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135years, is presented very differently from that which has gone before. Theearly chapters tell of the development of techniques and equipment, theterm %u2018reconnaissance%u2019 being interpreted quite broadly, allowing for theinclusion of an interesting account of the trials and tribulations involvedin devising a means of permitting the heavy bombers of WW II to takesatisfactory strike photographs at night. As to personalities, thepredictable list of prominent PR pilots (Cotton, Warburton, Proctor,Tuttle et al) are all given their due but this book also records the namesof many others and pays just as much attention: to the previously largelyanonymous experts who overcame the many technical problems thatwere encountered; to some of the more notable photographicinterpreters; to the airmen who became de facto aircrew as airbornephotographers; and to the tradesmen who processed miles of film underfield conditions that were far from ideal, ranging from the swelteringheat of West Africa to the mud of the Italian winter of 1943-44. A namethat frequently crops up is that of the %u2018Father of RAF Photography%u2019,Victor Laws, and it is good to see his contribution being given the widerrecognition that it deserves, although he was definitely not (as the authorstates) still the sole NCO authorised to wear an observers badge at thetime of his commissioning in November 1915.Curiously, Chapters 13-16 read as if they belong to a quite differentbook, and a far less satisfying one. Rather than telling us more aboutcameras, photographic personalities and reconnaissance activities, theauthor provides what amounts to a potted history of RAF operationssince 1945, with only occasional specific references to photography.Furthermore, some of these references are somewhat overstated,representing, perhaps, an attempt to compensate for the RAF%u2019s steadilycontracting capabilities in this field. For instance, although, no mentionwas made of the activities of any of the sixteen wartime AOP squadronsin the first part of the book, it was deemed necessary to include thereconnaissance work done by Austers in post-war Malaya. Similarly, No27 Sqn%u2019s maritime reconnaissance Vulcans are credited with a %u2018mapping%u2019capability and a statement to the effect that UK-based SAR Whirlwindsand Wessex %u2018could also be used for photo-reconnaissance%u2019 smacks ofscraping the barrel. Then again, while it is nice to have photographs ofaeroplanes like the Sycamore, Hercules and Belvedere one is a littlesurprised to see them in a book that is nominally about RAF photoreconnaissance %u2013 and justifying the inclusion of a Wessex belonging to