Missing Aerial Photos

[Reinout]

The archives in München still have about 90,000 pictures taken by Bavarian outfits in Palestine/Egypt during 1916-1918. That's just from a couple of units. Don't know any other sources, but one could try Koblenz.

As for unchallenged, I don't think the hundreds of Allied airmen shot down during Black September would care to support that statement.

Kind regards,

Reinout

[stephen]

>>>>As for unchallenged, I don't think the hundreds of Allied airmen shot down during Black September would care to support that statement.

Absolutely. But again, I'm talking strategically. If the Allied commanders were willing to absorb the losses, they certainly had the manpower and machinery on hand to swamp the Germans with sheer numbers... which they did. And one big reason for the huge German kill numbers was the fact that targets were plentiful. One US pilot who joined up in Sept of '18 told me that he never saw a total of 20 enemy a/c put together during the last 10 weeks of the war. Kinda hard to become an ace if there's nobody to shoot down.

>>>>I think there is absolutely zero chance of finding your holy grail. If an aerial photo was taken and identified the wreckage of the Baron's Dreidecker, don't you think it would have been on every front page in the world in a week and henceforth famous?

Can't say as I've ever heard of a military aerial recon photo making any contemporary WWI era newspaper. Surely they were considered classified military intelligence until well after the war? And after 5 years of fighting, I doubt that anyone was anxious to jump in and wade through millions of presumably de-classified photos of trashed French towns to find a dead German pilot. It means much more to us now than it did to them then.

Statistically, it seems likely to me that there was a photo taken showing MvR's crash site. Maybe even Luke's. The fact is, the RFC/RAF photographed the entire front (or at least its share) every day, in order to allow the production of the maps used by the Staff and armies in the field.

The very ubiquity of these photos, however, argues very strongly against their survival much past the end of the war. My feeling is that those which did survive did so almost accidentally. I doubt there is an archive anywhere containing all of these photos (or even the maps made from them). I'd love to be proved wrong, of course.

Stephen,
You are correct about MvR's death being more important to us than it was back during the event. I have a newspaper that tells of his death and it wasn't even front page material, just an obscure little article on page 10.

Steve

During a recent visit to London, I purchased a new book "Eyes of the RAF - History of photo-reconnaissance." by Roy Nesbit. The WW1 period is of special interest with one or two aerial photos illustrated. It is of interest that they were provided by a private source (retired RAF pilot) & a check of references used reveals no mention of a record source for WW1 aerial photos so it sounds like most were destroyed.

In thirty years I've only ever come across one lot of original WW1 aerial photos (x 20) some of which are stamped on the backs "Printed by Army & Stationary Division - No.3. Advanced Section." Does anyone know if this is British or a US unit? None of the images however show the "Holy Grail".

Finally, a few weeks ago a saw a BBc TV program concerning a local council in the South of England who were trying to return a bog land to its original state to preserve wildlife. The interesting part was they were using WW2 German aerial photos of the area to see what it looked like prior to 1945. This would seem to indicate that the German archives may hold much more material of this type - maybe even of the WW1 period especially of the Western front. I'm sure they would have gone to some length to locate & identify MvR crash site via aerial photos - maybe someone else holds the answer.

Regards to all, jermedal.

I've taken a look to the bibliografy of a couple of books I have, and I've found that all the photos they have are taken from the collections of the most important historical museums of the world, many of them from the Imperial War Museum of London. Maybe you can visit its site. Other mentioned are the Australin Museum, the Airmen Memorial Museum (I don't know where it is)and the National Archives. Few days ago I remember I visited a site which has been made by a guest of the aerodrome whose name I cannot remember: he has a lot of photos, if you can find him, maybe he can tell you more.
Hope that helps!

[Darryl]

Hi All,

The PRO houses a massive collection of photos (prints) which are in no particular usefull order that I can see. They appear to be largely unsorted, as with a majority of the maps they hold.....But if you have the time......

90% of the recon photos of the front survive on negative at the IWM.

You could also try the excellent book:

Western Front from the Air.
February 99 I think)
It was written by the Keeper of Photographs at IWM whose name, unfortunately, eludes me for the moment.

regards

Darryl

[PeterL]

Luca, the Airmen Memorial Museum is in Maryland. It has a website

Peter L

[stephen]

>>>>90% of the recon photos of the front survive on negative at the IWM.

Now there's some hope! I'll do a word search and see if I can find a web site or email for the IWM people and museum... in the meantime, does anyone happen to have an address for them? Thanks, Darryl!

[leo]

Stephen:

Try www.iwm.org.uk