The Medmenham Collection
A private collection located with us, The Medmenham Collection covers the history of military photographic interpretation (PI) and imagery analysis (IA) from its beginnings, through World War One and Two, up to the present day. The Collection display is located at Chicksands whilst the collection Archive is at Wyton, just north of Huntingdon; both owe their existence to the enthusiasm of Medmenham Association members.
The Collection also has displays at the Muckleburgh Collection near Cromer and the Imperial War Museum at Duxford; together, they graphically illustrate the art of photographic interpretation (PI) from the Boer wars to the current day. Behind the scenes, the Collection is very active in expanding its archive and continues to accept a wide range of new material covering the development and application of photographic interpretation and imagery analysis.
Always a joint service skill, the participants have typically been experienced and talented people taken from all three services. The Intelligence Officer assigned to the World War One squadron to analyse the photographs taken by the airborne plate camera, became the Photographic Interpreter (PI) of World War Two.
PIs played a significant roll in every major operation, from identifying the threat of a German invasion in 1941 to the preparations for D-Day in 1944 and the discovery of the German V-Weapons. After World War Two, reconnaissance and the analysis of the resulting imagery became a standard method of obtaining detailed intelligence on the real or potential enemy.
