Women of Intelligence: Winning the Second World War with Air Photos (2 page)

Christine Halsall

March 2012

To avoid confusion, throughout the book women are referred to by the surname (which was usually their maiden name) that they had on joining the WAAF, ATS or WRNS, even though they may have subsequently married while still in the service. The end notes and index give, where appropriate, their married surnames alongside their maiden name.

Please note that RAF Medmenham was referred to by several different names during the war. RAF Station Medmenham was its official designation, often shortened to Medmenham; the sole unit at RAF Medmenham was the Central Interpretation Unit (CIU), later renamed the Allied Central Interpretation Unit (ACIU); many personnel referred to it also by its pre-war name of Danesfield House. They were all one and the same place.

The Duke of Wellington is quoted as saying: ‘All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I call “guessing what was on the other side of the hill”.’
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Throughout the history of warfare, commanders on land and at sea have sought ways of seeing over ‘the other side of the hill’ to gain knowledge of their enemy’s force dispositions and resources before engaging in battle. The introduction of aircraft to gain a bird’s-eye view of the enemy, and of photography to provide an objective and permanent record of his capabilities, made this possible and changed the nature of warfare. Not only was military information ‘captured’ for use on the battlefield; it also provided longer-term intelligence in the planning of future operations.

Aviation and photography, developing along parallel paths, became an entirely new profession in the world of military intelligence and was first used to considerable effect in the First World War. In the Second World War, in terms of quantity, aerial photography produced more information on enemy activity than any other source. Moreover, the information was factual, could be provided very rapidly in comparison with most other sources, and could also be directed to provide intelligence on almost any territory required and on a wide variety of subjects.

It was during the period 1939–45 that women played a significant part in photographic intelligence, a role that continues to the present day. With their male counterparts, a large number of them were based for most of that time in an ornate mansion overlooking the River Thames in the small village of Medmenham, in Buckinghamshire. Today, the house is a luxury hotel providing comfortable and peaceful surroundings for its guests. In wartime, with rather fewer creature comforts, the men and women who worked there analysed air photographs and saw over ‘the other side of the hill’ into enemy and occupied territories. The intelligence gained from their observations and reports was used in the planning of virtually every Allied wartime operation.

Just after the war, Cyril Ticquet, an RAF officer at Medmenham wrote:

Let me introduce you to a spy. Not the kind you read about in novels, but the real, live 1939–45 version. The kind that saw to it that the Germans could pull no surprises, and then did the same for Japan. He is middle-aged with lined cheeks and thinning hair. You would guess that he used to have a school or university job, and you would be right. He, and hundreds of other men and women like him, spent their days staring at the innermost secrets of the enemy, discovering in advance his most hidden schemes.
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While the many young men and women at RAF Medmenham during the Second World War would have raised their eyebrows at the ‘lined cheeks and thinning hair’ description, they would have recognised Ticquet’s description of their wartime work.

The history and development of aviation and photography have been well documented. Women’s achievements in these spheres are less well known, despite being involved from their inception, and this short account will seek to redress the balance.

Although it was work by an English physicist on the density of hydrogen in the latter half of the eighteenth century that provided the means whereby humans could take to the air, it was the French who dominated early ballooning. On 15 October 1783 Jean-François de Rozier was the first person to ascend into the air in a balloon tethered to the ground by an 80ft rope. Just six weeks later, the first free (non-tethered) flight, with passengers, took place over Paris.

It could be assumed that involvement in early ballooning was an exclusively male preoccupation, with ladies’ feet staying firmly on the ground; however, in May 1784, just seven months after Rozier, three French ladies ascended in a tethered balloon. It was a French opera singer, one Elizabeth Thible, who was credited with being the first woman ever to leave the ground in free flight. On 4 June 1784 she ascended in a hot air balloon and floated for over a mile above Lyon as part of a group entertainment for the King of Sweden.

One of the most colourful early balloonists was Sophie Blanchard, whose husband Jean-Pierre, together with a colleague, had been the first balloonist to cross the English Channel from France in 1795. Sophie’s first ascent came in 1804 when Jean-Pierre’s entertainment business was losing money and she was sent aloft as a ‘novelty’ to help solve their financial problems. She enjoyed it so much that she became the first woman to turn professional and pilot her own balloon. When her husband died in 1809, after suffering a heart attack and falling out of his balloon, Sophie set about paying off their debts by performing stunts to attract the crowds. Staying aloft all night, crossing the Alps, parachuting dogs (and herself on several occasions) and launching fireworks were just a few of the exhibitions that drew huge crowds from all over Europe. Napoleon appointed her ‘Aeronaut of the Official Festivals’ and she reportedly planned a balloon invasion of England. Alas, in 1819, while setting off a firework display from her hydrogen-filled balloon in a display over the Tivoli Gardens in Paris, the gas ignited and Sophie gained the dubious distinction of becoming the first woman to be killed in an aviation accident.
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The potential advantages of using balloons for military reconnaissance purposes was soon recognised on both sides of the Channel. In England, the first balloon ascent and the first military flight of 20 miles by an army officer took place in 1784. The British military establishment remained unimpressed, however, and while recognising that making observations by balloon had advantages over climbing the highest vantage point available, they decided not to pursue the possibilities. The French were initially more enthusiastic, using a balloon for aerial observation in two engagements in the 1790s, but then discontinued the venture. Although military ballooning then fell into abeyance, or abandoned altogether by the European powers until the mid-nineteenth century, ballooning for entertainment purposes, many of which included women, continued to attract appreciative crowds.

As progress in aviation, other than for ‘amusements’, was put on hold, photography became the new popular pastime and this time the English led the field. In January 1839, Henry Fox Talbot reported to the Royal Society in London on his ‘art of photogenic drawing’, a process called ‘Calotype’ that based the prints on light-sensitive paper: his first image was of a lattice window in his home at Lacock Abbey. Three weeks earlier Louis Daguerre had displayed his ‘Daguerreotypes’, which were pictures on silver plates, to the French Academy of Sciences. Fox Talbot made further improvements to his process that reduced the exposure time necessary for the image to develop and, by introducing the use of a fixing solution, enabled the picture to be viewed in bright light. Most importantly, the negative image of the Calotype process could be used repeatedly to produce more positive prints. It was this unique quality that led to its universal adoption and the demise of Daguerreotypes. The reproduction of any number of positive prints was a tremendous boon for private and commercial photographers and raised possibilities for military use.

One of the great Victorian inventions had arrived. By the mid-nineteenth century photography had been taken up with enthusiasm by the leisured classes, interested in both the arts and sciences, and with sufficient money and time to pursue the new hobby. From the very beginning, women on both sides of the Atlantic were active in the field of photography. Fox Talbot’s wife, Constance, while assisting him in his work, also took her own pictures and processed them. Anna Atkins (1799–1871) used photography at an early stage to record her botanical specimens. In 1843 she became the first person to print and publish a photographically illustrated book, with 424 photographs of British algae.
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