Contrails are a common sight now, but prior the the advent of commercial jet travel in the late 50s, there was little reason for planes to fly high enough to form contrails. However, during the Second World War, high altitude airial dogfights over the UK were quite common. Contrails in the clear blue sky were a common part of wartime Britain.
This excerpt from a Pathe newsreel shows this quite clearly. It’s a piece about a nice little english village called Meopham – which is in Kent, between London and the bombers. The shots of the contrails are between pretty pastoral scenes, and puppies playing with kittens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuDN4WNwmJ4
(Click on “Watch in high quality” on the Youtube version)
There are two shots of the same contrails. Interesting because you can see that the trails have persisted and drifted to the right. Judging by the amount of change, probably over 20 minutes. You can also see a new contrail being formed.
These contrails look a bit odd, fragmented. We are used to seeing contrails that are long and straight. But the contrails in the film were formed by actual fighter planes, where the pilots were trying to kill each other. Hence they would be climbing and diving, twisting and turning in an attempt to out-maneuver each other. The contrails would start and stop as they climbed in and out of contrail altitude.
While these few contrails are interesting enough, it was just a skirmish on the way to where the real action was taking place: London, where the dogfights must have been incredible, leaving a criss-crossing web of trails:
The above photos show dogfights during the Battle of Britain in 1940. The German bombers were accompanied by fighter planes which would try to defend the bombers from the British fighters. They were at a high altitude to avoid anti-aircraft fire. Hence you get these amazing patterns of contrails which tell a tale of life and death at 28,000 feet above London.
The British won the Battle of Britain by 1941, establishing control of the airspace, moving the battle to Europe. This did not end the contrails, but brought a certain order to them. Bombers departing for Europe would climb to cruising altitude before crossing the channel, and this created another kind of story in the sky:
The above photo shows St Paul’s Catherdral in London, with departing bomber contrails behind it. This is probably the best photo of a persistent WWII contrail, showing the trail spreading and dropping “mares tails”, exactly like modern contrails sometimes do. It’s such a good photo you might think it’s a fake, but the original came from the Hulton-Deutsch Collection and can be found in the Corbis photo library as part a retrospective titled “V-1 “Buzz Bombs“.
Here’s another book with contrail photos from 1945:
(High definition version here)
Here’s some American newsreel footage of contrails at the Battle of the Bulge, 1945:
One cannot compare old trails with more recent ones. There’s no way to prove or disprove anything. These could be smoke.
All trails you see in the sky “could be smoke”. But what’s more likely? What does the evidence indicate here?
Listen to the commentary in this 1944 video. Are they talking about smoke?
http://contrailscience.com/memphis-belle-wwii-bomber-contrails-1944/
Greetings Uncinus,
You have a very informative website. I commend you for the patience and respect your model when dealing with those who disagree with you. I just wanted to comment on the voodoo trail. The fact that it was left by a Raytheon plane, in my opinion, does nothing to prove the innocent nature of that particular contrail, as Raytheon appears to be largely involved in defense technology. I was surprised that no one else mentioned this.
I also have some questions regarding flight paths that I would like to pose when I have the time. Thank you for providing the information on this site.
I don’t think you can ever prove “innocent nature”, however, Raytheon makes aviation equipment, so it’s the most normal thin in the world for them to fly their test plane around in circles.
Hi
I’m trying to locate the source of the iconic photo of contrails over St Paul’s cathedral in London in order to obtain the right to use the image in a book.
Any ideas?
Gill Richardson
Does this help -> http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/Enlargement.aspx?id=HU034078&caller=imagegroups
???
Uncinus, I’m pretty sure the English village is called MEOPHAM, “ham” being the old English for “village”.
So it is. Fixed.
Unfortunately the 2nd video (from 1945, above the B-o-t-Bulge one) is no longer available on you tube
From the book “Flight To Arras” by Antoine de Saint Exupery, written in 1942 about a military mission in 1940:
_______________________
“Are the anti-aircraft firing, Dutertre?”
“I believe they are firing, Captain.”
Dutertre cannot tell. The bursts are too distant and the smoke is blended in with the ground. They cannot hope to bring us down by such vague firing. At thirty three thousand feet we are virtually invulnerable. They are firing in order to gauge our position, and probably also to guide the fighter groups towards us. A fighter group diluted in the sky like invisible dust.
The German on the ground knows us by the pearly white scarf which every plane flying at high altitude trails behind like a bridal veil. The disturbance created by our meteoric flight crystallizes the watery vapor in the atmosphere. We unwind behind us a cirrus of icicles. If the atmospheric conditions are favorable to the formation of clouds, our wake will thicken bit by bit and become an evening cloud over the countryside.
The fighters are guided towards us by their radio, by the bursts on the ground, and by the ostentatious luxury of our white scarf. Nevertheless we swim in an emptiness almost interplanetary. Everything around us and within us is total immobility.”
______________________________
(thanks to Jref poster, LTC8K6, for finding the text)
That’s an excellent quote there, “Stupid”. I’ll add it to the “Persisting and Spreading Contrails” Article.
http://contrailscience.com/persisting-and-spreading-contrails/
Hi Uncinus. Saw this vid on another ‘Chemtrail’ debunking site (not quite as well structured as this one) and wasn’t sure which thread to drop it in:
http://www.nmsr.org/chemtrls.htm
(There may be other useful stuff on there, but I havn’t the required design insensitivity to wade through centred blocks of blue and red, italic Times Roman)
I actually have a thread just for that video. It’s one I posted (I’m Epoxynous on YouTube, back from when I picked names randomly for everything)
http://contrailscience.com/memphis-belle-wwii-bomber-contrails-1944/
Still, should probably be here too.
I found this site while googling for a response to a person on Facebook. Good stuff, keep it up. World War 2 does rather put the lie to the chemtrail speculation.