Auschwitz photographed

4th April 1944: The Allies take the first aerial reconnaissance images of the killing centre - but their significance is not recognised for many years

The first aerial image of Auschwitz taken 4th April 1944, enlarged and annotated with identifying labels by the CIA in 1978.

In 1944 the Allies were more concerned with Germany’s synthetic oil programme than the Nazi programme to kill the Jews. Auschwitz was known more as an industrial facility than the site of mass murder. This was why the vast site was the target of photo-reconnaissance in the first half of 1944. Subsequently, these photographs became part of an intense debate over whether the Allies should have bombed Auschwitz to halt the killings.

The first photograph was taken by Lt Charles Barry of the 60 (Photoreconnaissance Squadron), South African Air Force¹ (SAAF), operating from San Severo, Italy. He and his navigator Lt Ian McIntyre made the long trip in an unarmed de Havilland Mosquito IX aircraft and were over the target at an altitude of 26 000 feet [7 925 m] for a period of four minutes in the early afternoon.

Ian and I began our first photographic run from west to east, if memory serves correctly. He immediately advised me that the port camera was not working (the two long focal length cameras were mounted in tandem to give overlapping lateral coverage). This gave us a total lateral coverage of about 5 miles [8 km] on the 20 inch [50 cm] cameras. It was unhealthy to hang around with a second run in an unarmed aircraft because of possible enemy interception.

Nevertheless we decided to do two runs instead of one to ensure positive coverage. Ian left the cameras running longer than usual and I believe that the over-run on the east to west run pulled in something of the death camp later known as Auschwitz.