Category: This entry was posted in Air Warfare, Intell by MSW. Bookmark the permalink.

The first to articulate a vision of how the intelligence demands of this new postwar era might be met was Richard S. Leghorn. He had graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1939 with a degree in physics and a reserve commission as an army second lieutenant. In late 1940, Leghorn accepted an […]

A B.E.2c reconnaissance aircraft of the RFC with an aerial reconnaissance camera fixed to the side of the fuselage, 1916. Passchendaele, Belgium, 1916. The airplane provided the speed, range, and freedom of maneuver needed to transform aviation from a toy into a tool of war. In 1911 the Italians first used aircraft for military reconnaissance […]

Frederick Sidney Cotton Alarmed by the rise of Adolf Hitler and the advent of the Luftwaffe, the Royal Air Force pioneered covert, peacetime aerial reconnaissance in the late 1930s. British Squadron Leader Fred W. Winterbotham of the Air Ministry successfully convinced British and French officials of the need to reconnoiter German military installations. Eventually, Winterbotham […]