Operation Crossbow

Aired on the BBC on Sunday. Very interesting insight into photographic intelligence in WW2.

Found it very compelling.

"Yes, I know: another doc about a secret operation that "changed the course of the war" and helped "break the Nazi war machine" and so on. But this is a belter, a story you feel should be better known, about how spy planes hunted down Hitler's ballistic missile programme, helping to defeat the first WMDs. It centres on the wartime base at RAF Medmenham. Teams of "photo-interpreters" would pore over the images taken by Spitfire pilots flying over occupied Europe. Brilliantly, this "crack team of sleuths" used 3D images and even built scale models of targets, such as the V-1 rocket emplacements they were the first to spot. The tale comes to life, not least because of impressive contributors, including former reconnaissance pilots and bomb aimers at whom you can really only shake your head in admiration."

BBC Reviewer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13374551

This is just a short clip. The full programme will be on iPlayer.

Excellent footage of USAF photographic reconnaissance Spitfires


Roger

It's hard to class the V2s as WMDs, more people might have been killed building them, as by them, sadly mostly slave labor building the hidden factories.
But the engineerring talent wasted could have hurt the allies much more if it was directed elsewhere. Their accuracy wasn't even good enough to be effective IF the Nazis had been able to develope a nuke AND downsize it enough to be a V2 warhead.