Seaside snaps with a sinister purpose
ASERIES of old photographs found in an Exeter shop turned out to be Adolf Hitler’s holiday snaps.
The secret stash of aerial espionage photos of Devon and Cornwall were taken by the Nazis and were hidden at the end of the war. There is a fascinating story behind their final discovery at an Exeter charity shop.
The shots were taken from several thousand feet above Exeter, Exmouth, Brixham, Plymouth and Newlyn by the Luftwaffe. The photos are now the subject of a book by historian and author Nigel Clarke from Lyme Regis.
They were part of a secret archive of wartime reconnaissance pictures commissioned by the Nazi leader and found by an Exeter army staff driver who took them home at hid them in a back room at his equine supply shop, where they stayed until after his death.
The photographs were taken between 1939 and 1943 for target and intelligence purposes. Mr Clarke spent years researching and collecting the images. As the collection grew and more information was found out about the secret archive it was decided to put the pictures in a book.
Mr Clarke said he made the finds among a collection of old books in the corner of a local charity shop. “This discovery led to hours of research and correspondence at home and abroad to locate new unpublished images. Many of the images in the collection came by a circuitous route,” he said.
“At the end of the war staff driver Phillips was attached to a General Horrocks and was sent with his car to await his arrival by plane at a recently captured Luftwaffe airfield. Staff driver Phillips (from Exeter) decided to explore the subterranean bunkers of the aerodrome. In one of the rooms he found thousands of aerial photographs of Britain taken by the Luftwaffe. He carefully selected photographs he recognised of the Westcountry and took them as a war souvenir.” The photographs were left in an Exeter shop – a find which formed the basis for the archive.
The book is available online