by Kevin Wright
Conclusions
The Allied light aircraft and helicopter photographic operations in the BCZ provided close-up photographs of equipment that contributed to the technical intelligence effort; images of vehicle groupings in barracks helped to establish parking patterns and shed occupancy and they were a prime source of turret/side numbers that helped establish unit organisations. They were an important adjunct to tri-national AMLM work close to the city, each significantly complementing the other’s work. Combined with the Corridor imagery programmes they were a core element of the Western PHOTINT effort in Germany.
Notes
1 The National Archive: PRO DEFE 71/128. Allied Control Authority, Air Directorate, Flight Rules for Aircraft Flying in Air Corridors in Germany and Berlin Control Zone. Section 1, para 3c, 22 October 1946.
2 The National Archive: PRO AIR 2/18561 Memo HQ British Forces Germany to MoD London, 30 October 1962.
3 Email from Hans Neubroch to Peter Jefferies, 1 May 2014.
4 The operation had numerous code words, including Eldorado, Philaria, Schooner, Medius, Farnborough, Nylon and Oberon.
5 David Cockburn in K. Wright (2009), p. 68.
6 The National Archive: PRO PREM 11/3698 – minute from Chairman JIC (Sir Norman Brook) to PM, 30 May 1961, and PM’s approval of flights, 1 June 1961.
7 The National Archive: PRO AIR 2/18561 (RAFG/TS.1247/Ops, 17 Jul 1962).
8 The National Archive: PRO PREM 11/3698 minute to PM, 20 February 1962.
9 The National Archive: PRO PREM 11/3698 minute to PM, 24 April 1962.
10 Telephone conversation between Peter Jefferies and Roy Marsden, 27 April 2006.
11 Email from Hans Neubroch to Peter Jefferies, 19 April 2014.
12 The National Archive PRO AIR 2/18561 RAFG/TS.1247/OPS, 17 July 1962.
13 Telephone conversation between Francis Bacon and Peter Jefferies, 8 May 2014.
14 The National Archive: PRO PREM 11/3698 Memo from Chairman JIC to Prime Minister, 18 December 1961.
15 Email from Bob Hamilton to Peter Jefferies, 23 March 2012.
16 R. Marsden (1998), ‘Operation “Schooner/Nylon”: RAF flying in the Berlin Control Zone’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 1, No. 4, p. 181.
17 T. Geraghty (1997), BRIXMIS: The Untold Exploits of Britain’s Most Daring Cold War Spy Mission (London: Harper Collins), p. 90.
18 Marsden (1998), p. 181.
19 R. Bates (2001), ‘BRIXMIS: History and Roles’, RAF Historical Society Journal, No. 23, p. 19.
20 Marsden (1998), p. 190.
21 David Cockburn in conversation with Peter Jefferies, and Wright (2009), p. 69.
22 Marsden (1998), p. 191.
23 Ibid., p. 189.
24 Ibid., p. 186.
25 Ibid.
26 Email from Bob Hamilton to Peter Jefferies, 23 March 2012.
27 David Cockburn in conversation with P. Jefferies, and Wright (2009), p. 69.
28 Marsden (1998), p. 187.
29 Ibid., p. 191.
30 A. Pennington (2010), ‘BRIXMIS & The Corridor’, Medmenham Club Newsletter, p. 23.
31 P. Williams (2006), Brixmis in the 1980s: The Cold War’s ‘Great Game’ – Memories of Liaising with the Soviet Army in East Germany, Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security (PHP), p. 23.
32 D. Cockburn, personal memories of BRIXMIS (unpublished), 9 September 2012.
33 The National Archive: AIR 28/2016, RAF Gatow ORB, August 1956.
34 Memo for Director of Central Intelligence from Deputy Director Intelligence, JRC Monthly Reconnaissance Schedule for January 1968, 2 January 1968.
35 The National Archive: PRO FO371/163670, Telegram 639, Gen. Dunbar to Foreign Office, 19 July 1962.
36 The National Archive: PRO FO371/163670, Telegram 657, Gen. Dunbar to Foreign Office, 30 July 1962.
37 The National Archive: PRO FO371/163670, LOUK 75, LIVE OAK to USCOB Berlin, 31 July 1962.
38 The National Archive: PRO FO371/163670, LOUK 80, LIVE OAK to USCOB Berlin, 15 August 1962.
39 P. Kuhrt (1968), ‘Looking Down on Berlin’s Wall’, Stars and Stripes, 11 August.
40 S. Harding (1990), ‘Freedom City Flyers’, Soldiers, Vol. 45, No. 22, pp. 42–4.
41 H. Mambour: http://www.16va.be/vols_mmfl_part1_eng2.html.
42 Thanks to Hugo Mambour: http://www.6va.be/operation_larkspur_part1_eng.html and http://www.16va.be/operation_larkspur_part2_eng.html (Accessed 14 September 2016).
43 The National Archive: PRO DEFE 71/8, British Element BASC to Deputy Political Adviser to BMG Berlin, 13 June 1975.
44 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhaThUN-WZc from 36 seconds to 52 seconds.
7
EXPLOITING THE IMAGERY: UNITS, METHODOLOGIES AND REPORTS
The British and Allied photographic operations in the Air Corridors and BCZ presented the Allied intelligence community with an incredible opportunity. They provided almost daily cover of GSFG and NVA troops in this most forward of areas that were often the most fully manned and best prepared of the Red Army. They frequently received the latest equipment and would have been the vanguard of any Soviet attack on NATO. They were kept at high states of preparedness with armoured vehicles at battle readiness, fully fuelled and with ammunition preloaded. Similarly, logistic vehicles were kept loaded with fuel and ammunition ready to deploy directly into the field without having to pass through static logistic facilities for loading.
This high state of readiness meant that the Allied intelligence community needed early warning of any changes to a unit’s posture, organisation, equipment and location. Such changes could have been an indicator of an increased state of alert and, perhaps, hostile intentions. The coverage provided by the Corridor and BCZ photographic flights was a major element in determining Soviet and East German military intentions and tracking force developments. To extract the maximum intelligence from the flights’ products, acquired at considerable risk to the aircraft’s crews, required well-trained, skilled personnel backed by an effective organisation to manage the huge quantities of imagery and data they generated.
British and US Photographic Intelligence and Interpretation Units
The British and Americans possessed a worldwide network of processing and photographic intelligence units, covering tactical and theatre-specific requirements. Additional home-based units also looked at the output from all the overseas units, including Germany. In Germany, the British and Americans each had a major presence devoted to film processing and interpretation.
British Photographic and Photographic Interpretation Units in Germany
The Army’s theatre-level PI unit in Germany started as the 21st Army Group Photographic Interpretation Unit (21 AGPIU), formed in 1943, to support Montgomery’s HQ 21st Army Group (HQ 21AG) for the 1944 invasion of Europe. At the end of the Second World War in May 1945, it was based in the spa town of Bad Oeynhausen near Hannover. One PI officer from 21 AGPIU was deployed as a liaison officer to the Headquarters British Air Forces of Occupation (HQ BAFO) in the nearby spa town of Bad Eilsen. On 25 August 1945 HQ 21AG became Headquarters British Army of the Rhine (HQ BAOR), the British Army Headquarters in Germany until the end of the Cold War. As a result 21 AGPIU was renamed Army Photographic Interpretation Unit (British Army of the Rhine) (APIU (BAOR)), which title it retained until 1960. It moved from Bad Oeynhausen in late 1946/early 1947 to Bad Eilsen to co-locate with the RAF PIs at HQ BAFO as part of the short-lived Joint Air Photographic Interpretation Centre (Germany) (JAPIC (G)). Although designated as a joint service unit, both APIU (BAOR) and the RAF’s Photographic Interpretation Detachment (PID) retained a high degree of individual autonomy.
At the end of the Second World War the majority of RAF PIs were attached to various tactical reconnaissance squadrons at RAF bases in Germany and the Low Countries. In July 1945 HQ 2TAF was redesignated HQ BAFO and together with the retitled PID BAFO was housed in the commandeered Bade Hotel and other buildings in Bad Eilsen. In 1947 PID BAFO was subsumed into the JAPIC (G).
The rationale behind JAPIC (G) was to bring the Army and RAF theatre-level PI units into a single joint command structure, in a similar manner to the other British theatre-level PI units around the world. JAPIC (G) also had an outstation at RAF Bückeburg where 3 Photographic Reproduction Section (3 PRS) was responsible for camera maintenance and print production alongside the Bückeberg-based element of 4 Mobile Field Photographic Unit (4 MFPU). Throughout the Cold War there were regular proposals to either resurrect JAPIC (G) or form a Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (Germany) (JARIC (G)), in common with the JARICs in other UK theatres, but the balance of opinion was that the co-located single-service units with shared infrastructure worked well – a case of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.
During the 1945 to 1954 period the various Mobile Field Photographic Sections (MFPS) and Mobile Field Photographic Units (MFPU) attached to RAF tactical reconnaissance squadrons were responsible for the bulk processing of film and production of photographic prints. The mobile element of 4 MFPS/MFPU at Bückeburg supported II (AC) Squadron and the Corridor flights carried out by the co-located Command Communications Squadron. The static section was co-located with HQ BAFO to provide second and third phase photographic support to the HQ and the PI units.
In 1954, following German pressure to vacate the two spa towns, the two headquarters together with their associated photographic and PI units, moved to the purpose-built Joint Headquarters (JHQ) complex at Rheindahlen, just outside Mönchengladbach, close to the Dutch–German border. The site housed not only HQ BAOR and HQ 2TAF but also the two NATO commands of Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) and 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force (2ATAF).
There was a seminal change to Army PI in 1956 when the Intelligence Corps assumed the responsibility for the provision of Army PIs. This brought some organisational and command changes, with the creation of the Theatre Intelligence Unit (TINTU) responsible for operational intelligence and security matters, which was administered by Headquarters Intelligence Corps (British Army of the Rhine) (HQ INT CORPS (BAOR)). Under this regrouping APIU (BAOR) changed to Photographic Interpretation Company (Theatre Intelligence Unit) (PI Coy (TINTU)) in 1960 and by 1962 PI Coy (TINTU) had been renamed Photographic Interpretation Company (British Army of the Rhine) (PI Coy (BAOR)). Following the adoption of the Intelligence Group concept in 1965 the group’s subordinate companies were numbered and PI Coy (BAOR) became 6 (Photographic Interpretation) Company (6 (PI) Coy).
During the 1950s and 1960s the RAF’s PID was a large organisation with some fifteen to twenty PIs and ten support staff of all ranks and both sexes. In the mid 1960s the unit was reduced to seven PIs and a similar number of support staff, coinciding with the arrival of viable reconnaissance satellite imagery that gave the RAF the wider view it needed to assess the totality of the Soviet air threat from mainland Russia and other Warsaw Pact states. This saw Germany’s importance in assessing this wider threat reduced, so the scarce resources were redeployed to exploit this new material. In January 1959 HQ 2TAF became Headquarters Royal Air Force Germany (2nd Tactical Air Force) (HQ RAFG (2TAF)) and so PID 2TAF became PID RAFG, a title it retained until the end of the Corridor operations in 1990.
There were major changes to the reporting emphasis of PI units too, moving from simply recording all equipment seen at an installation to the detailed analysis of it. This sometimes utilised material from other intelligence sources as well to produce assessed intelligence, (rather than just raw information), with the resulting product called Photographic Intelligence. This prompted yet another name change for the Army PI unit with 6 (PI) Coy becoming 6 Intelligence Company (Photographic Intelligence) (6 Int Coy (PI)) in 1970. The unit’s name changed to 6 Intelligence Company (6 Int Coy) in 1974 to conform with other companies in the group and continued in being until 1 Military Intelligence Battalion (1 MI Bn) formed in 1992.
Until the early 1970s the Army PI unit was organised into a PI section and a Support Section. Tasks were passed to either individual PIs, or ad hoc sections, formed to fulfil a specific task. From the late 1960s until 1990, the predominant role was analytical reporting and to meet this requirement the unit consisted of five subsections covering Current and Immediate Reporting (First and Second Phase); Longer-Term Detailed Analysis and Special Studies; Technical Intelligence; Graphics Support; and Clerical Support. In the 1980s a Computer Development Section was added to design and introduce the Double Vision (DV) Information Technology (IT) system into the unit.
4 MFPU became the Photographic Reproduction Unit RAFG (PRU RAFG) but this didn’t change the unit’s responsibilities, although it more accurately reflected the unit’s static status.
The Units’ Roles
Throughout the Cold War the roles of the eventual PRU RAFG did not radically change. It was responsible for the bulk processing and printing of film produced by the Corridor and BCZ missions and other aerial reconnaissance activities over West Germany, ground photography and report printing.
In the immediate post-war period the responsibility of both PI units was to co-ordinate the photographing of the whole BOZ as part of the wider Allied programme to cover all the Western occupation zones. This enabled the existing obsolete mapping to be updated and helped to assess the resources required for German economic reconstruction. Photographic reconnaissance of the Soviet Occupied Zone (SOZ) started on a sporadic basis in 1945 with British material being exploited at Bad Eilsen. Other tasks included providing air photographic support to Army field exercises and other peacetime photographic tasks. Originally an Army responsibility, this was later transferred to PID, which maintained the library of current air photography of West Germany.
As the quantity of aerial photography from the Corridors and BCZ grew and the extent of the Soviet threat became apparent, the primary role of both units swung towards the exploitation of material from these missions and the dissemination of the resultant intelligence to the Allied intelligence community. Both the British PI units were peacetime-only and would have ceased to exist in the event of hostilities. During the Transition to War (TTW) period they would continue to exploit material from the Corridor and BCZ operations until flights halted. The units’ personnel would then be deployed to either staff appointments in HQ NORTHAG, HQ 2ATAF and HQ 1(BR) Corps, or to the RAF’s Germany-based tactical reconnaissance squadrons and Royal Artillery Drone Troops. The UK-based Territorial Army (TA) and Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR) personnel would also have provided reinforcements to these units to bring them up to their wartime strengths.
Besides the Regular PIs based in Germany, two other groups exploited Corridor and BCZ material. They were the TA personnel of 21 Intelligence Company (Volunteers) (21 Int Coy (V)) TA and the RAFVR personnel belonging to 7010 Flight RAFVR (7010 Flt RAFVR). Each section consisted of about twelve of the more experienced PIs who used their training weekends with JARIC at RAF Brampton in Cambridgeshire to exploit selected imagery. During their fourteen-day annual continuation training period (‘annual camps’), in Germany they did similar work. The Army section was known as ‘The JARIC Team’ and was established in the mid 1970s with the RAFVR’s ‘PID RAFG Section’ formed in the mid 1980s.
Because of the limited time available to them, the reserve sections were given tasks lower down the exploitation priorities list that were less time constrained than others. It is fashionable now to talk of ‘one Army’ and ‘one Air Force’ integrating Reserve with Regular Forces. The British intelligence community was clearly ahead of the game. The contribution made by those Reserve Forces personnel during live Cold War operations must be acknowledged. In fact, the valuable reports they produced might never have been written because the Regular PIs faced more pressing priorities.
United States Photographic and Photographic Interpretation Units in Germany
Until 1951 the US Germany-based photographic and PI units centred on Fürth-based 10 RG. They exploited material produced by the 45 RS split between Fürth and Fürstenfeldbruck and that from the 10 PCS at Fürt
h too. Both units flew missions over the SOZ in the Berlin Air Corridors and the BCZ.
As the Soviet threat increased, the emphasis of USAFE activities moved towards war preparation. The 497th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron (497 RTS) formed at Wiesbaden AB in May 1951 with a complement of twenty-four officers and 194 enlisted personnel. Its role was to provide processing, production, detailed photographic interpretation and the compilation and reproduction of aeronautical charts and related products for USAFE. Between July 1951 and January 1952 the 497 RTS was based at Shaw AFB in South Carolina, but returned to Wiesbaden to occupy the Schierstein Kaserne, later Schierstein Compound, to provide a central photographic processing and interpretation capability. In October 1967 it became the 497th Reconnaissance Technical Group (497 RTG) as its wider responsibilities increased. It remained at Wiesbaden until 1991 when it moved to RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire, UK, to become part of the Joint Analysis Centre (JAC).
The unit was initially manned by USAF personnel, but it gradually became joint service in all but name, with men and women of all four US services (Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force) working as an integrated team. Over time its area of interest expanded beyond Germany to cover an area from the Baltic to the Black Sea and later the Mediterranean as USAFE responsibilities grew. One of its main tasks was providing immediate exploitation reports from US-origin photography taken in the Corridors and BCZ. These and other operations generated a prodigious quantity of imagery. Therefore the 497 RTS/RTG undertook relatively little analytical reporting and concentrated on providing raw data to support deeper analysis by other agencies, often outside Germany. Crises outside Europe in the Middle East and Africa made many calls on the unit’s capabilities. This included supporting the British government during the Kuwait Crisis of 1961 when Iraq threatened to occupy Kuwait. By 1967 the unit’s complement had increased to 73 officers, 296 enlisted personnel and 23 civilians.
