Women of Intelligence: Winning the Second World War with Air Photos Read Online Free Page B
Author: Christine Halsall
film company. In the course of promoting the latter business, Cotton frequently flew to Germany and was on good terms with influential Nazi officials. Having agreed to the spying plan, he bought a fast aircraft and fitted hidden cameras in the fuselage that could be activated at the press of a button to take clandestine photographs. Throughout the months leading up to the outbreak of war Cotton flew to and from Germany on so-called business trips, taking secret photographs of military installations, airfields and naval bases. He flew the last civilian aircraft out of Berlin only a few days before war was declared, and despite being warned not to divert from his route, managed to get photographs of the German fleet on his flight home. In a few short months he, and the experienced pilots who had joined his daring enterprise, had provided invaluable information on German military forces.
‘Cotton’s Club’, as he liked to call it, was based in a hangar tucked into one corner of Heston Airfield, a civilian airport for British Airways Ltd, west of London. Shortly after the declaration of war, the RAF took over Cotton’s Heston flight and he was commissioned as an acting wing commander to be its commanding officer. He had proved conclusively that if reconnaissance pilots were to be effective in taking the required photographs and out-fly enemy planes, their aircraft had to fly fast, fly high, be highly manoeuvrable and merge into a blue-grey background. Cotton managed to acquire Spitfire aircraft that were just coming into service; they were ideal for reconnaissance purposes after certain modifications had been made. All the unnecessary items of armour, ammunition and radios were stripped out and cameras were fitted into the space created. Extra fuel tanks were fitted in the wings to increase the aircraft’s range and the overall reduction in the weight of the aircraft made it more manoeuvrable. An application of blue-green ‘Camotint’ paint helped the aircraft merge into the colour of the sky. Reconnaissance pilots flew alone in the extreme cold for long distances; they were unarmed and navigated by dead reckoning and in radio silence. To escape from enemy fighter planes and anti-aircraft fire the pilots relied on the supreme manoeuvrability of the Spitfire and its operating height of up to 33,000ft, plus their own flying experience and skill.
Flight Officer Ursula Powys-Lybbe was head of the Airfields Section at RAF Medmenham.
Heston Aerodrome, West London, in 1939, where Sidney Cotton’s planes were based.
A reconnaissance Spitfire of 16 Squadron, 1944.
There was another urgent problem to solve. Having photographed the enemy targets successfully, the PR pilots returned to base, the photographs were processed and then … what? The almost complete absence of PI training in the interwar years had resulted in just one experienced RAF interpreter and a handful of photo-readers being in post at the Air Ministry in the summer of 1939. Photographs waited at least several days to be analysed, which was useless when enemy movements were changing by the hour. Cotton tackled this problem in his usual maverick way. Bypassing the official service route, he contacted an old friend from his days in Canada, Major Hemming, who owned a civilian aerial survey company called the Aircraft Operating Company (AOC) in Wembley, north-west London. The AOC produced detailed reports for geological and survey companies using aerial photographs and the most up-to-date measuring machines available, manufactured in Switzerland. One machine, the Wild A-5, was capable of maximising information on the small-scale photography that Spitfires had taken at high altitudes. The Wild operators readily adapted to interpreting military targets instead of commercial subjects and, most importantly, their reports were delivered to the relevant HQs within hours of a photographic flying sortie rather than days.
A three-phase system of
‘Cotton’s Club’, as he liked to call it, was based in a hangar tucked into one corner of Heston Airfield, a civilian airport for British Airways Ltd, west of London. Shortly after the declaration of war, the RAF took over Cotton’s Heston flight and he was commissioned as an acting wing commander to be its commanding officer. He had proved conclusively that if reconnaissance pilots were to be effective in taking the required photographs and out-fly enemy planes, their aircraft had to fly fast, fly high, be highly manoeuvrable and merge into a blue-grey background. Cotton managed to acquire Spitfire aircraft that were just coming into service; they were ideal for reconnaissance purposes after certain modifications had been made. All the unnecessary items of armour, ammunition and radios were stripped out and cameras were fitted into the space created. Extra fuel tanks were fitted in the wings to increase the aircraft’s range and the overall reduction in the weight of the aircraft made it more manoeuvrable. An application of blue-green ‘Camotint’ paint helped the aircraft merge into the colour of the sky. Reconnaissance pilots flew alone in the extreme cold for long distances; they were unarmed and navigated by dead reckoning and in radio silence. To escape from enemy fighter planes and anti-aircraft fire the pilots relied on the supreme manoeuvrability of the Spitfire and its operating height of up to 33,000ft, plus their own flying experience and skill.
Flight Officer Ursula Powys-Lybbe was head of the Airfields Section at RAF Medmenham.
Heston Aerodrome, West London, in 1939, where Sidney Cotton’s planes were based.
A reconnaissance Spitfire of 16 Squadron, 1944.
There was another urgent problem to solve. Having photographed the enemy targets successfully, the PR pilots returned to base, the photographs were processed and then … what? The almost complete absence of PI training in the interwar years had resulted in just one experienced RAF interpreter and a handful of photo-readers being in post at the Air Ministry in the summer of 1939. Photographs waited at least several days to be analysed, which was useless when enemy movements were changing by the hour. Cotton tackled this problem in his usual maverick way. Bypassing the official service route, he contacted an old friend from his days in Canada, Major Hemming, who owned a civilian aerial survey company called the Aircraft Operating Company (AOC) in Wembley, north-west London. The AOC produced detailed reports for geological and survey companies using aerial photographs and the most up-to-date measuring machines available, manufactured in Switzerland. One machine, the Wild A-5, was capable of maximising information on the small-scale photography that Spitfires had taken at high altitudes. The Wild operators readily adapted to interpreting military targets instead of commercial subjects and, most importantly, their reports were delivered to the relevant HQs within hours of a photographic flying sortie rather than days.
A three-phase system of
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