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- History Of Aerial Cameras, Page 30, After 1918
- Aerial Expeditionary Force with Edward Steichen
- Silver print
- National Air and Space Museum
- Aerial Expeditionary Force Photography Collection
- Image No. ACSuspn-Pg30-Suspn
In World War I, airborne cameras offered a unique tool for intelligence gathering. Cameras were mounted in the fuselage of the aircraft and operated by a photographer called an air observer, for single or sequential images. High quality photographs were routinely taken from a height of 15,000 feet, along with oblique angle images made directly above the frontlines, to reveal extraordinary detail on the enemy lines. By the end of the war, Britain’s Royal Flying Corps alone had taken over 400,000 photographs. All warring air forces used highly trained photo interpreters to analyze the data revealed by the airborne camera. The camera emerged in the war as a major new weapon.
