Hidden secrets found as new aerial website launches

Aerial photographs of prisoners in the central courtyard of Colditz high security prison and POWs working on the infamous bridge over the River Kwai, along with images taken during the post D-Day battle for Normandy and the Suez Crisis of 1956, are now available to view for the first time.

The photographs were discovered as part of a painstaking process of cataloguing and digitising imagery from The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (TARA) for the new National Collection of Aerial Photography website, which launches today. TARA is made up tens of millions of Allied and German aerial intelligence photographs dating from the Second World War onwards, but only a small percentage has so far been catalogued and digitised.  Discovering exactly what the films contain is an ongoing task requiring in-depth detective work.

Manager of the National Collection of Aerial Photography, Allan Williams said: “We are uncovering new images every day, but to locate photographs with such powerful links to major events is incredibly exciting. Without doubt, we’ll continue to make amazing discoveries. The amount of reconnaissance photography taken during and since the Second World War is astonishing. It provides us quite literally with a new perspective on historical events – from the air.”

The launch of the new website is integral to the RCAHMS conservation plan for TARA, which includes further research and progressive digitisation for display online, as well as storing and preserving the original materials for public access.

The National Collection of Aerial Photography website is free to browse, although in-depth viewing requires a subscription, currently £15 for two years. It also offers search and image purchase services.  A dedicated search room has also been set up at RCAHMS Edinburgh headquarters for people wishing to carry out their own research.

As well as TARA, RCAHMS has an unmatched collection of over 1.6 million aerial photographs of Scotland dating from the 1920s to the present day. A section dedicated to Scottish aerial imagery is also available on the new website. As part of the launch, you can now view previously unseen RAF aerial photography from 1945 to 1951  taken as part of ‘Operation Revue’, a major post-war land use assessment that informed the building of the Scottish  ‘New Towns’.