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LETTER OF THE WEEK

Big guns, big lenses

read with great interest the AP 12 July article by John Wade regarding the 100-inch lens and camera. The story was well researched but I may be able to add a little more to it. My interest stems from visits to the northern coast of France, where the remains of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall are still in evidence. While researching the history of the guns I came across some photographs which show a very similar German long-range camera being used to photograph Dover from the French coast, some 22 miles away. They date from (see my scan, right). One wonders if just months later this camera was captured by Allied forces and sent back to the US for further assessment. Could the camera that you feature in your article be the same one having undergone ‘Americanisation’? If the optics were German manufacture and the film camera converted from the European 9x12cm then the similarities in design are very close.