Historic England has just released 20,000 photographs captured by reconnaissance aircraft over England during the Second World War. The photos show airfields, military bases, towns, and countryside in England between 1943 and 1944. The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) reconnaissance aircraft flew hundreds of sorties over England during the Second World War.
he Historic England Archive’s USAAF Collection comprises over 20,000 photographic prints taken by USAAF photographic reconnaissance (PR) aircraft during the Second World War. Nearly 19,000 frames have been catalogued.
Most of the photographs are vertical aerial photographs measuring 8 x 7 inches, 9 x 9 inches and 18 x 9 inches. Additionally, over 400 oblique 9 x 9-inch aerial photographs have been catalogued. Many of the photographs in the collection show areas of the English countryside that include military sites amongst patchworks of fields. There are views of villages and towns, with coverage extending from Cornwall to the Wash, and from the Sussex coast to urban Lancashire.
See the interactive map and information here to explore the collection: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/photographs/usaaf-collection/
Image: Anti-tanl ditch surrounding Cissbury Ring Iron Age hill fort, Worthing, West Sussex, 22 April 1944.
Comments
Fascinating image set, if only for their choice of location.
I spent a period in the 1980s assessing ground resolution on aerial film so have an interest in this.