RAF technicians prepare cameras to be fitted in Lancasters in April 1944. Bombers were fitted with cameras like these in order to record the position on the ground where their bombs were going to hit. A photo-flash device was fitted to the plane which went off to allow the ground to be illuminated sufficiently for the camera to take the image. Howard Lees, who worked as the Photographic Officer for Australian Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett, commander of 8 Group Pathfinders, felt that because of the angle of the lens and the way the device operated, the normal flash device was producing an image well to the rear of where the bombs would actually strike. Consequently, crews, who had a reasonably good idea of where they had dropped their bombs, were finding that the photo flash image suggested they had been bombing too early. Lees developed a ‘flash bomb' to be dropped with the bomb load and the target indicators, which then produced a more accurate photograph. [Howard Lees, Interview, 'WW2 Peoples War', 1 December 2005; AWM SUK12023]
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