WW2 Aerial Photographs Go Online

aquarium writes "The Guardian Unlimited reports that unique aerial photographs of some of the key events of the Second World War are to be made available for the first time over the internet. The photographs are being made available through a website created by The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (TARA) at Keele University - an official place of deposit for the National Archives at Kew, West London. The entire archive of more than five million aerial reconnaissance photographs, shot by the RAF over Western Europe during the conflict, is going online starting Monday. They include American troops landing on the Normandy beaches on D-Day, the seizure of the Pegasus bridge by British paratroops, the aftermath of the first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne, and the German battleship Bismarck as the Royal Navy hunted her down. The multiple photographs taken by the high resolution cameras meant they were able to create 3-D images through an instrument called a "stereoscope". The technique was used to construct a detailed picture of the Normandy terrain ahead of the D-Day landings."

Comments

Also pictures of dresden genocide?

[Bender_]

Will they also have pictures of the devastated dresden after they bombed the city center crowded with hundreds of thousands civilian refugees and no military targets in sight?

Re:Also pictures of dresden genocide?

[Captain Pedantic]

Actually, they do in the print edition of the Guardian. Curiously, the BBC are showing all of the pictures printed in the paper except that one.

There is no way the parent post should be modded flaimbait. The firebombing of Dresden was a major atrocity of WW2, and the person who lead it, "Bomber" Harris should have been tried as a war criminal. Instead, there is a nice statue of him in London. Also, he had a nice sidelne in using chemical weapons on Kurds in Iraq.

Re:Also pictures of dresden genocide?

[Aardpig]

Will they also have pictures of the devastated dresden after they bombed the city center crowded with hundreds of thousands civilian refugees and no military targets in sight?

Yesterday, I was at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. As I was wondering around (for the first time since I was 6, wow!), I happened upon a V-1 flying bomb and a V-2 rocket. These devices were used by the Germans against the civilian population of London; firebombs, similar to those used on Dresden and Hamburg, were also dropped by the Germans on Coventry and Belfast.

Certainly, the firebombing of German cities was an atrocity; but these acts were conducted in response to previous deliberate targetting of UK cities by the Luftwaffe. This is the historical context which I think the parent post is lacking in.

Re:Also pictures of dresden genocide?

[Haeleth]

Regardless of whether you call the bombing of Dresden a war crime, genocide, an atrocity, a massacre, or just a sound tactical decision - it happened. For that reason, I hope the site when it becomes accessible does contain pictures of it, if they exist.

Because it is important that the horrors of war be documented; not as records of "atrocities" or "necessary evils", but merely as an illustration of what we are all capable of when we fail to resolve our differences peacefully. There is little to be gained by pointing fingers of blame; but there is much to be lost if we do not strive to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

Re:Also pictures of dresden genocide?

[Doomdark]

Certainly, the firebombing of German cities was an atrocity; but these acts were conducted in response to previous deliberate targetting of UK cities by the Luftwaffe. This is the historical context which I think the parent post is lacking in.

Sure, but that's a lousy excuse for atrocities. That the scope of german bombings was miniscule compared to allies' may be irrelevant, but the fact is none of those civilians was responsible for bombings. Further, Hitler was considered a brutal barbarian (and rightly so); allied bombing raids did nothing to make US and UK look any better. Strategic bombing was also clearly MEANT to "break the german will", by targeting alongside 'real' military targets also civilian ones... so those weren't accidents by any means. It would have been normal to have civilian casualties, obviously, but pure collateral damage would have been much less. This was, like you said, pure revenge.

It's too bad those bombing barons were never held responsible for their callous disregard of human life (both for their own soldiers and enemy civilians); and the worst thing is it had very little positive effect on war itself. German industrial production kept on raising all through 43 (during heaviest bombing raids), all the way to summer of 44; after which germans started losing important resources (iron ore from France, Romanian oil from Ploesti), and then war industry started to decline. And as to spirit to fight... it was actually studied (after the war), and it was found to have little effect there either. Will to fight between heavily bombed cities, and those that weren't was nominal (study was done by USAF, by the way, to try to evaluate how well campaign went). One can wonder how anyone thinks that killing your loved ones makes you less willing to fight against enemy that caused the deaths.

But not only were german civilians grilled alive by tens or hundreds of thousands; allied also lost over 100k air force personnel during the war; most of them during bomb raids. And yet many still consider generals who devised these strategic bombing campaings heroes. Sad how winners can write and rewrite history.

Re:Also pictures of dresden genocide?

[Awptimus Prime]

I'll bite your bait..

Genocide == the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group

What the Allies did during WW2 was not genocide. It was a devastating fire-bombing performed to ruin the moral of Germany's remaining forces. The people on the ground were of no single racial, political, or cultural group.

Fact is, Hitler's army dropped the first bombs on civillian targets in London. It was unintentional, apparently due to bad navigation, but it opened the door to Allies targetting civillian targets.

The way I see it, you have a warcrime if one side bombs the other's cities. You have a mutual agreement if you decide to retaliate with the same medicine they fed you.

So anyway, the over-simplified remark that this was genocide would likely cause someone to respond in a slightly heated manner. That's likely the reason for the mod.

Re:Also pictures of dresden genocide?

[/dev/trash]

First rule of war. The victors never face war crime trials.

Re:Also pictures of dresden genocide?

[Banjonardo]

Do notice what Churchill says on his letter: for the purpose of increasing terror. I do believe that's also in the US Army (or is it air force) charter: to bring terror upon the enemy.

This is why the more knowledgeable of us have no clue why "terrorists" and "to terrorize" became bogeymen words after 9/11: the US Military, and that of all the world, were MADE specifically to do this, among other things.

Anything that helps...

[bc90021]

...more people understand what a tremndously heroic thing all those soldiers did can only be a good thing.

For those of you who have never seen "Saving Private Ryan" or "Band of Brothers", I recommend them. Remember, freedom comes at a price, and we should all be very thankful to all those who have paid it, and one way is by learning about, and appreciating the sacrifices made. As this archive will only further add to our accuracy or the historical events, this can only be a Good Thing.

Re:Anything that helps...

[Complicity]

For those of you who have never seen "Saving Private Ryan" or "Band of Brothers", I recommend them.

I am in 100% agreement with this statement. I'll go one further and state that it is my firm belief that Band Of Brothers should be mandatory viewing in every school across the WW2-allied countries.

The mini-series may only depict American soldiers, but what they did in that war was representative of every nation involved. Those men deserve all the recognition they can get for the massive sacrifices that had to be made.

Axis Powers Reaped What They Sowed

[reallocate]

"He started it" carries a lot of weight when Western civilization is at stake.

If the Germans had not placed Hitler in power, if the Germans had not sustained him in power, if Hitler had not plunged Europe into a war of conquest and genocide, then not a single Allied bomb would have ever fallen on German territory.

To use another cliche, you reap what you sow.

Hitler and the other fascists, including those ruling Japan, had to be stopped, at any cost. The cost of defeat was unthinkable.

Trying to take the moral high ground in war is pointless. Death is death, regardless of motive. But, that is no reason to avoid fighting to win.