

Cliff

thanks for that info... actually many of those photos might come in handy for a guy like me, who incidently asked about this about a couple weeks ago... is that since I'm anxious to create a couple of comics on this sort of subject... it would help me see what it was everybody was looking for, and could prove invaluable for getting a good idea of what the topography was like... for example, it took me awhile to realize that navigation back then was a completely different ball-game... I'm just now starting to try and put together some research on the use of 'contact aircraft' for infantry assaults as well as the different methods used for artillery spotting and battery work... but I don't want to ramble too much... just wanted to say thanks for the info
Jarrod

Great news.

With the new age of the internet, it is only a matter of time until all of these information will be available online to everyone. The problem is that this "matter of time" will be measurec in decades at least, until tons of money will show up :-(