[Chris Going]

Andrew, Nick, Hello

TM 3 is Target Material, Section 3 from the 1946 index of the ‘Dick Tracy’ capture, which consisted of some twenty-one (21) C47 plane loads of captured photographic material, much of which was indexed at RAF Medmenham in the summer of 1945 as part of the ‘Turban’ programme, a top secret initiative to secure as much information as possible about USSR targets. Now, there is a bit in Aldrichs ‘Hidden hand’, but a small paper wot I wrote: ‘A neglected asset, German aerial photography of the second world War period’ in Eds Robert H Bewley and Wlodimeriez Rackowski, Aerial Archaeology, Developing Future practice, 2001 Nato Science Series Ser I Vol 337; 23-30 ISBN 1 58603 184 8 (IOS Press) is a useful starting guide to the surviving stuff. If that proves difficult to dinf (probably will), a useful alternative start is best found in Air 34/79.

Dick Tracy was found near Bad Reichenhall by US forces in May 1945. To paraphrase myself, ‘This archive …from internal evidence appears to be the print library of the …OKH. It comprised imagery from some 13,000 tactical and strategic sorties, some 9,500 map mosaics created for the various AOK’s, about 45,000 training prints, and 3,000 other prints. Information on this discovery reached ACIU…on June 20th and immediately brought its commanding officer…to the spot.
Within a fortnight the entire find, coded Dick Tracy after the all-American comic book hero -had been evacuated to the UK, requiring about 21 C47 sorties to be successfully airlifed out of Germany’ A preliminary index was completed by September 1945 and a more complete one by the spring of 1946, at which time most of Dick Tracy had been taken to the US. The Western allies agreed it needed joint exploitation (here had been other seizures as well) and the better Dick Tracy sorties were swapped back and forth under operation COPYCAT.

Section TM 3 of the Target material included dossiers on UK targets, hence the John Calvin download you found, Andy. Now the Dick Tracy UK target index is incomplete, but it’s the biggest surviving holding and some at least of them appear to be the originals from which sets were printed up for distribution to GAF Units.

If we look at airfield targets, the highest UK (England/Wales) number I know of is 522. Scotland '10' Series numbers start at 800. After about 1941 inland targets were only sporadically added to the list. For Chris G's benefit here (below) are some more East Anglian airfields. Target documents for the later additions, such as Eye and Fyfield (under constriction for American forces) are rather skimpy affairs with oblique near ‘standoff’ graphics and consequently not much interpretation.

10 276 Bury St Edmunds; 10 278 Catton; 10 306 Tuddenham; 10 317 Bradwell; 10 348 Castle Camps; 10 386 Great Sampford; 10 388 Bungay; 10 435 Hornchurch Bulphan; 10 439 Nazeing; 10 433 Thetford 10 456 North Creake; 10 466 Debach; 10 473 Eye; 10 482 Fyfield; 10 484 Easton Lodge; 10 485 Takeley; 10 498 Great Saling; 10 499 Gosfield; 10 500 Wethersfield; 10 501 Ridgewell; 10 519 Sudbury; 10 521 Rattlesden;

All best

ChrisG