In the book 91 Nigeria Squadron, my great uncle ( Sgt Albert ‘Shag’ O’Shaughnessy ) gets a mention as ‘No91 Sqn’s new ‘ace’ photographer’ and mentions a sortie on February 13th 1943 to photograph a ‘ 5000 ton raider’ at Boulonge that had been attacked by a Boston squadron at 0930 that day. It was later attacked again after imagery taken by him revealed it to be undamaged.
Does anyone know if imagery taken by the Squadron is kept ? Also, if anyone has any information on the ship, the raid in general or anything relating Albert, I would be very grateful if you could post it up.
Thanks
By: Maple Slacker - 31st March 2025 at 11:19
This seems to be a link to some of the imagery
http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk/worldwide/?PHPSESSID=bojd1mia9369ftfv10augie007
Nothing for bolougne but maybe you could contact them? As you have a date and Squadron then locating the film (if it still exists) would be a 5-min job, assuming they have access to the original JARIC search system.
It would even have a sample of your great uncle’s handwriting as all films are usually accompanied by the original paperwork that would have been filled out by him during the sortie (at worst it would be a photocopy).
By: Maple Slacker - 31st March 2025 at 11:19
Almost ALL of the PR films used to be kept at the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (JARIC) at RAF Brampton, in a Film Library known to all as the “tin mine”.
It used to be a fantastic archive and the JARIC in house magazine used to carry articles by one of the civilian anlysts who would pull a film tin at random during his lunch break and write up anything interesting he found.
Unfortunately, as is usual nowadays, it was decided this was somehow too expensive and everything was shipped out to IIRC Keel University. A lot of the film was unfortunately destroyed before the move as I recall they could not take the whole archive (which ran to several million images).
A junior officer at the time got in a bit of bother for destroying a large number of films that “were just empty beaches” and turned out to be all the pre-invasion recce for D-day:eek:
This was in 2000-2001ish so I assume it is now at Keel and available for searching.
By: BMG - 31st March 2025 at 11:19
Anyone know if all or any PR photos are kept as a record and catalogued in any way ? Any info at all on searching ?
Thanks
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February 14, 2010 at 8:54 pm