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Title:ARMY AIR PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION UNIT [Allocated Title]
Film Number:AYY 295/2
Other titles:BRITISH ARMY OPERATIONS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
Summary: The work of the Army Air Photograhic Interpretation Unit (AAPIU). Royal Air Force 265 Wing and 46 Survey Company SAEC (South African Engineer Corps) assist in interpreting air photographs at Benina, Libya to update maps, using the defence over print' procedure.
Description: A Spitfire landing after a photographic sortie, the magazine containing the exposed photographs is taken from the plane and driven off. The exposed film is handed to the RAF photographic trailer and the negative is dried. Prints are made from the negative in a RAF photographic trailer and are interpreted by officers of the AAPIU through a stereoscope. The interpreter checks the map references of the defence position and produces a trace of the position for reference. Mobile generators supplying the power for the travelling map-making unit. The preparation of the light sensitive zinc plate. Photographs on which the defences have been annotated in ink by the interpreters of the AAPIU are sent to a Field Survey company where the defences are plotted and a map made which is printed and distributed. Development of the exposed plate as a litho block. The block is mounted onto the printing press which prints the enemy defence positions onto the existing basic map. The first map comes off the press.
Alternative Title:BRITISH ARMY OPERATIONS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
Production Details: War Office Film Unit (Production company)
Hopkinson, Peter Richard Gunton1920-06-272007-06-28Hopkinson started him career in the film industry at the age of 16 as a clapper boy at Ealing Studios, then working at Denham Studios. He volunteered for overseas service in 1941and was an AFPU photographer and informant in the "Wartime Filming" interview project. He was sent to Persia initially to make a film about getting supplies through to Russia and made many other films in the Western Desert. He joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). His career after the war was mainly filming documentaries and his last documentary was Whickers War, made in 2004. (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: British Army, Army Air Photographic Interpretation Unit (regiment/service)
Royal Air Force (regiment/service)
South African Army, South African Engineer Corps, 25th Survey Company (regiment/service)
Keywords: Benina, Libya (geography)
Western Desert 1940-1943, North Africa, Second World War (event)
North Africa 1939-1945 (theme)