Operation Overlord: Civilian Photography and Artistic Mediation

Abstract

In March 1942, the Director of British Naval Intelligence, Admiral John Godfrey made a public appeal via the BBC Radio. Godfrey requested listeners to send in holiday photographs and postcards of Europe, particularly places of potential military interest. Over 80,000 people responded with holiday snaps forming a comprehensive library that by 1944 totaled ten million images. Relevant photographs garnered from the public for Operation Overlord were incorporated into military briefing materials, along with maps and zero-elevation aerial photographs, then issued to assault troops in preparation for the invasion of France in June 1944. While the material was largely returned to the British public, over 750,000 images were reproduced and remain in British archives. Over seventy years later, German photographer Simon Menner accessed the Imperial War Museum archive to digitize part of the collection for a photographic project that was not fully realized. This article considers Menner’s engagement with these records as a means by which this obscure national achievement has come to light beyond military history research. It also foregrounds the tension between political conflict surrounding digitization of declassified state and vernacular material, and Menner’s photographic intervention as a protagonist in the ongoing efforts to access formerly secret or confidential government material.