Reconnaissance flights 4/10/40 over UK

[noggin]

Has anybody got details of reconnaissance flights on the 4/10/40 especially over the East Midlands and Nottinghamshire in particular.

[edwest2]

This site may be helpful.



http://www.hitlersukpictures.co.uk/





Ed

[noggin]

Thanks Ed , no one seems to know were this image came from. It's in the local archive but with no info on how it was obtained. The target is under the cloud top left.

[edwest2]

You're welcome. Since the photo bears a Bild (image) number and a GB number, along with target identification, I suggest you try:

http://www.bundesarchiv.de/index.html.en


From time to time, these photos appear for sale on eBay and elsewhere.


http://www.germaninvasion.co.uk/luftwaffe/



The British did capture some photos like these by various means. One possibility is that it (or a roll of film) was retrieved from a crashed German aircraft from the time. There are no obvious target markings on it so it may have been partly censored at the time. You may also contact the Imperial War Museums: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205018274

Part of the detective work involves finding out what procedures were used at the time for retrieving and handling captured German documents. What body inspected crashed aircraft, who was in charge of photos and documents, and who was in charge of allowing the release of such images to local archives? It may even be that the photo was a souvenir found not far from the crash site by a civilian, kept for a time, and then handed in to the local archive after the war.




Best,
Ed

[Chris Going]

Noggin, interesting question. First there’s the screened graphic (the aerial photo) used in the target document you reproduce, and secondly there’s the origin of the document itself.

We can begin with the graphic. Its date is given as 4 October 1940 and the photo number is cited as 602 RII 403.

Citations of target graphics are a bit of a law unto themselves, and vary according to the indexing practice of the taking Unit/Air Fleet. Pre-war imagery used on such documents, generally taken by Rowehls AobdL, have brief, sensible citations such as ‘467 R 43’, meaning sortie 467, Starboard camera, exposure 043. They may also cite L for Links, or S for Spektrum, or SG, SK. Ive come across 432 H 132, which is, I suspect, blundered. The taking date can be a nit more hit and miss, and I have seen some images taken months before the start of hostilities credited to 3 September 1939, which was of course the outbreak of hostilities between germany and the Uk

As the war progressed into 1940 we get other photo identifiers, eg F60b/101. F228/40/120; F780a/40/12v, and then eg 966 z 10, 1926 z 10.

These indicate that the image was taken on Feindflug 60 (almost certainly 1940); camera position B, and exposure 101. The next two are similar, though F228 has no cited camera position. Lastly, during the BoB some units move, at first erratically, then more formally (probably after June 1941) onto an entirely different system, which is a conflation of Intelligence report and graphic together. The sequence rises from a nominal 0001 in perhaps July 1940 to c 3500 by June 1944. Then there is a reference to the Z category into which the report fits, eg Z 10 (Airfields) z 45 (Harbours etc). Chasing up the Sortie citation is a bit more haphazard, but can be done via the Aufnahme data. One suspects there was a brief concordance sheet which people looked up which recorded the Z series reports generated by each photographic sortie. The cans eventually went to the ZAF.

Tracking down the sortie is a bit more hit and miss. I investigated this years ago for a paper.

A print set may have survived the war as part of the OKH Library. No guarantee of that by the way. Most of the ZAF was destroyed on the river Saale in 1945. You might find one or two prints out there, but not likely. I’ve indexed the surviving UK covers and will have a look when I have the time.

Its possible Nick B could steer you in the direction of relevant Ultra decrypts (if any refer to it), and from there you might get the Unit…

Target documents. About 3,000 survived the war. Several different captures in various archives, but NARA in US has most.


Best


Chris

[Chris Goss]

I have no record of recce flights being flown by Luftflotte 3 in this area on this date

[noggin]

Thanks Chris and Chris , the archive is very limited only running into a few pages. A couple of the local papers , hospital admission forms , fatality list and a report from the police , clerk of the council and an officier in the local RE regt. In fact I've seen better photos of the works taken in 1933 that were already in the public domain copy here : http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/i...wark%20&ref=64 so it's a mystery were and how this image was added to the archive.

[Nick Beale]

"Its possible Nick B could steer you in the direction of relevant Ultra decrypts (if any refer to it), and from there you might get the Unit…"

I had a quick look but didn't come up with anything, sorry.

[Chris Going]

Noggin you undoubtedly know this, but if it has escaped your attention, a useful summary of October 4th (including met, etc) is the MoD 75th anniversary summary of the period -
http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/campai...940&diaryday=4

It refers to reconnaissance activity, but its a starting point only.

Just to clear up an omission in the Image citations, the letter 'v' after the frame identifier refers to the fact that its an enlargement (Vergrosserung)

Chris

[Chris Going]

Hang on Noggin, I think I’m getting two things elided here. You have a target document (document ‘b’ of docs ‘a-c’ by the way) of Ransom and Marles ball bearings works for Newark (it happens –I checked- to be the only known target document for Newark. The date of the target graphic is 4 October 1940, a Friday. Now, you mention someone who was at (one assumes) R&M ‘on the Saturday’ recovering body parts from what by all intents was a sharp and effective daylight attack. Now there was an attack by a single aircraft on Friday, March 7th 1941, when 41 workers at the factory were killed? In a 2011 interview one of the survivors (Bert Emerson) recollects retrieving body parts on the following day –that is, on the Saturday. Is your ‘survivor’ the same man?

Of you are after details of the raid of March 7th 19412 I daresay quite a lot of information can be retrieved from various places….


Best

Chris