Luftwaffe Target Code 10281

[Larry deZeng]

Spot on, Andy. I plead old age as my excuse. I should not have missed that one because I have spent the last couple of years buried in those Luftwaffe recce photos of Eastern Front airfields, the Luftwaffe Gazetteer for them as well as the Luftwaffe Flugplatzatlas, all of which are copiously marked with the place names and the ZNr.'s. Conclusion: there were no numerical country designations; they used SU, GB, etc., for those. The numeric "10" was used as the target designation for Airfields, no matter where they were. By fall 1943, the number of VVS airfields that were potential Luftwaffe targets climbed past 10,000 and this meant some labeling adjustments were needed. So they started using four more numbers in addition to "10" to designate airfields in the East: these were 11, 12, 13 and 14. Whether or not this change also applied to newly built Allied airfields in the West and the Mediterranean, I cannot say.

L.

[Chris Goss]

Thanks both-that would match. Excuse my ignorance but what is/where is TM 3(GB)?

[Andy Mitchell]

Chris,

Its a document that I downloaded some while ago from John Calvin's ftp server. Although looking today I am having trouble finding the precise location on that server.

There is no information within the document as to source - but it has to be either UK or US. (There is reference to the "Dick Tracey" collection (?) in an overview document for TM3. This also states "this is the only material from this section that will be held at C.I.U)

There are lists for

Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Yugoslavia
Finland
GB
Norway
Denmark
Poland
Index to Russian Material
Misc Russian Target data
Miscellaneous
Russian Packets
Misc Russian (Maps, sketches, mosaics)

Additionally, there are "Target Dossiers" in a number of files. These list items/ dossiers by country (one country per file). These reference RG 242 "National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized 1941" - some of these (including those for Italy, Libya, Egypt, French Africa, Iceland, Ireland, Balkans, Cyprus and Iraq) also include the target code and the alpha prefix.

[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

[Larry deZeng]

ChrisG -

Thanks for the background on Dick Tracy. I used just about every one of the aerials appearing on the John Calvin website, and then hired a freelance researcher from Maryland and spent about $2,000 for copies of other SU Series 10 images held at NARA College Park. But I never found the background story of this collection, except for some correspondence stating that "Target file cards on German-occupied and Russian airfields" were shipped from AFHRA (at that time the USAF Simpson Historical Center) Maxwell AFB in Alabama to Alexandria/Virginia in 1968 so they could be incorporated into the Dick Tracy collection to which they belonged. Today, NARA has no record or knowledge of these cards. Apparently, they got lost somewhere.

L.

[Chris Going]

Larry, Hello.

Glad to be able to provide that information. The thing you most needed (or perhaps still need) to see was the second Volume of ‘Operation Dick Tracy. Catalogue of material. February 1946. Part Two’ created at Medmenham. This contained TM 5; ‘Detailed list of Russian targets’, which are given first in locale order (A-Z) then in Target Number order (pp 247-360).

The SU 10 (Airfields) series goes to 9942, and then resumes (to avoid numbering difficulties) with SU 10.11001, rising to SU 10.14113. There are about 60 more without assigned numbers beyond this. The catalogue is slightly unruly in that you can sometimes find yourself struggling with targets which are really in Poland or in the Balkans. But that’s life.

Each entry is followed by a reference which indicates the location of the image:

Eg

10 3942 Airfield Saransk GX/TM/13/9 Neg 3000
10 3949 Airfield Sotschi GX/TM/DI/6 -
10 3950 Airfield Konstantinowskoje GX/TM/18/122 Neg 2630

Sooooo -for Saransk, it’s best to dig out GX/13/9 at NARA (from RG 242) and see if it contains cut film, and check just what Neg 3000 actually is. Do you have this one?

It’s been a while since I was in the USNA but there should be a copy of this Index there. Did you ever hear of it? Did your researcher ever allude to it?

I guess everything got target file cards (the Copycat films did), but then, as secondary material, they may well have been chucked by an officious but ignorant, space maker.


In anticipation…


Chris

[Larry deZeng]

Concise, comprehensive yet very well stated, Chris.

First, thank you so much for straightening me out on the target cards. I will stop pursuing these like a dog chasing his tail in the mistaken belief that they might contain something useful. Interestingly, the Soviets had updated cards of all their airfields that contained a wealth of details that would make them far superior to the Luftwaffe's photo reconnaissance images. Researchers from Belarus have been able to find some of them in regional repositories but the main collection is at TsAMO Podolsk and access to the cards was still being denied to researchers as recently as 2014.

Below are some notes on Dick Tracy at NARA. As you will note, I always had a fee-for-service researcher acting as a surrogate and I did not go there myself. There are holes in the NARA holdings and useful images are missing for quite a few airfields, such as the large airfield complex at Saporoshje (Zaporozhye).


Cartographic Record Group Location Register
National Archives II, College Park, MD
Pages 133, 134, 135 of 175?
RG 242
Series: German Air Force Target Dossiers - Russia
Code and Stack: MAP-6 Stack 430?

The Russian target aerial photos are in the "Dick Tracy Catalogue of Material, Feb 1946." It's contained in two 3" beige 3-ring binders marked "Dick Tracy," on the bottom shelf just to the right of the attendant kiosk in the NARA Cartographic & Photographic Division (3rd Floor). At least that’s where they were in summer 2018.

The NARA Luftwaffe target aerial photos exist in many series, all listed in Dick Tracy. They contain differing amounts of material and are filed under different headings. See also or especially see "Index to Russian Target Material Contained in Packets". When ordering specific "Target Dossiers" include the place name and GX/TM number. Example - Folder E/44: Target Photographs of Airfields.

I believe the TARGET DOSSIERS are available for A to Z place names and so listed in the Dick Tracy Catalogue.

Notes on Material to Be Copied: for my purposes, the most important element of each photo was the German interpretation analysis written in white marker on the face of the photograph. The analysis gives the number of hangars and other buildings, dispersal facilities, Flak positions, airfield measurements, date taken, Target No., the identify of the Aufklärungsstaffel taking the photo, etc. Resolution of the copied photo is important because the researcher will want to be able to see at least some details of the buildings and other airfield infrastructure, such as their rough size and shape.

Notes on Copying: According to a friend who was there in summer 2018 to do a few samples for me, the much bigger problem is the Luftwaffe photos are too big to scan in a single pass on the research room scanner. One of the staff told my friend that if the photo was too big to fit on the scanner he couldn’t scan it. He ignored her and scanned everything I needed, but it took two scans for each photo.

Depending on the quality (resolution) needed, a digital camera could work better, I am told, although there’s still a big problem. Most of the photos my friend scanned were somewhat curled. On the scanner this was no big deal since the scanner top pushed them flat. However, the camera copy stands do not have the special glass covers that hold the original flat; in fact, when he was there they didn’t allow anything to be placed over the original on the copy stand. This means digital camera photos are likely have edge blurring.

Larry deZ.