School of Photography, Farnborough

the School of Photography at South Farnborough. Initially the training courses had to be compressed into a ten-day time scale due to the required numbers of trained men. New buildings were later constructed by German POWs and came into use in 1917 (the only permanent building erected for the Royal flying Corps during the war). At the close of WW1, the improvements in technology (and the introduction of roll film) created enormous potential for map-making photography and aerial reconnaissance. The peace however, was not to last and the stagnation of training between the wars changed into frenzied activity in 1935 by the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. The training programs were rapidly intensified and extra accommodation was quickly provisioned at Farnborough. After the outbreak of the Second World War, it became necessary, by the summer of 1940, to open an additional second school at Blackpool using a hastily converted Technical College (still standing there today). The millions of vital pictures produced by the trained photographers are best known publicly as the post strike pictures of the Dam Busters raid and the discovery of V1 and V2 rocket sites at Peenemunde.

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John Cecil Lauga Claxton

unknown

18th June 1930