Description

Evidence in Camera

Volume 3, Number 11 — June 14th, 1943

Issued by Air Ministry, A.C.A.S.(I). For Official Use Only. Printed by C. & E. Layton Ltd, London, E.C.4.

28 pages scanned

• Cover Illustration: The front cover shows a chain of aircraft encircling a globe on a film-strip band, symbolising global photographic reconnaissance.
• “It’s His Job to Talk—It’s Yours Not To!”: A cartoon by Phipps shows an officer being reprimanded by a judge for interrupting courtroom proceedings, making a point about knowing when to keep quiet.
• Attack on U-Boat Base at La Pallice: A vertical aerial photograph shows bomb bursts from a U.S.B.C. daylight raid on 29 May 1943 registering near both ends of the entrance lock, the caisson of the new lock, and the dry dock containing a sperrbrecher.
• Oblique Views of La Pallice: Two high oblique photographs taken at a later stage of the same raid show the concentration of bomb bursts across the target area.
• Dock Area at St. Nazaire Bombed: An aerial photograph with an inset of a Fortress aircraft shows a concentrated bombing attack by U.S.B.C. aircraft on 29 May 1943 across the dock area, shipping basins, and East Lock, despite a smoke screen laid from barges in the River Loire.
• Air Offensive on Italy and Sicily: Two aerial photographs show U.S.A.A.F. Liberators scoring hits on the train-ferry terminus and Outer Mole at Reggio di Calabria and on shipping, rolling stock, and the power station area at Catania harbour.
• Night Attacks on Dortmund: Two night photographs record incendiary bomb tracks and searchlight activity over Dortmund’s Central Railway Station during raids on 4/5 May and 23/24 May 1943.
• Station Damaged in Two Attacks: An aerial photograph shows fire and high-explosive damage to the roofing and offices of Dortmund’s railway station, with roughly 70 per cent of the surrounding Old City business and residential property devastated.
• Ruhrort Steelworks on Fire: A night photograph of the Duisburg raid of 12/13 May 1943 shows the Ruhrort docks, the River Rhine, and Duisburg Aerodrome, with a large fire at the Vereinigte Stahlwerke A.G. steelworks and incendiary tracks developing into further fires.
• Forty-Eight Acres of Devastation: An aerial photograph shows a forty-eight-acre area of Duisburg’s Old Town devastated by fire and high explosives, including damage to the Town Hall, Post Office, and Inner Hafen warehouses and grain silos.
• Camouflage in Wooded Surroundings at Lübeck: An aerial photograph shows the Deutsche Waffen Munition Fabriker hidden in woodland near Lübeck, with roofs darkened or covered in closely packed bushes to blend with the trees.
• Camouflage at Braunschweig/Volkenrode Airfield: An aerial photograph shows research buildings dispersed in woodland, with hangars mounded and covered in dummy bushes and other buildings similarly disguised or darkened.
• Know Your Ports—Amsterdam: A wide aerial view of Amsterdam’s harbour identifies the North Sea Canal, IJ-haven, Ertshaven, the Rhine Canal entrance, and the Central Station, noting the port’s importance for barge traffic and shipbuilding.
• Shipbuilding at Amsterdam: Aerial photographs of the Netherlands Dry Dock Company and Netherlands Shipbuilding Company identify minesweepers, armed trawlers, tank landing craft, and merchant vessels under construction or repair.
• Combat Films: Attack on Dieppe: Enlargements from a combat film show Bomber Command Venturas approaching Dieppe on 18 April 1943, with bombs seen bursting across the quays.
• German Long-Range Bomber Heinkel 177: Aerial photographs show He 177 long-range bombers at the Heinkel factory at Rostock/Marienehe, at Rechlin, and dispersed in large numbers at the bomber training centre of Lechfeld, some disguised with strips of dark and light material.
• He 177s at Further Locations: Aerial photographs show He 177s alongside a Do 217 at Rechlin/Larz, more He 177s at Garz/Usedom on the Baltic coast, and completed airframes outside the aircraft factory at Cheb/Oberschon in Czechoslovakia.
• Year’s History of “Tirpitz” Supply Tanker (Part One): A sequence of aerial photographs traces one of the Tirpitz’s supply tankers from Kristiansand in March 1942 through a sighting off IJmuiden to a later photograph showing her wrecked with damage near the poop.
• Year’s History of “Tirpitz” Supply Tanker (Part Two): Further aerial photographs follow the same tanker into floating dock at Wilhelmshaven with her stern cut away, her transfer to Dry Dock No. 4, and the flooded dock after a U.S.B.C. raid on 21 May 1943.
• Gablingen G.A.F. Station: An aerial photograph illustrates a typical 1935–6-period German airfield layout, with oval hangars for compact aircraft accommodation and a flak battery of four wagons shunted onto the perimeter railway.
• Railway Guns and Flak Trains near Marseilles: An aerial photograph shows a heavy German gun newly mounted on a turntable near Marseilles, with a second turntable under construction and a rail spur suggesting a possible third.
• Flak Train at Aalborg/West Airfield: An aerial photograph shows a light flak train of two four-gun batteries installed on the Danish airfield, split to allow aircraft to use the taxi-track.
• French Coastal Defences at La Rochelle: An aerial photograph maps an extensive defence system east and south-east of La Rochelle, including a disabled landing ground, an anti-tank ditch and minefield, strong points, and a probable underground headquarters linked by cable trenches.
• Prominent Landmarks: Le Four and Île Vierge: Photographs show the Le Four light tower on its reef off the Brest peninsula and the tall granite tower and small disused light on Île Vierge.
• Problem Picture: A vertical aerial photograph poses a recognition challenge, with the answer given as the landing ground at Villefranche-sur-Saône, north of Lyons, rendered unusable.