The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) today announced the acquisition of one of the world’s most important aerial photographic imagery archives. The Aerial Reconnaissance Archive –known as TARA – will be transferring to RCAHMS in Edinburgh from Keele University, where it has been housed for the last 45 years, in a joint initiative between the National Archives and Keele to ensure its long term preservation and improve its public access.

The archive, which comprises over ten million photographs, is of Second World War Allied and German aerial reconnaissance photographs, as well as more recent aerial photography from around the world by the Royal Air Force up to the 1990s.

The fascinating archive is awe-inspiring in its scope. It covers the world from 1939-45, from the D-Day landings in France and the destruction (or endurance) of Europe’s major cities, to theatres of war in Africa and the Far East. Aerial photography can bring into sharp perspective the scale and effects of war, and also the minute details: the archive includes, for example, a photograph of Amsterdam showing the street where Anne Frank was hiding, at the time she was taken away; a dramatic shot of a Fjord in Norway clearly showing The Bismarck six days before she was sunk on 27th May 1941; and RAF gliders landing en masse in enemy territory in France in order to take the bridge over the Caen canal, now known as Pegasus Bridge.

The National Archive, the UK government’s official archive, was searching for a suitable organisation to provide a long term home for TARA. RCAHMS, which has a long track record of effective archive management and is a world leader in the delivery of heritage information and digital imagery on-line, was an obvious choice and will enable TARA, after a period of assimilation, to be preserved, further digitised and made accessible to the general public. RCAHMS already has the most extensive collection of aerial photography in Scotland, and has a department specialising in preservation and the commission of new aerial photography.

Lesley Ferguson, Head of Collections at RCAHMS, said:

‘We are delighted that the aerial photographic collections in RCAHMS will be extended through the acquisition of TARA and we look forward to opening up access to this truly amazing archive. From the haunting images of World War II through to more recent scenes, it is a largely untapped resource with tremendous potential for people researching their family or local history, teachers, military historians, archaeologists and landscape historians around the world.’

Reconnaissance photography was and is a vital part of military intelligence. The ‘Allied Central Interpretation Unit’ (ACIU), based at Medmenham in Buckinghamshire, was the HQ of photographic intelligence and, rather like the code-breakers at Bletchley Park, played a key role in winning the war. No attack, whether a bombing raid, landing of a few men on a beach or a massive landing of an army, was possible without preparation of target material at the ACIU. Many pilots never returned from aerial reconnaissance missions. The ACIU records, which transferred to Keele University in 1962/3, comprise a large part of TARA.

For decades, TARA was used by bomb disposal units to locate unexploded bombs. Latterly, it has been used in wider research, including in 2000 for the Stephen Spielberg production ‘Band of Brothers’. TARA’s transfer to RCAHMS will mean, in time, much wider public access and the opportunity for an extraordinarily wide scope of research in which it is useful to compare and examine the landscape and built environment of Europe and other parts of the world during the 1940s.

For further information please contact:

Rebecca Salt or Ruth Christie, Colman Getty Scotland Consultancy

Tel 0131 558 8851

Email Rebecca@colmangetty.co.uk  or ruthchristie@colmangetty.co.uk