Women of Intelligence: Winning the Second World War with Air Photos

by Halsall, Christine

  Five of us shared a room. I liked Sarah very much – she had an awful inferiority complex and was terrified of letting the family down. One day we all did a test report on an aerial photograph of which she had got the scale wrong, and then she asked me why she had got so much of her interpreting wrong. When I realised and told her what she had done, she disappeared. Later I found her sobbing her heart out on her bed, convinced she had failed. Needless to say, she wasn’t sent away.4

  Sarah’s abilities with a slide rule improved and she passed the course, although she still lacked confidence in her mathematical capabilities. So she devised an ingenious solution to her problem:

  When faced with the complexities of setting a slide-rule, I would tiptoe downstairs and ask a friend, one of the model makers, to do it for me. In fact, I got two slide rules, so that I would not have to change the setting if the photographic sorties used cameras with different focal lengths. David would set them both, once I knew the areas I was working on, and I would then carry them gingerly back upstairs.5

  Ursula Powys-Lybbe, who had been a professional photographer before the war, enjoyed mastering scaling and the slide rule:

  Generally all that had to be done was to pull out the map sheet of the area covered by the photographs, make a note of its scale (1:25,000 for example), multiply that by the distance between two points measured on the map, and divide that total by the distance between the same two points seen on the photograph, and the answer is the scale of the photographs. It was then possible to arrive at the measurement, say, of the wingspan of an aeroplane in feet … I can say with pride that it took nearly a week for me to be able to multiply and divide with the help of the slide rule, and I was so gratified that I wrote a ‘Child’s Guide in the Use of the Slide Rule (Simplified Version) with Illustrations’, to make it easier for limited persons like myself.6

  Like repeating a mantra, students muttered ‘size, shape, shadow, tone and associated features’ to remind themselves of the five elements of interpreting an air photograph. Colour film was rarely used in air photography as black-and-white prints revealed varying tones far better, making identification easier even when an object was camouflaged. As familiar objects become unfamiliar and unrecognisable when seen from above due to the loss of normal perspective, many hours were spent learning to recognise the shape of every feature of a landscape shown on an air photograph. The silhouettes of military and naval equipment were committed to memory from recognition charts and manuals.

  In binocular vision, each eye records an image and the brain fuses those two separate images, resulting in vision with depth, which we accept as normal. An ordinary photograph merely provides a flat two-dimensional representation, but the Victorian novelty of stereoscopy could change that into a three-dimensional picture. Stereoscopy had proved its value to military intelligence in the First World War and now, in the second, stereoscopy teamed with superior measuring devices allowed minute objects on very small-scale photography to be measured and identified. When a reconnaissance pilot flew over a target area, the cameras were automatically set to expose the film at calculated intervals, causing each frame to overlap its successor by 60 per cent. When the PI adjusted the two overlapping prints, termed a ‘stereo-pair’, under a stereoscope, the two separate images ‘fused’ and the three-dimensional effect of normal vision was reproduced. Using two images, rather than one, greatly increased the knowledge that could be gained from an air photograph. All three dimensions of height, width and depth could be accurately measured, making recognition of an object possible. Stereoscopy also enabled identification of objects hidden on a two-dimensional image: for example, vehicles parked under camouflage were likely to be ‘invisible’ on a flat photograph, but were revealed under a stereoscope where the 3D effect showed up the depth and the varying tones.

  The students spent some time away from their desks discovering the practical side of PI. Jane Cameron recorded a visit:

  We went to Farnborough today by bus to see the shot-down and reconstructed German aircraft and I do so wish aircraft meant a little more to me. Ships are different – ships are like people, gifted with an actual personality and with an infinite capacity to please the eye and mind, but aircraft – no. They are like motor cars, humdrum, soulless machines in which to go from A to B, and no more. Sometimes, in the sky with the sun on them, they are beautiful in a distant sort of way, but in my mind they will never have the awesome beauty of a man-of-war against a thunder sky or the ardent effort of a trawler against a heavy sea.7

  Time was spent at RAF Medmenham watching experienced interpreters at work and visits made to RAF Benson to learn about air photography from the reconnaissance pilot’s viewpoint. Joan Bawden and Helga O’Brien had their first flight on their training course after a young Canadian pilot offered them a trip in a Blenheim bomber. Clambering up the footholds attached to the side of the aircraft, they squeezed into the little space available and were soon looking out on to an aerial view of Medmenham, enjoying the enormous noise of the engine and the wonderful sensation of speed.

  Hazel Furney, Molly Upton and Sarah Churchill were invited for a flying trip in Tiger Moths by two pilot instructors at a nearby airfield:

  Our heads were out in the open and the intercom was impossible to hear. At one point my pilot said something I couldn’t hear and, on the third attempt, I got the message that I was flying the aircraft, and we were losing height rapidly! After that incident, we caught the train to London and Sarah took us to see a show with Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, a well-known show business married couple who appeared in reviews. Afterwards we went to their dressing room and then on to Sarah’s flat.8

  Having passed their final exams and been granted a commission, the new PIs received their first posting, either to RAF Medmenham or to a PRU base. Although they had worked hard and sometimes thought that they would get ‘thrown off the course’, the students must have found some time for socialising, as Shirley Eadon described:

  One of the other WAAF officers on my course could swallow a pint of beer without stopping to draw breath. We used to take her around like a performing bear because, thanks to her, we all got free rounds of beer!9

  All PIs at Medmenham held commissioned rank. Why was this considered necessary? A conference of senior PI officers held at the end of the war concluded:

  If interpreters, if the actual men and women who hourly look at photographs, are too rigidly controlled and directed, either by their own organisation or by superior bodies, they will not be able to get out of interpretation all that it can give. The success of British interpretation is probably due first to the decision to use officers as interpreters and secondly to the give and take in the British character that permitted junior officers considerable freedom of initiative, and often responsibility, out of all proportion to their rank. For example, in the early days of the war, when a watch was being maintained on the German Fleet, the disposition of the entire British Fleet would wait upon the word of a single junior photographic interpreter.10

  On the other hand, in the preface to her book The Eye of Intelligence, Ursula Powys-Lybbe refers to the tendency of ‘authorities’ to question a PI report when few would have the temerity to question the ‘intelligence snatched out of the air’ by the code and cipher school at Bletchley Park:

  The basis for photographic intelligence, on the other hand, was the ordinary black and white photographic print familiar to the majority of people. It was therefore tempting for the recipients of Medmenham interpretation reports to borrow stereoscopic magnifiers and formulate their own opinions, sometimes overriding the findings of fully trained and experienced PI officers, particularly when the intelligence received was contrary to their expectations. In some cases our interpreters were ‘invited’ to rewrite their reports, an invitation which not unnaturally they refused.11

  Most WAAFs who were to be commissioned attended the two-week course at the WAAF Officer Training Unit at Loughborough. Jeanne Adams:

  We learned h
ow and when to salute, to drill a squad, to be an orderly officer and to look after other ranks’ welfare. Last, but not least, to learn theoretically how to pass the port at mess dinners, which was a new experience for most of us. I was commissioned as Assistant Section Officer No 5086 and posted back to Medmenham.12

  Jeanne found that there was another advantage to being an officer:

  When I had my initial medical examination at the Air Ministry on joining up, I was handed a paste pot for a specimen by a dragon who said to me, ‘And don’t do it all over the floor’. At Loughborough we had a further medical and asked to provide another specimen. However on this occasion the orderly was far more courteous. I was handed a kidney dish covered with a cloth and the request, ‘Could you please provide a specimen, ma’am?’

  Millicent Laws was one of the few WAAFs who attended an early OTU, temporarily relocated to Bulstrode Park in Buckinghamshire. Unable to recall anything of the content of the course, Millicent’s abiding memory is the ‘pep’ talk given to the cadets on the last afternoon by the then commandant WAAF, Dame Katherine Trefusis-Forbes. Her final words – ‘You must have guts!’ – rang in their bemused ears as they headed back to their various units.

  Elizabeth Johnston-Smith was the only WAAF to take and pass the PI course twice. In June 1940 she was living in Bournemouth and planning to go to art school, when suddenly the town was full of exhausted soldiers who had lost everything in their evacuation from France. It was Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain later on that summer that determined Elizabeth to join the WAAF. She was subsequently commissioned, went into WAAF administration and was posted to 3 Group Bomber Command at RAF Exning, in Suffolk, which she greatly enjoyed:

  Several months later I was called ‘out of the blue’ to the Air Ministry and interviewed by Douglas Kendall for PI training – I don’t know why! It sounded interesting and I duly went to Nuneham Park for the PI course, which I enjoyed and passed. I was then sent to Medmenham to be interviewed by a panel to decide which section I should go in. But when I looked at the ‘old bods’ on the panel (I was only 20) I thought, ‘they look a bit stuffy’, and requested a transfer back to Bomber Command. There were no vacancies so I did WAAF Admin in the Midlands until 1943 when I got fed up with that, reapplied to Nuneham Park and passed the PI course again. Steve Stephenson told me that I was the only person to have done the course twice and passed both times!13

  Elizabeth Johnston-Smith passed the PI course twice.

  Elizabeth has another unique claim as she is almost certainly the only WAAF ever to have sat on the knee of the Commander-in-Chief, Bomber Command:

  At Exning, I was chosen to play the part of Cinderella in the Christmas pantomime. At the final performance the last song was ‘Kiss the Boys Goodbye’ and then the cast trooped down to sit on the knees of the top brass sitting on the front row – and I sat on ‘Bomber’s’ much to the delight of the audience! The following morning I encountered Air Marshal Harris at work. I delivered a smashing salute, and received a smile and ‘Good Morning Cinders’ in reply!

  During the latter half of 1941, when the USA was still neutral, the personnel at Medmenham became accustomed to increasing numbers of US navy and marine officers coming to learn about the organisation of British PI. Pamela Dudding recalls a US naval officer being there for two or three months: ‘I avoided him at breakfast because he put marmalade on his kippers!’

  Helena Ewen tells an interesting anecdote indicating that US preparations for war against Japan were in place before the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941:

  In November/December 1941 I attended the first PI course at RAF Benson with six WAAF and six RAF officers plus a WRNS officer. Also attending, but keeping apart from us, were two American civilians. On the morning of Monday 8th December they appeared in American service uniforms and joined in with us fully – now as Allies.14

  Having passed their PI course and, if not already commissioned, attended an OTU course, the new PIs set off, either to Medmenham or to one of the four PR bases in Britain. RAF Benson was near Wallingford, in Oxfordshire; RAF St Eval on the north coast of Cornwall; RAF Wick in the far north-east of Aberdeenshire; and RAF Leuchars on the coast of Fife, in the east of Scotland.

  Mary Grierson, always known as ‘Bunny’, had joined the WAAF straight from school and worked at Wembley before moving in 1941 to RAF Benson where 1 PRU was based. With four reconnaissance squadrons operating from the base, the PIs were fully occupied. The photographic unit and First-Phase hut were sited just beyond the airfield boundary in the little village of Ewelme, so they could walk or cycle there from Benson through the tranquil countryside, crossing hedges and a stream with watercress beds. A path led to their hut and above them they could see the manor house where Henry VIII had spent his honeymoon with Catherine Howard. Ten PIs, a mixture of RAF, WAAF and USAAF, were on duty at any one time. ‘Bunny’ wrote:

  First Phase Interpretation was carried out at the aerodrome from which the PRU aircraft operated. It was essentially a report which contained tactical information which affected the day to day course of the war, and consisted of a brief teleprint which was issued as soon as possible after the landing of the aircraft.

  Close cooperation between Station Intelligence, the organisations that requested the cover and First Phase Sections was very necessary, especially after the D-Day landings as the programme for flying would be continually changing due to the speed of the Allied advances. It was also important to file data in a manner suitable for quick and easy reference due to the speed at which information had to be issued.

  While the process of de-briefing the pilot was in hand with the Station Intelligence Officer, the camera magazine would be removed from the aircraft by the Photographic personnel and rushed to their Section for processing. The time taken to process and print varied according to the number and length of films to be dealt with on the machines available, but one and a half to two hours was an average time taken for the whole procedure of processing, viewing and printing of one sortie.

  Once processed the film was taken through to the First Phase Section where it was viewed by rolling it over a desk lit from underneath and checking with the pilot’s trace, data relevant to the area and the jobs claimed by the pilot. Speed being one of the essentials, much depended on the memory and experience of the PI viewing the film and if, at moments glance, he or she could determine the unusual from the usual trend of activity on any class of target, the number of prints required could be cut down to an absolute minimum. Specialist PIs were not needed on First Phase, rather a wide knowledge of enemy activities in general, gained through experience.15

  PR aircraft also flew over target areas shortly after bombing raids had taken place and their photographs were examined by First-Phase PIs:

  The point of our reports of damage assessment on targets was to inform the Bomber department responsible for the raid if it had been successful. If the photography showed that it had not been, and the target justified immediate damage, another attack would follow shortly.

  Other targets analysed included ports and anchorages when the positions of all naval ships were reported on, with particular attention being given to U-boats. Convoys, either stationary or in movement, were important too, especially if they were within range of Allied coastal aircraft, when a message would immediately be sent through to the appropriate Coastal Command base and an attack could ensue.

  RAF St Eval, near Wadebridge, was used as an operational base for squadrons of Coastal, Fighter and Bomber Commands. It was also well placed for the PR aircraft monitoring the movements of the German fleet off the west coast of France which was a constant threat to the British Atlantic convoys. Ann McKnight-Kauffer was posted to St Eval in February 1941, where she worked initially with one male senior interpreter, keeping a watch over a long list of enemy shipping:

  The whole effort of PI was, of course, focussed on German shipping and there were always two, and sometimes three, PR covers of the ships each day – first the
Hipper, and then the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. There was also a watch kept on the building of submarine pens at l’Orient.16

  At first the senior PI was rather offhand with Ann, only giving her the boring jobs to do, so she was always counting aircraft; he was also rather fond of his own opinions. One day, after throwing another handful of airfield photographs on to her desk for her to count yet more aircraft, he made a particularly sweeping statement that Ann challenged him to substantiate. It turned out that he was wrong but the confrontation did clear the air and from then on he treated Ann as his equal: