by Kevin Wright
In the 1980s and 1990s the unit provided imagery intelligence to support many other operations and crises, including analysis of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, the bombing of Libya by UK-based USAF aircraft (Eldorado Canyon) in 1986, operations connected with the run up to and execution of the 1990–91 Gulf War (Desert Shield and Desert Storm), and evacuations of US and Allied nationals from Liberia, Zaire and Turkey.
In the mid-to-late 1950s the US Army had a small PI section co-located with the 7499 SG at Wiesbaden AB called Detachment ‘B’ (Provisional) of the 513th Military Intelligence Company (513 MI Coy) based at Oberursel. This small detachment of nine people (two officers, one NCO and about six enlisted personnel) exploited imagery taken in the Central and Southern Corridors under Project Red Owl, and occasionally Hot Pepper, for five and a half days each week. They reported on the types and numbers of equipment at the various locations. Their reports were sent to the Ground Liaison Office (GLO) at HQ USAFE and thence by courier to HQ USAREUR at Heidelberg.
This map shows the historical operating locations of British, French and US HQs and PI units in Germany. By the 1960s US operations were largely centred on Rhein-Main and Wiesbaden and British ones on Wildenrath and Rheindahlen. (Wikimedia Commons)
The other US Army PI unit supported Headquarters United States Army Europe (HQ USAREUR) based at Coleman Barracks, Heidelberg. Like its British counterparts, the US Army PI effort in Germany was dispersed amongst various formations. In 1965 these personnel were combined to form the 2nd Military Intelligence Battalion (Air Reconnaissance Support) (2 MIBARS) that dealt with all aerial reconnaissance matters within USAREUR. 2 MIBARS was subordinated to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff Intelligence (ODCSI) at HQ USAREUR. It produced analytical reports by exploiting photography of the Warsaw Pact forces facing the US Army’s V and VII Corps.
Extracting the Intelligence
To extract the maximum intelligence from imagery obtained required skilled people – photographers and PIs who are frequently the unsung heroes of these operations.
Photographic Training and Employment
RAF photographers processing film from photographic missions were mainly non-commissioned personnel, with commissioned photographic engineering officers providing technical and management expertise. They were trained at the RAF School of Photography in all aspects of wet film photography from using hand-held cameras, techniques associated with bulk film and print processing to aircraft camera installation and maintenance. Not for them the luxury of digital manipulation that is the stock in trade for the modern Image Analysts, but instead long hours using chemicals in dark rooms to produce the best-quality imagery for the PIs. The RAF photographer was a multi-skilled, flexible individual, who could be employed on almost any photographic task. For example, on a tour an RAF photographer could be involved in public relations, covering VIP visits one moment and then be part of the team involved in rapid film processing supporting tactical reconnaissance missions.
US photographers went through similar training but they were not as flexible as the British. John Webber, a former RAF warrant officer photographer, recalls that US personnel were very much part of a ‘one man, one job’ philosophy. This meant that an equipment operator was not easily redeployable to use another piece of equipment without additional training. Although this may seem inflexible to British eyes, the US personnel were often more experienced on individual pieces of equipment and so more aware of its particular capabilities and idiosyncrasies.
Photographic Interpreter Selection, Training and Employment
Throughout the Cold War there was never a time when PIs were not fully employed. Until the mid 1950s the Army and RAF trained only commissioned officers as PIs, but as the amount of material produced by the various worldwide operations grew, there were insufficient commissioned PIs to meet the demand. As general population education levels improved, the decision was finally taken to train non-commissioned ranks as PIs. The effect of this change was somewhat blunted initially because only senior non-commissioned officers (SNCOs) were accepted for training. By the early twenty-first century the growth of imagery-producing systems with multi-spectral outputs, some deployed in direct support of combat troops, led to junior non-commissioned officers (JNCO) being trained as Image Analysts (IAs) as PIs were retitled.
Before 1956 Army PIs were an eclectic mix of commissioned officers from all parts of the Army (e.g. infantry, armour and artillery, etc.) including the Intelligence Corps (INT CORPS). During the Second World War there had been some NCO PIs but this practice was soon discontinued. In 1956 the Intelligence Corps was made responsible for the recruiting, training and provision of all male Army PIs and at the same time started training selected SNCOs for PI duties. Following this change, non-Intelligence Corps personnel in PI posts were offered the opportunity either to transfer into the Intelligence Corps, or to remain in post until they retired or were replaced by Intelligence Corps personnel. Female Army PIs were commissioned officers of the Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC) selected for PI training using RAF and Intelligence Corps procedures. In the late 1970s a WRAC (but badged as Intelligence Corps) sergeant qualified as a PI, becoming the first Army female SNCO PI – the first of many. In 1992 women were integrated into the mainstream army and the WRAC disbanded, with its former members joining the regiment/corps to which they were attached. Thus female PIs became part of the Intelligence Corps.
In contrast to the Army where PI was seen as one of many intelligence-based skills, the RAF viewed PI as a full-time career with its own exclusive Trade Group – Trade Group 14. On commissioning, RAF officers of both sexes were sent to the Joint School of Photographic Interpretation (JSPI) to be trained before joining a PI unit. Non-commissioned RAF personnel started out as Plotters Air Photography (PAP) whose job was to plot on traces the results of photographic sorties so that the photographs could easily be retrieved for further exploitation. On reaching the rank of senior corporal they could be selected for PI training. After completion of their PI training, they would be posted to an appropriate PI unit. The Support Personnel for PI units came from their respective services to provide drawing office, graphics production and administrative staff.
After selection for PI training, a student of any rank joined the three-month training course at the JSPI, which was located at a number of places during its history, including RAF Nuneham Park in Oxfordshire, RAF Bassingbourn and RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire. The JSPI is now the Imagery Intelligence Wing (IMINT Wing) of the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre (DISC) at Chicksands in Bedfordshire.
JSPI taught a syllabus covering all aspects of PI from the basic skills of stereoscopy, locating targets on maps and photography, scaling, measuring and identification of objects through to analysing and identifying the key features of military and civilian targets and organisations. British instructors were drawn from all three services, often selected for their expertise in a particular area on which they taught during the course.
Successful completion of the thirteen-week course meant the new PI was ready for operational deployment. But like passing a driving test, it denoted that the PI had achieved a basic level of competence. Further on-the-job training and experience were needed to produce the well-rounded and experienced PI.
Unlike the British, where the training of PIs was a joint service matter, the USA trained its PIs at single-service establishments such as the US Army School at Fort Holabird, Maryland, although the syllabus was broadly similar. USAF PIs went through a twenty-six-week course that not only covered photographic interpretation but other intelligence-related subjects as well. Mike Mockford, who served as a UK exchange officer instructor at the USAF PI School at Denver, Colorado, described the course as a ‘PI factory’ where instruction was mostly by rote and more rigidly controlled and structured than its UK counterpart. Students were segregated into classes for officers, SNCOs and airmen that were each about twenty strong, although the subjects taught were the same whichever clas
s the students were in. Instructors taught the subject of the day, regardless of their particular expertise or specialisation. Given US worldwide PI commitments and the large numbers of personnel required to undertake them, this production line approach was the only way to service them. Like their British counterparts, completion of the Denver course was only the start of the long road to becoming a fully effective PI.
At the height of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s the British PI cadre numbered about 600 personnel scattered over a number of worldwide locations. As Britain withdrew from its former colonies and commitments east of Suez, the number of PIs and operating locations decreased. One advantage of this small cadre, and the relatively small number of available postings, was that British PIs often returned to serve in the same unit on more than one occasion. This allowed them to build up considerable experience of a particular theatre and operations. For example, Peter Jefferies spent nine of his fourteen-year Regular Army PI career on three tours exploiting Corridor and BCZ imagery between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. This contrasts with the US PIs who would usually serve only a single tour with the 497 RTS/RTG at Wiesbaden. They were very unlikely ever to return there during the rest of their PI career, thus losing the value of prior experience that a subsequent tour could generate.
On arrival at their unit in Germany a newly qualified British PI started a period of theatre orientation and system familiarisation training that lasted about eight weeks but could be longer. For PIs on a repeat tour this period was shorter because of their existing knowledge and experience. Training included recognising individual target features and their immediate environs, equipment knowledge and unit organisations. This meant that an Army PI needed to be able to recognise some 2,500 individual pieces of Soviet and East German equipment and their many variants, unit organisations both in barracks and when deployed in the field, and any changes to equipment and organisation. Des Pemberton, a former Warrant Officer PI described this process as similar to a London taxi drivers acquisition of ‘the knowledge’ and it became so well ingrained that it allowed Des to recognise a former target in the Dallgow-Döberitz complex when it featured in the TV series Homeland some thirty years after he had last seen it. As time progressed the new PI was gradually allowed to exploit ‘live’ photography, albeit under their mentor’s supervision. When new PIs had demonstrated their mastery of in-theatre systems and procedures, they would be declared competent to work unsupervised.
Exploitation Equipment
All British PIs were issued with a standard PI kit in an attaché case containing all the equipment needed by them to ply their trade. This was developed by the Army primarily for its PIs operating in the field and although later adopted by the other services it was always known as ‘The Army PI Kit’. Its contents included a stereoscope, measuring equipment (rulers, scales and a magnifying measurer), mathematical tables (logarithmic and trigonometric), drawing instruments and the very useful PI slide rule that on one side was a normal mathematical slide rule and on the other had scales that allowed a PI to determine the actual ground size of an object by setting the object’s image size on a moveable scale against a fixed one that recorded the image’s scale. One of the more bizarre items in the kit was a battery-powered headband lamp to provide a light when deployed in the field, which had little practical use.
Electronic calculators eventually replaced the mathematical tables. However, PIs being cautious animals often retained the tables as a fall-back in case of power failures. Individuals tailored their own PI kit to meet the needs of their specific wartime role. It could be reduced to the basics of stereoscope, measuring magnifier and slide rule that would be carried in personal web equipment, so the attaché case could be dispensed with. Individual PI kits often included many ‘home-made’ items including stereo pairs, equipment recognition material, organisation diagrams and tables and templates for marking maps, locating targets, rough and ready scaling, measuring and flight planning.
The basic tool was the hand-held stereoscope that could be used to view either paper prints illuminated by a desk top lamp or small-format tactical images (70mm × 70mm) using a light box. Stereoscopes ranged from the simple Second World War-era 2x magnification Type ‘D’, carried in a soft spectacle-type case, to the later ‘SV8’ and ‘Vinten’ types that gave up to 4x magnification and some with a limited zoom capability. The other basic tool was the Magnifying Measurer which came in many versions from multiple manufacturers. It consisted of a clear plastic cylinder on whose base was an etched scale that allowed measurements to be taken in millimetres and increments of 0.1mm. On top of the cylinder was a magnifying lens so that the scale could be seen clearly. This instrument allowed accurate measurements to be taken of objects on an image so that their actual ground size could be determined using the PI slide rule.
Desktop light sources came in a number of forms. One included a tungsten bulb lamp with an anglepoise-type mounting, which allowed photographs to be viewed in the best light. These lamps produced considerable heat and prolonged use caused fatigue and headaches. Later versions used fluorescent tubes that gave a more natural light source and remained cooler over prolonged operating periods. Negative and positive film images were viewed on light boxes in which fluorescent tubes projected light through a translucent plate onto which the film was placed. Some light boxes had hand-wound spools at each end, so long rolls of film could be wound across them.
Until about 1971 exploitation of imagery from all sources was carried out using simple stereoscopes and light boxes. This was adequate for RAF and US Corridor mission images. Although the US missions were flown at higher altitudes than the RAF’s, they used longer focal-length lenses, producing photographs at scales that were close to, or larger than, the RAF’s. The US 9in × 18in (229mm × 457mm) paper-print format was exploitable at desk level, but was somewhat unwieldy in a desk environment. In 1969 the USA changed from framing to panoramic cameras with smaller focal length lenses that produced continuous rolls of film. These were routinely longer than 2,000ft (610m) with images at smaller scales than before. The only way to view this film efficiently was using a special light table that allowed the film to be wound quickly across it and examined through viewing optics with varying levels of magnification that could be moved over the image without having to reposition it.
The USA already possessed the machinery to cope with the change of film format, but the limitations caused by the continued British use of simple equipment were cruelly exposed. To view panoramic imagery stereoscopically, the best way to achieve optimum exploitation, the film had to be hand-wound over a light box. When a target was identified, the strip of film covering it was cut out of the roll and then further cut into individual frames so that they could be placed side by side for viewing. After exploitation the individual frames were rejoined into a strip using adhesive tape and then the complete strip taped back into the main roll of film. This film then had to be hand-wound back onto its original spool. The process was time consuming and inefficient and precluded the maximum extraction of information because of the low magnifications available with the hand-held stereoscopes. One contemporary PI commented: ‘The only advantage of this exploitation method is that it keeps my shares in the adhesive tape manufacturer high.’
If the British were to keep pace with these new developments and the increased amount of material being produced, they needed modern exploitation equipment. In the early 1970s, 6 (PI) Coy took delivery of its first US-origin light table, which provided a quantum leap in both technology and exploitation capability. It met all the essential requirements and had additional features such as motorised file transport drives. The benefits were immediate. Photography could then be more quickly and efficiently exploited. The resulting intelligence product was more current as the backlog of photography awaiting exploitation decreased significantly. Productivity increased because the PIs could spend more time exploiting the images. But there were disadvantages: the tables were very large and required a c
onsiderable amount of floor space. They were over-complex for the German theatre and very expensive – around £50,000 per unit at 1970 prices. Finally they needed their own electrical supply because when they used the normal domestic supply they regularly blew fuses, plunging large parts of the JHQ building into darkness.
What was needed was a simpler, cheaper solution more suited to the German theatre and it came in the form of the Richards MIM-4 light table. It had most of the earlier light tables features, was more compact and was cheaper to buy and operate. By the mid 1970s each PI in the Immediate Reporting Section had their own light table whose settings – such as optics and table height – were tailored to meet their individual requirements. PIs became quite territorial about ‘their’ light table.
Whilst the problem of exploiting long film rolls was now solved, examining AMLM 35mm photography continued using light boxes and single lens magnifiers with limited magnification. These were becoming unreliable and the non-variable light source meant they could not be used for long periods. The PIs rapidly discovered that the MIM-4s with their optics, monocular zoom capability and variable-level light sources were far superior for exploiting this photography. This greatly increased the demands placed on them, leading to a major growth in the backlog of US-supplied corridor photography awaiting exploitation and an unacceptable delay.
To overcome this problem ‘head-up’ viewers, which projected the image onto an angled screen in a hood, replaced the light boxes and magnifiers. The viewers had variable magnification that was much better suited to exploiting the 35mm film format, allowing the PI to sit upright and examine the film using both eyes. They were very effective, well liked and capable of handling the majority of 35mm film exploitation requirements. If better resolution and higher magnification was needed, the PIs reverted to using an available MIM-4. BRIXMIS purchased the ‘head-up’ viewers (using hard currency DM or $) direct from the manufacturer, Carl Zeiss of Jena in the GDR! After purchase the viewers were taken to Berlin in a BRIXMIS vehicle and on to Rheindahlen by Army transport. The irony was not lost on the PIs and Intelligence Staff that the East Germans had supplied equipment to the British to exploit photography that produced intelligence on their own and Soviet armed forces.
