BATTLE OF ATLANTIC

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 August 1941, Page 8

BATTLE OF ATLANTIC

CAMERA CLICKS EVERY SIXTY SECONDS.

COASTAL COMMAND'S ACTIVITIES

Britain’s R.A.F. Coastal Command, the world’s biggest users of photographic materials, clicks the shutters of its cameras every sixty seconds of the war. In the month of April the Command took photographs at the rate of 506,400 a year, using 104,000 square feet of film and 813,000 sheets of bromide paper. All this material, as well as vast quantities for export, is supplied without difficulty by Britain’s own manufacturers. '

Photography plays a vital part in the work of the Coastal Command which safeguards Britain against invasion and fights the Battle of the Atlantic at its source, that is to say, up and down the coastline of Europe from Trondheim to Bordeaux.

There, squadrons of the Coastal Command attack enemy U-boat bases, harass supply ships creeping down the Norwegian fjords or along the Channel coasts, and intercept the Luftwaffe’s raids on Britain’s shipping. Not only does the Command record every movement of the enemy across the Narrow Seas, but it keeps, the eagle eye of its cameras upon suspicious looking surface craft. The pilots are themselves highly trained in the observation of ship types, but when in doubt a photograph rushed to the naval authorities for identification is enough to ensure that she is speedily brought in for examination by the Contraband Control.