Operation Crossbow

Tim Dunn
2011-05-15


6.7
59 min

The heroic tales of World War II are legendary, but Operation Crossbow is a little known story that deserves to join the hall of fame: how the Allies used 3D photos to thwart the Nazis' weapons of mass destruction before they could obliterate Britain. This film brings together the heroic Spitfire pilots who took the photographs and the brilliant minds of RAF Medmenham that made sense of the jigsaw of clues hidden in the photos. Hitler was pumping a fortune into his new-fangled V weapons in the hope they could win him the war. But Medmenham had a secret weapon of its own, a simple stereoscope which brought to life every contour of the enemy landscape in perfect 3D. The devil was truly in the detail and, together with extraordinary personal testimonies, the film uses modern computer graphics on the original wartime photographs to show just how the photo interpreters were able to uncover Hitler's nastiest secrets.

Cast

Name Character Team
Samantha Bond Narrator (voice) Unowned
Dino A. Brugioni Himself - Senior CIA Analyst, Ret. Unowned
Elizabeth Hick Herself - Photographic Interpreter, RAF Medmenham Unowned
Col. Robert S. Ehlers Himself - US Air Force Intelligence, Ret. Unowned
Jimmy Taylor Himself - Reconnaissance Pilot Unowned
Allan Williams Himself - Researcher. Edinburgh University Unowned
Wing Commander Mike Mockford Himself - Photo Interpreter Unowned
Major Chris Halsall Himself - Intelligence Corps, Ret. Unowned
John S. Blyth Himself - Reconnaissance Pilot Unowned
Geoffrey Stone Himself - Photographic Interpreter, RAF Medmenham Unowned
Col. Roy M. Stanley Himself - US Air Force Intelligence, Ret. Unowned
Christian Muhldorfer-Vogt Himself - Peenemünde Museum Unowned
John Bell Himself - Bomb Aimer Unowned
Eugene Black Himself - Mittelbau-Dora Inmate Unowned
Margaret Hurley Herself - Photographic Interpreter, RAF Medmenham Unowned