However much Mary enjoyed working in the Model-Making Section, she was very aware, in a similar way to the PIs who worked to improve the accuracy of bombing raids, of her personal contribution to every operation carried out. Mary wrote this poem after being shown post-raid air images of a German city and remembering those air photographs from which she had worked when building the model:
My Hands
Do you know what it is like to have death in your hands
when you haven’t a murderer’s mind?
Do you know how it feels that you could be the cause
of a child being blind?
How many people have died through me
From the skill at my finger tips?
For I fashion the clay and portray the landscape
As the fliers are briefed for their trips.
Do these young men in blue feel as I do
The destruction
The pain.
Let me cover my eyes as you cover the skies
Let me pray it can’t happen again.
Don’t show me the pictures you take as you fly,
They’re ruins and scape – little more.
Is all this part
Of the madness we choose to call War?
If there is a God up above who listens to all
Does he know why this has to be.
Did he give me my hands just to fashion the plans
That my own land may always be free?9
Model makers and PIs needed exact measurements for their detailed reports and accurate models. ‘Almost’ or ‘nearly’ were not words used in ‘W’, the initial letter chosen to designate the Photogrammetric Section, quite appropriately as the Swiss-built Wild plotting and measuring machines were at its centre. For the first eighteen months of the war the only operable Wild A-5 stereo-comparator in the country had been the sole means by which small-scale photography could be examined; this machine was moved from Wembley to be installed at Medmenham in 1941. The need to acquire another A-5 became critical as the only similar machine in UK was owned by Ordnance Survey and had been so badly damaged in bombing raids on Southampton in 1940 that it was unusable. Such was the importance placed on its repair that a Cabinet-level decision was taken to smuggle the machine back through enemy territory to the Wild factory in Switzerland and to set up a clandestine operation to return it repaired to Britain. This was the machine used in ‘W’ Section at RAF Nuneham Park. The two machines were used throughout the war in every type of reporting that required high levels of accuracy in measurement, three-dimensional calculations and volumetric assessments. High-quality optics and transparent imagery allowed the operator to see landscape and objects in three dimensions and greatly magnified. Detailed measurements could be obtained, and by the use of complex mechanical linkages and a plotting table, highly accurate plans could be drawn.
In the spring of 1942, Sophie Wilson, Lucia Windsor and Ena Thomas were coming to the end of their geography and surveying degree course at Cambridge University, which had included use of a Wild A-6 comparator. The department was visited by the head of ‘W’, on a recruiting mission for trained surveyors to work at RAF Medmenham, but found that the Royal Engineers had already signed up all the male students. It was pointed out to him that the three women had completed exactly the same course, and they were instructed to join the WAAF on deferred service until their degrees were finished. In August 1942 they duly reported for duty at Medmenham where it was found that although their degree studies had made them highly competent in operating the Wild machines, they had not attended an official PI course. They were, incidentally, the three new officers whom plotter ACW2 Elspeth Macalister, very recently a fellow Cambridge student, reluctantly saluted. Sophie takes up the story:
When we arrived there was a panic on in ‘W’ Section and it was decided that the work required for the North African landings was more important than doing the PI course first. I cannot tell you how much aggro this set up amongst the Waafs who were there already! So, Lucia, Ena and I went straight into the Section and I spent from August to early November making contoured maps of parts of North Africa from which the Model Section cut their basic contours. However, once that was all over we were sent off one by one to do the course and I went off to Nuneham Park in March 1943.10
The ‘W’ Section PIs converted small-scale reconnaissance photography into information, plans and maps, referred to as ‘mathematical intelligence’, and used by all other sections when the maximum precision of measurement in all three dimensions was required. By the time Sophie, Lucia and Ena joined the Section, the extent of photographic coverage over occupied or enemy territory was so great that it could be claimed that anything that moved, that was built or attacked in Europe had already been photographed by Spitfire or Mosquito reconnaissance aircraft. The photographic intelligence provided on enemy intentions helped to turn the tide of war in the Allies’ favour and enabled them to take the initiative against the Germans.
One of Sophie’s first jobs was in preparation for the famous Ruhr Dams Raid in May 1943, for which she calculated the depth, volume and level of water in the German dams as well as for those in the practice areas. These had to be taken at different times of day and month in order to determine the optimum date and time for the raid to take place. Strict security ensured that she was not told the location of the photographs she was making her calculations on. However, her memories of the Lake District, where she had been brought up, caused her to think frequently how similar the photographs were to Derwent Water, which was subsequently revealed as one of the sites used for the air crews’ practice raids.
Although others disliked the long hours of duty Sophie soon got used to the 12-hour shift pattern that meant getting up four times in three days. She lived in one of the accommodation huts in the woods and her workplace was one corner of the cellars beneath Danesfield House which she described as:
A bit like the Ladies Lavatory at Waterloo Station – all white tiles. It was reached by a narrow, twisting staircase from one of the courtyards. One day I was rushing down to go on duty and collided with a bearded man with red staff tabs on his uniform coming up – I nearly knocked him over. In the tight confines of the staircase I somehow managed a salute and found out later he was Field Marshal Smuts.
Sophie contoured many target areas to provide accurate heights, sometimes calculating the declination and altitude of the sun to show how it would fall on a particular target area as the pilots were on their approach flight. Her contouring work was also used to ensure that heights were correct on models being built for the briefing of pilots. Nowhere would accurate measurements be more vital to a pilot than in the life or death situation of attacking a pinpoint target of a single building located in a busy city centre in well-defended enemy territory. Sophie remembered one particular job where she calculated the height of all low-flying obstructions within a mile of Gestapo headquarters in The Hague in Holland. Her work was in preparation for one of the most remarkable low-level precision raids carried out in an enemy-occupied country in Europe.
The Dutch underground organisation had contacted London to ask that the five-storey high Gestapo building in The Hague be destroyed. The reason for this request was that the records of all Dutch civilian identity cards issued were kept in the building and from these the Gestapo could identify members of the Dutch Resistance. The building was in the centre of The Hague, and the number of obstacles and constrictions to the aircraft’s approach along a busy city street were many. One can imagine how closely the air crews scrutinised the model, the pinpoint maps and the recognition charts. On 11 April 1944 six Mosquito aircraft took off from Hampshire and flew, at a height of just 50ft to avoid detection by enemy radar, to The Hague. They circled the city then banked and flew straight along the Scheveningsche Weg to drop their bombs, then climbed steeply to exit the target site. One of the Mosquitoes was equipped with cameras and the photographs showed a spectacular success: two of the bombs had gone through the front doo
r of the building and two more through the windows on either side:
So accurate was the bombing that it is reputed that a number of civilians waiting in line for bread across the street were left unharmed. Indeed, no Dutchman outside of the building itself was killed.11
The building and most of the records were destroyed and Dutch officials were able to fake the remaining ones thus saving the lives of many brave resistance workers. Sophie summed up the work she did: ‘You had to get it right; lives depended on what you did.’
Sophie’s friends Lucia and Ena moved over to the map-making part of ‘W’ Section, which was based at RAF Nuneham Park. After they had finished the maps for North Africa, they did the same thing for the Sicily and Italian invasions. Soon they were preparing up-to-date maps and plans of many French, Belgian, Dutch and German towns as part of the build-up for the Normandy invasions. They also created detailed maps of Germany that were then printed on to silk scarves and supplied as escape maps to air crews in the event of them being shot down.
All sections at Medmenham dealt with secret material: for strategic planning, for shorter-term tactical information or for gathering material on the enemy’s capabilities. Sophie described the security at Medmenham as ‘not obtrusive’ but any lax security or ‘careless talk’ would have been disastrous. Pat Peat recalled that the photographers, if questioned about their job, had been instructed to reply that they worked in the cookhouse. Clerks who typed up the secret reports were instructed to answer similar queries by claiming that they worked in ‘Maintenance Command’. The head of the Model-Making Section reported being approached one day in a hotel bar in Marlow by a civilian stranger asking questions about ‘the photographic establishment up the hill towards Henley’. He claimed to have seen WAAFs on a bus with chemical stains on their fingers and had noticed a Kodak yellow van making deliveries. Was it an enemy agent or a check by British security?12
A new station commander arriving at Medmenham in 1943 to take up his post commented:
In view of the Unit’s intelligence function, I was rather surprised at the absence of a perimeter fence and other security measures, other than a main gate on to the Henley to Marlow road, with an RAF Police Guard House. The Officers’ Mess and Quarters together with the other Ranks’ Messes and Quarters were nearby. The whole layout had a somewhat casual appearance, intentional as I afterwards discovered, since this, and the security of the actual operational buildings, was thought to provide better all round security than wire fences, gates, lights and the like. At any rate, I never heard of any case of a breach of security. Bearing in mind the wide variety of occupations and professions from which the interpreters and other experts were drawn, their standard of security consciousness was extremely high.13
Fine drawing and annotation for map making in ‘W’, the Photogrammetric Section.
However, why was a conspicuously large white mansion standing on a prominent plateau above a noticeable curve in the River Thames chosen as the location of RAF Medmenham and its secret work when it was apparently such an easy target from the air? The answer was that no attempt was made to camouflage it or make it to appear different – it did not arouse suspicion because it looked normal. Danesfield House was but one among hundreds of substantial English country houses across the south of England, many of which were requisitioned by the services during the Second World War. It was normal too to have Nissen huts built in the grounds, filled with servicemen and women and vehicles coming and going. Danesfield House, Nuneham Park and Hughenden Manor were just three of many similar properties and so avoided close attention.
There were, of course, security checks on all staff entering and leaving Medmenham through the main gates, and servicemen and women were apprehended for not having the right pass at the right time – again, it was normal. The Second World War had an impact on the whole population, for they had all faced the threat of invasion and the battles had been conducted in the skies above them. Many had lost relatives and friends, many had been bombed out of their homes, most lives had been disrupted and there was much suffering – it was a personal war. Signing the Official Secrets Act was taken seriously. The PIs worked in their own sections and did not enquire about what others did elsewhere. Day by day they saw the effects of war in the photographs they examined. Many had worked on reconnaissance bases and had been there when a pilot failed to return from a mission. In these cases, they were losing a personal friend whom they might have been talking to the night before.
When the war in Europe ended, the head of the Model-Making Section circulated a letter to all personnel who had worked there. An extract reads:
Your loyalty and devotion to duty has been outstanding. Your sense of responsibility and security has been unsurpassed. The latter has brought forth many expressions of admiration from other members of the Station who have only recently learnt of the true nature of the work upon which you have been engaged for so long.
The making of models for the briefing of vital operations on land, sea and in the air has put you very much ‘in the know’ as to the exact spot where and, to a certain extent, when the next blow at the enemy was to be made. Not once did you break the trust that had been placed upon you.14
PIs and model makers felt the responsibility they held for the safety and life of each soldier, sailor and airman for whom they provided information. Sophie’s words – ‘You had to get it right; lives depended on what you did’ – echoed the thoughts of everyone at Medmenham.
Notes
1. British Academy, ‘Volume 55 Proceedings’.
2. Rendall (née McKnight-Kauffer), Ann, correspondence with Constance Babington Smith, 1956/7 (Medmenham Collection).
3. Spear, Major George, correspondence with the author, 2009.
4. Churchill, Sarah, Keep on Dancing, pp.65–6.
5. Abrams, Leonard, Our Secret Little War, p.36.
6. IWM 11602 01/19/1 The papers of Miss Mary Harrison, held by the Department of Documents at the Imperial War Museum, and printed by permission of Miss Harrison.
7. Price, Geoffrey, IWM papers.
8. Harrison, Mary, IWM papers.
9. More Poems of the Second World War, the Oasis Collection (Dent, 1989), use of ‘My Hands’ here by permission of Mary Harrison.
10. Wilson, Sophie, letters and documents (Medmenham Collection).
11. www.britain-at-war-magazine.com/news ‘Attack on the Gestapo Headquarters at The Hague’.
12. Wood, Edward, an account of his wartime service at RAF Medmenham, undated (Medmenham Collection).
13. Cator, Group Captain Francis, RAF Medmenham, September 1943–June 1945.
14. Wood, Edward, extract from a letter circulated to all ‘V’ Section personnel, 1945 (Medmenham Collection).
10
FURTHER AFIELD
Joan Bawden’s wish to be posted overseas was granted. After six months’ service at Medmenham she was in the first group of WAAF PIs to be posted overseas to RAF Heliopolis, near Cairo. Joan and her four colleagues, Letitia Robinson, Elizabeth Hemeltyk, Diana Orlebar and Margaret Perkins, arrived on 12 March 1942, having sailed from Liverpool two months previously on board the SS Otranto. The long voyage in convoy had been enlivened by four days ashore in Durban, frequent parties and dances on deck in the tropics and the presence of an RAF squadron en route to the Middle East. Only sea sickness early on and a German Condor plane following the convoy for some hours off the West African coast gave them cause for concern. The WAAFs joined the newly formed Middle East Interpretation Unit (MEIU) under the command of Squadron Leader Idris Jones. They worked on air photography of North Africa and the Mediterranean taken by No. 2 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (2 PRU), based at Heliopolis.
A further contingent of six WAAFs from Medmenham soon followed, including Honor Clements, who had initially worked at Bomber Command, and Dorothy Colles, one of the first WAAF officers at Wembley. It must have been a strange return for Dorothy, who had spent the first twenty years of her life in Cairo, where
her father was a professor at the university before the family had returned to England. She attended Epsom School of Art before joining the WAAF in July 1940 and, after a few months as a clerk, was selected for PI training and worked in the Aircraft Section at Medmenham before her posting to Egypt. On the voyage out, having been forbidden to draw any portion of the ship for security reasons, she turned to portraits instead, hoping to supplement her pay: ‘I have drawn nine portraits as commissions so far but have only been paid for three,’ she recorded in a letter home. ‘Cairo is very much as I remember. Hot and dusty and full of smells and flies’, she wrote in one of her first letters on arrival, followed quickly by a telegram to her mother: ‘Have parted with appendix unexpectedly.’1
No. 2 Photographic Renconnaissance Unit used Beaufighter aircraft to fly daily cover of the Western Desert and the Mediterranean, which were areas of intense military action at that time. Fierce fighting along the North African coast from Benghazi to Tobruk and El Alamein had been shifting backwards and forwards since 1941. Although part of the Italian fleet in the port of Taranto had been destroyed or crippled in a Fleet Air Arm torpedo attack in November 1940, some remaining vessels were still a threat. Malta had fought and survived determined German and Italian attacks. The strategic planning for the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942 was well advanced with air reconnaissance providing information for engagements on land, sea and air. Longer-term planning for the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943 was also under way and part of Dorothy’s work was on models for the landings in Sicily.
Women of Intelligence: Winning the Second World War with Air Photos Page 21
