RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Thursday 17th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Veterans and People (Al Carns)]

Thank you, Ms Vaz, for your chairship. I welcome this fantastic debate on the role of the RAF photographic reconnaissance unit in world war two. I will not detract from the debate, which aims to recognise those individuals, by trying to score political points. We will talk about those brave men, and indeed women, who fought to protect the very freedoms we enjoy.

One of the key messages from this debate is that, if we step back and look at the current geopolitical situation, it is very fragile. Across the nation, our connection with defence is, in some cases, limited or getting less and less as the generations go on. It is really important that the stories of the PRU and other units are amplified and used as a mechanism to reconnect people in an interesting and valiant way.

If we move forward five to 10 years, and are called upon to serve nationally, it is really important that we understand where our freedoms came from, and how this great place has been collectively protected by the brave young men and women of this nation. I will make one correction to what the hon. and gallant Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed) said: there were 31 veterans present in this room who served in Northern Ireland. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman did, but I did, and I would like the record to state 31 veterans, not 30.

Returning to the importance of this debate, the era of modern warfare—where satellites and drones can scrutinise enemy positions and provide intelligence, insight and understanding—reinforces the achievement of the RAF’s PRUs for the simple reason that what they did was absolutely remarkable. Back then, gathering critical evidence of enemy targets could hardly be more perilous. The men of the photographic reconnaissance units, whose job it was to fly the planes armed with nothing more than lethal cameras, suffered the second highest attrition rate of any airborne unit during the conflict.

Without the extraordinary courage of those men, we could not have traced and sunk the twin battleships, Bismarck and Tirpitz, which were the national pride of the German fleet. We could not have protected convoys of ships in the north Atlantic that were bringing critical supplies from the United States, essential to the war effort. We could not have disabled the experimental rocket works, greatly delaying the development of the V2; who knows where that would have gone, if the PRU had not provided the intelligence and allowed subsequent strikes to degrade it?

We could not have conducted the fantastic Dambusters raid, which not only held strategic value but was a huge morale boost back here in the UK. Most of all, we could not have planned D-day as successfully as we did without collecting precise photographs of German positions across the whole of the French coast. It is not only about nationally significant moments like those but the day in, day out flights on which those pilots conducted consistent regular operations over enemy-held territory. Those are just a few examples of how British airborne reconnaissance units played a fundamental role in actually winning the war. Those pilots flew mostly alone in single-engine planes, without guns to defend themselves—just heavy fuel tanks to carry them over exceptionally long distances.

Let us take ourselves out of this place today and imagine a pilot sitting on a misty airfield somewhere in middle England. With the mist coming in, they go and get in their aircraft. Prior to boarding, they have been briefed that they will go over a certain area to take photographs, but they were not told why in any way, shape or form, because if they are captured, that information would be exceptionally important to the adversary. The pilot jumps in their plane and flies over enemy territory, but there is not a wingman on their left or right, and there is a minimal escape and evasion plan should they be shot down. The pilot is on their own for hours on end, through all weathers, and often attacked by flak and other aircraft. What they did is truly brave and remarkable.

Many of them, unfortunately, did not return. In November 1942, an Air Ministry report found that PRU pilots flying single-engine planes had a 31% chance of surviving their first tour of operations. That is 300 hours. Think about having a 31% chance of surviving that. The overall PRU death rate was nearly 50%, yet those men successfully brought back more than 20 million images—transforming British intelligence gathering—whether they were operating over the Norwegian fjords or the Burmese jungle, or providing equally crucial imagery after Allied attacks to assess the accuracy and extent of bomb damage.

These pilots often flew deception operations that were tactically irrelevant but could be strategically important by diverting enemy resources and confusing enemy plans. It is also important to remember that, while that was the front end, behind them sat a huge number of interpreters and analysts, many of them women, who were employed to analyse the images brought back from those lines and interpret them for the senior command to work out what exactly they meant. Their part in the history of the PRU was an integral part of the war effort.

However, compared with many other units in our wartime armed forces, the units remain relatively unrecognised. They are commemorated as part of other main memorials, such as the RAF memorial on the Victoria Embankment, the RAF Bomber Command memorial in Green Park and the RAF Coastal Command memorial in Westminster Abbey. They are also included in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s marked graves, but a dedicated national memorial would be a fitting way to recognise the scale of their vital contribution to defeating the Nazis.

I know this is something my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) is passionate about, and I thank her for securing a debate that helps to acknowledge the wider requirement for defence to connect with society and for society to connect with defence and recognise why it is so important. More widely, her voice is also important in raising the profile of this memorial campaign. It is one small step but, collectively with lots of other stuff that is going on, it is a really important narrative that I am sure both sides of the House support and champion.

I particularly congratulate the hard work and perseverance of the Spitfire AA810 Project in progressing the memorial campaign. The group carries that name for a good reason—Spitfire AA810 was a specially modified reconnaissance aircraft used by the PRU, completing 14 long-range operational sorties during six months of service during the war. When we consider that those sorties might have been five hours long, predominantly over highly-guarded enemy territory, Spitfire AA810 had a significantly longer career than many other planes in the fleet—and fortunately so.

However, on 5 March 1942, on its way to catch sight of the Tirpitz, Spitfire AA810 was attacked by two Messerschmitts and crashed into the Norwegian mountains. Pilot Alastair ‘Sandy’ Gunn, who was mentioned earlier, managed to eject himself before impact, but he was badly burned. He was forced to hand himself in to the Germans, who sent him to the infamous Stalag Luft III, where he was part of the breakout immortalised in the film “The Great Escape”. The PRU is actually recognised in almost all such films. The imagery, intelligence and operations that took place were all underpinned by the PRU.

Sandy was eventually caught after that great escape. He was interrogated by the Gestapo and, tragically, shot. However, that was not the end of the aircraft’s story. Spitfire AA810 was recovered in 2018 from the Norwegian site where it had lain for 76 years. Fortunately, much of that aircraft had been preserved by peat and snow, so it presented a unique opportunity for restoration and rebuild back to an airworthy state. That has been taking shape over recent years.

Let me address some of the questions that right hon. and hon. Members have raised, and in particular, respond to the questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle on the campaign for a national memorial. I wish the project every success; it has my full support. With a prominent and fitting location chosen outside the Churchill War Rooms here in Westminster, it will be an exemplary addition to London’s memorials.

For the record, I have to state that the funding of such memorials remains a preserve of public subscriptions, driven by individuals and organisations. In line with the long-standing policy position of successive Governments, Ministers cannot support them in an official capacity, but in a personal one, I absolutely support it. I have written to the chief executive of the Royal Parks charity and Tony Hoskins of the Spitfire AA810 Project to express my hope that the plans for a Westminster memorial are successful. My hon. Friend can rely on me personally for that. I can only re-emphasise that conviction here today, and assure her that we welcome the efforts of all those who are working to get the memorial built.

Regarding the names from the PRU, I support a meeting with MOD officials to see what we can do. The National Archives is the main route, but if we have exhausted those records, I would be really interested to look at where else records are, or whether the MOD can help. It will be riddled with GDPR issues, I am sure, but we can talk through it and see whether we can find a solution or come up with some innovative way to make that information available.

Let me also address the question of how long it will take to get the memorial. Interestingly, this is a Department for Culture, Media and Sport issue, so I will write to ensure that my support is registered. I know that it is a private issue, but I also know that the Department is tracking and moving this forward, so I will make sure that I give it a nudge. I will write to the Department personally, if I can, to make sure we support it.

I am not going to devalue this debate. It is about the PRU. Given that it is just a matter of weeks since we commemorated the 80th anniversary of VE Day, it is time that the PRU’s contribution to victory in the second world war and to almost every battle is fully recognised, and that a national memorial ensures that we always remember not just the heroes in the stories but why we have a defence capability in the first place. It is an absolutely fantastic initiative, which gets my full support. It helps us to understand the men and women who helped to serve our country and who sacrificed so much, and importantly, what was required to protect our democracy and the great freedoms we enjoy in this nation today.