This page discusses World War II aerial photos taken by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and provided on-line by the Geo-spatial Digital Archive Project (GDAP) in its Williams-Hunt Aerial Photograph Digital Collection. ))
The collection and its origin are described in detail in:
Lertlum, PhD, Col Surat, and Dr Elizabeth Moore, Williams-Hunt Aerial Photograph Collection, (undated); available as here linked.
Moore, Elizabeth, The Williams-Hunt Collection, Sari – International Journal of the Malay World and Civilisation, 27(2)(2009), pp 265-284.
Periasamy, Makeswary, “A View from the Top“, biblioasia, 5(1) (Apr 2009), pp 38-42.))
The Williams-Hunt collection has aerial photo coverage on two different dates for Chiang Rai:12
Photomosaic No. 1
The area around Chiang Rai outlined above in red was recorded on six RAF aerial photos dated 05 October 1944, plus two undated:3
A higher resolution image is available for download here.
The following GDAP images were used in the above photomosaic:4
02492.jpg
02493.jpg
02494.jpg
02495.jpg
02496.jpg
02497.jpg
02499.jpg
02500.jpg
assembled approximately like this, using a combination of ICE and manual fitting:5
Photomosaic No. 2
An alternate mosaic, as outlined in blue on the site map above, was assembled by Allied intelligence and published on 15 November 1943:6
A higher resolution image is available for download here.
The following GDAP image was the source for the above photomosaic:7
GDAP, the source of these photos, has asked that the following information be included regarding the aerial imagery shown above:
- Williams-Hunt Aerial Photos Collection
- Original from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
- Digital Data from Center for Southeast Asia Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University
- Digital Archive from Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy (CRMA), Thailand
| First published on Internet | ||
- N19°54
E99°50 Source: Google Earth fix on apparent center of town. [↩] - “Terrain” map from Nations Online Project: Searchable Map and Satellite View of Thailand using Google Earth Data. Annotation (red & blue colored items) placed with PhotoShop by author. [↩]
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Photos were assembled using Microsoft ICE (Image Composition Editor) as much as possible. Order of assembly was important: images 02492-0294 and 02495-02497 were assembled first and then joined. 02499 and 02500 were then also processed by ICE, but had to be manually added to the resulting composite because it did not sufficiently overlap the other photos for the ICE program to stitch them together.
Mosaic has been oriented so that its north is to the top of the page. [↩]
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The files used here are 1024 KB. Downloading the files which are designated “[full size]” requires a special request form to be emailed to the Head, GDAP.
[↩]
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Drawn by author with Microsoft Publisher.
[↩]
- Allied-generated photomosaic has been oriented so that its north is to the top of the page. [↩]
- The file used here is 1024 KB. Downloading files which are designated “[full size]” requires a special request form to be emailed to the Head, GDAP. [↩]
