Файл:Peenemunde-165515.jpg

No. 540 Squadron RAF Flight Sergeant E. P. H. Peek in a de Havilland Mosquito PR4^{[#cite_note-Collier-7 [7]]} returned to Leuchars airfield on June 23, 1943 with Peenemünde photos showing a pair of low-loader vehicles^{[#cite_note-Cooksley-8 [8]]} holding a pair of rockets.^{[#cite_note-Irving-2 [2]][#cite_note-Collier-7 [7]]}

Chronology

The first RAF photo on April 22, 1943 of a 1 1/2 mm "object" -- A-4 model 21 within Test Stand VII -- was not initially identified as a rocket.^{[#cite_note-Irving-2 [2]]} After reviewing Peek's June 23 photo, Flight Lieutenant Andre' J. A. Kenny changed the designation of the 1 1/2 -mm-long-specks from 'objects' to 'torpedoes'.^{[#cite_note-Irving-2 [2]]} Then more than a year after the initial rocket photos (even after Operation Hydra had bombed Peenemünde on August 17/18, 1943 based on other intelligence), a May 5, 1944 photo of Blizna by the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) at a new base at San Severo Italy showed a rocket on a narrow-gauge railway line,^{[#cite_note-Irving-2 [2]]} but the Crossbow committee put the photographs aside.^{[#cite_note-Garlinski-6 [6]]} Finally, after the report of the Bug river wreckage, Reginald Victor Jones methodically examined the photographs of Blizna through the night of June 2/3, 1944 and found a faint white line image of the rocket on a loop of the narrow-gauge railway.^{[#cite_note-Garlinski-6 [6]]} Kenny subsequently called back earlier Peenemünde photographs and identified several finned 'objects': on railway trucks, outside tall upright buildings, and on the traverser carriage serving the ellipse; as well as evidence of a heavy and violent explosion with blast damages to buildings at the 'launching pad'.^{[#cite_note-Irving-2 [2]]} — Лицензия: Public domain (в общественном достоянии)