…pre and post-strike recces were made over the UK, at very high altitude, by the Junkers 86 P…

I could never understand why the Luftwaffe didn’t make more use of photographic reconnaissance over Britain during the war; probably just lack of resources.

After the very first interception (I think) of the high-flying Ju86P (bombing?) the Luftwaffe just gave-up; the aircraft wasn’t even shot-down, just damaged by a single 20mm hit.

To me, it is amazing that the RAF could regularly fly a PR Spitfire right the way across occupied-Europe, all the way to Berlin, and beyond, and yet the Luftwaffe, based just across the Channel in France couldn’t (or didn’t) do the same with a Bf109 or Fw190. Surely their camera technology wasn’t the problem?

I read somewhere (Alfred Price book probably?) that ‘Enigma’ intercepts revealed to the Allies that until the arrival of jet photo-reconnaissance aircraft the Luftwaffe had been unable to get photographs of London ‘for years’…

…something that came as a considerable surprise to the Allies…..especially since they’d been busy laying out D-Day deception decoys for the Germans to be fooled by!