If you are a World War II history buff, you've probably already seen this story about a new website that promises to be incredibly fascinating.

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - More than five million detailed aerial photographs from World War Two have gone onto the Internet giving the public their first views of some of the most dramatic and grisly moments of the conflict.

From the smoke billowing from the incinerator of the Auschwitz concentration camp in which millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazis, to the U.S. landings on Omaha beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, the pictures tell dramatic stories.

"These images allow us to see the real war at first hand," project head Allan William said. "It is like a live action replay."

"They were declassified years ago, but it takes days to find an individual image. Now they have been digitised and will be on the Internet, it takes seconds," he told Reuters.

Unfortunately, the website http://www.evidenceincamera.co.uk/ is not up at the moment due to the number of people trying to view it.

Aerial reconnaissance is dangerous stuff, especially when all the guns had to be taken out of the plane to make room for the cameras and extra fuel. I mentioned back during Christmas that I had gotten a good book on such stuff--Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage . I'm about 2/3 of the way through it, and it's a remarkable look at the development of the U2, the SR-71, and spy satellites. Some space is given to the story of the Air Force recon crews who risked their lives over the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba but not a whole lot.

Over forty aircraft and over two hundred crewmen were lost to hostile fire before the advent of reliable spy satellites, and many of these men's families never knew what actually happened to their loved ones due to the secretive nature of their task.
posted by Terry at 4:52:00 PM