WWII-era aerial reconnaissance maps
Mel Comisarow
The US National Archives has WWII-era aerial reconnaissance photographs of
Russian villages. In order to order these photos write to
National Archives and Records Administration
Cartographic and Architectural Branch
8601 Adelphi Road
College Park, MD 20740-6001
USA
specifying the modern name and longitude/latitude coordinates of the
villages of interest.
The Archive will reply giving their reference number for the photo along
with a list of commercial firms who will retrieve the photo from the
Archives and make contact copies or enlargements. The cost is
approximately $25 per contact photo including shipping.
The Archive has 10 inch X 10 negatives, which when contact printed give a
10 inch X 10 inch positive print. The photos that I have seen have a scale
of approximately 1:40,000 (1 cm = 400 meters) and are shot on high
resolution film such that with the aid of a 10X loupe, a magnifier
available in any camera store, objects as small as a few meters can be
seen.
Two of the photos that I received were shot in sequence, presumably a few
seconds apart. There was approximately 55% geographic overlap between the
two photos. As it happened the village in which I was most interested
appeared in both photos and the image of the village was clearer in the
photo to which the village was not indexed. I infer that in some cases it
might be worthwhile to order the adjacent photos to get the clearest image
of interest.
The Archive village name index not complete. I requested photos of
several villages that were within a few miles of each other, specifying
the coordinates of all villages. The Archive replied that they had no
photos of some of these villages. Yet when I received my photos these
villages were clearly visible. I infer that the Archive index includes
only village names and not the coordinates of the photo. It might be wise
to query about several neighboring villages in the hope that at least one
of them is indexed.
Bruce Kahn
Mel, thanks for your methodological posting on one of my favorite resources!
On Thu, 3 Oct 1996 22:23:27 -0700 Mel Comisarow <mel...@chem.ubc.ca> said:
> The Archive will reply giving their reference number for the photo along
> with a list of commercial firms who will retrieve the photo from the
> Archives and make contact copies or enlargements.
...
> The Archive has 10 inch X 10 negatives, which when contact printed give a
> 10 inch X 10 inch positive print.
Actually, this is not correct. The archives does NOT have the negatives.
There has been a lot of discussion about the fate of these negatives, but I
have never heard a definitive answer. One guess that I have heard is that
the negatives were sunk at sea. What the archives DOES have are 10" x 10"
prints.
In most cases, this doesn't really matter. The contractor will make a copy
negative of the original print, and make a print from that negative at close
to the original scale.
However, there are two instances that I can think of where the lack of a
negative could matter.
First of all, if the print that is made from the negative is a different
size than the original print (which is very likely, because most of the
vendors use standard paper sizes, like 8"x10"). So if you want to do any
mearements off of your copy print, the measurements will be incorrect
(however, you can correct for the difference if you know how). But I doubt
that this will worry many genealogists.
The second issue is more important for genealogists. These prints were used
for military purposes. Many of them have the military targets marked on the
print (usually with what looks like an orange "china marker"). These
markings can be fascinating from a historical point of view, but they will
appear on the copies as well, and possibly obscure or detract from
information in the photograph. What kind of markings are there? I have
seen many bridges marked with the construction information. Things like "30
ft. Steel suspension", except in German, of course.
> The photos that I have seen have a scale
> of approximately 1:40,000 (1 cm = 400 meters)
Actually, many of these photographs are available at a much larger scale.
1:20,000 is fairly common, and I have even seen some as detailed as 1:7000.
For an example, see Avotaynu Vol. X, #3, p 27.
> such that with the aid of a 10X loupe, a magnifier
> available in any camera store, objects as small as a few meters can be
> seen.
Another good way to do this is to order the negative, and print only the
area that you are interested in. I do this frequently (probably more the
rule rather than the exception).
> Two of the photos that I received were shot in sequence, presumably a few
> seconds apart. There was approximately 55% geographic overlap between the
> two photos. As it happened the village in which I was most interested
> appeared in both photos and the image of the village was clearer in the
> photo to which the village was not indexed. I infer that in some cases it
> might be worthwhile to order the adjacent photos to get the clearest image
> of interest.
If you can, the best thing to do is to go to the archives and examine the
photographs yourself. It is unlike most other genealogical endeavors. You
will frequently be faced with the "problem" of deciding which photograph you
like the best, because there are so many! There are many factors in
deciding which photograph to choose which are nearly impossible for archive
personnel to capture. You need to consider things like image quality,
coverage, scale, weather (this is a BIG one - consider the difference
between a photograph taken in the summer and winter - ever seen a polar bear
in a blizzard?)
> The Archive village name index not complete.
This is a great understatement. The archives collection contains 1.2
MILLION photographs. It would be nearly impossible to index which towns are
covered in each one.
> I infer that the Archive index includes
> only village names and not the coordinates of the photo.
I am not sure what index was used, but I suspect it was one that was
compiled by a former employee of this branch, who basically collected all of
his replies to people. It isn't comprehensive by any means, but it saves
duplicated effort for them. Unfortunately, that archivist no longer works
in this department.
It is also important to tell people that current archives policy requires
that researchers send a copy of a map with the town indicated, in order for
the archives to fulfill the request. It used to be that they would accept
just the name and latitude/longitude. Now they need a map too.
Another important point to mention is that the coverage of this collection
is VERY extensive. Not only does it cover Russian villages, but it also
covers most other areas of Europe. To date, I have obtained photographs
from this collection for Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. I
have obtained photographs that covered tiny villages that couldn't possibly
have been of any military importance (could they?)
These photographs can pose other interesting questions. Most of the ones I
have seen were taken fairly early in the war (1941-2), but I have also seen
quite a few taken VERY late in the war. Like almost the very end. Why were
the Germans doing Aerial photography when their fate was already "sealed"?
Bruce Kahn bk...@servtech.com
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