A lot of military airfields have been obliterated from the 1945 imagery, though, being replaced by some sort of "fields" overlay. Look for Brize Norton and you'll see what I mean.
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Exciting, but with Goo-goil's wealth, probably just the tip of the iceberg. Walton on the Naze is taken in by the box around Harwich, so there'll be masses of old photos - but sadly, not yet. I was hoping to see Walton before all those Dmn caravans blotted the landscape, but as of yet, only back to 2000.
I went to my grandmother's house 2 miles NNW of Marble Arch.
(I'll move links back to the Photo Sleuthing thread which I'll revive.)
1945 does have the area in, but the definition is not too bright. However, by comparison, post war East End is obviously from very good archive records. But what a project. There will be masses of film available, it's just a matter of time.
Last edited by Loose rivets; 29th Jan 2012 at 21:45.
So. I’m curious.
Which government body would have arranged to have taken all these historical images and for what purpose?
If the images were likely to get into ‘foreign’ hands, it seems reasonable that some details would have been concealed but presumably, access to the results would have anyway been very restricted.
Why then would Biggin Hill be almost completely concealed by supposed fields – there is a bunker or something similar adjacent to what is now the main runway – but Croydon and Kenley are fully visible?
In the local history records there is a 1941 German aerial photo of the Limpsfield area, south of Biggin Hill, which suggests that they didn’t really need our help in seeing what was going on.
Incidentally, I notice that many of the German and some of the other European cities also have these 1945 overlays on Googly Earth.
The extensive RAF aerial photographic survey of Great Britain (1944-1950), called Operation Revue, was also intended to assist town planning and road building. Around 500 sorties were flown in Scotland resulting in the collection of over 280,000 photographs. These are held in the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments for Scotland.
It was not until the 1950s, that the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation increasingly took over aerial survey work from the RAF. From this time, aerial survey has been an essential part of Ordnance Survey's reconnaissance and data capture methods.
Before (and during) the War there was extensive aerial photography carried out by the RAF, but the images offered by Googoo are post War, so I expect that the skills of the RAF would be usefully employed, especially when 'urban restoration' was contemplated.
Location: A Whilom nimble brain. With 31 million posts.
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A mater of hours before this thread, I watched a PBS (sort of national broadcast ) about wartime photography. I simply had no idea how sophisticated it was.
They knew a thing or two about making lenses by then and many of the photos making it back were of incredible quality. What's more, they'd mastered a very respectable standard of stereoscopic interpretation by then.
As an aside:
What made one gasp, if only inwardly, was the putting away of the shots from Peenemünde, for I think, several years. For some reason, some bright spark eventually spotted a fin on an oblong spot, they tied it in with the track lines from the buildings and the game was up.
Shooting from 30+ thousand feet also surprised me. However, some shots were taken by flying at the dome in France? Belgium? where rockets had been taken. Cameraman flew below the dome height, and the subsequent bombing 'displaced' this vast concrete monument to destruction.
As an avid photographer (when I was a boy) I experimented with all manner of setups to achieve macro (and micro) photography. From various ex-RAF suppliers there were lenses available from aerial cameras at reasonable prices and I was very interested in acquiring one until I discovered that it was about 6 inches in diameter . . . (and weighed many lbs)
Leipzig and Dresden (and others) go back to 1943. If you zoom out over Europe you can set the clock to 1935 and even 1930 but I haven't been able to determine exactly where those areas are yet.
I have all the old ordinance survey maps of my town dating back to the 1880,they show much more detail than any aerial phtograph can,I would imagine they are availabe in most areas,if you have a interest in your town history and development over the years I recommend these.
mn caravans blotted the landscape, but as of yet, only back to 2000.
