The study of conflict archaeology has developed rapidly over the last decade, fuelled in equal measure by technological advances and creative analytical frameworks. Nowhere is this truer than in the inter-disciplinary fields of archaeological practice that combine traditional sources such as historical photographs and maps with 3D digital topographic data from Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) and large scale geophysical prospection. For twentieth-century conflict landscapes and their surviving archaeological remains, these developments have encouraged a shift from a site oriented approach towards landscape-scaled research. This volume brings together an wide range of perspectives, setting traditional approaches that draw on historical and contemporary aerial photographs alongside cutting-edge prospection techniques, cross-disciplinary analyses and innovative methods of presenting this material to audiences. Essays from a range of disciplines (archaeology, history, geography, heritage and museum studies) studying conflict landscapes across the globe throughout the twentieth century, all draw on aerial and landscape perspectives to past conflicts and their legacy and the complex issues for heritage management. Organized in four parts, the first three sections take a broadly chronological approach, exploring the use of aerial evidence to expand our understanding of the two World Wars and the Cold War. The final section explores ways that the aerial perspective can be utilized to represent historical landscapes to a wide audience. With case studies ranging from the Western Front to the Cold War, Ireland to Russia, this volume demonstrates how an aerial perspective can both support and challenge traditional archaeological and historical analysis, providing an innovative new means of engaging with the material culture of conflict and commemoration.

Beskriver luftfotograferingens historiske udvikling.

England’s Military Heritage from the Air presents the story of the country’s rich military heritage using photographs from the Aerofilms Collection. Covering over 6,000 years, it reflects the changing threats faced by England from enemies without, and conflicts within. The book covers everything from hillforts to aircraft carriers and includes the castles, battle sites, ships and aircraft that have witnessed the changing character of warfare. Ending with how victory and sacrifice are commemorated and remembered, England’s Military Heritage from the Air is a tribute to the courage, skill and endurance of the people who have suffered yet prevailed.

The story of the photographic intelligence work undertaken from a country house at Medmenham, Buckinghamshire, is one of the great lost stories of the Second World War . At its peak in 1944, almost 2,000 British and American men and women worked at the top-secret Danesfield House, interpreting photographs - the majority stereoscopic so they could be viewed in 3D - to unlock secrets of German military activity and weapons development. Millions of aerial photographs were taken by Allied pilots, flying unarmed modified Spitfires and Mosquitos on missions over Nazi Europe. it was said that an aircraft could land, the photographs be developed and initial interpretation completed within two hours - marking the culmination of years of experiments in aerial intelligence techniques. Their finest hour began in 1943, during the planning stages of the Allied invasion of Europe, when Douglas Kendall, who masterminded the interpretation work at Medmenham, led the hunt for Hitler's secret weapons. Operation Crossbow would grow from a handful of photographic interpreters to the creation of a hand-picked team, and came to involve interpreters from across the Medmenham spectrum, including the team of aircraft specialists led by the redoubtable Constance Babington Smith. In November that year, whilst analysing photographs of Peenemunde in northern Germany, they spotted a small stunted aircraft on a ramp. This intelligence breakthrough linked the Nazi research station with a growing network of sites in northern France, where ramps were being constructed aligned not only with London, but targets throughout southern Britain. Through the combined skill and dedication of the Crossbow team and the heroism of the Allied pilots, throughout late 1943 and 1944 V-weapon launch sites were located and through countermeasures destroyed, saving hundreds of thousands of lives, and changing the course of the war. Operation Crossbow is a wonderful story of human endeavour and derring-do, told for the first time.

The Aerofilms company recorded one of the most tumultuous periods of British history. This gloriously illustrated book draws on thousands of aerial photographs to present a vivid picture of a nation in the first half of the twentieth century.

Maps are stories as much about us as about the landscape. They reveal changing perceptions of the natural world, as well as conflicts over the acquisition of territories. Cartographic Fictions looks at maps in relation to journals, correspondence, advertisements, and novels by authors such as Joseph Conrad and Michael Ondaatje. In her innovative study, Karen Piper follows the history of cartography through three stages: the establishment of the prime meridian, the development of aerial photography, and the emergence of satellite and computer mapping. Piper follows the cartographer's impulse to "leave the ground" as the desire to escape the racialized or gendered subject. With the distance that the aerial view provided, maps could then be produced "objectively," that is, devoid of "problematic" native interference. Piper attempts to bring back the dialogue of the "native informant," demonstrating how maps have historically constructed or betrayed anxieties about race. The book also attempts to bring back key areas of contact to the map between explorer/native and masculine/feminine definitions of space.

This volume presents the rich, but under-utilised and in parts inaccessible, archival historic aerial imagery, traditional photographs and those captured from satellites, for the exploration and management of cultural heritage. An unparalleled resource, for archaeologists and all with an interest in landscapes, images spanning the second half of the 20th century provide an unrivalled means of documenting and understanding change and informing the study of the past. Case studies, written by leading experts in their fields, illustrate the applications of this imagery across a wide range of heritage issues, from prehistoric cultivation and settlement patterns, to the impact of recent landscape change. Contemporary environmental and land use issues are also dealt with, in a volume that will be of interest to archaeologists, historians, geographers and those in related disciplines.