More than 5 million aerial photographs of wartime are available for public consultation on the Internet. These photographs depict dramatic and macabre moments like the smoke from incinerators from the Auschwitz concentration camp and the landing of American troops on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
These images allow us to see the real war at first hand, said the project leader William Allan. It took years to scan these photographs after the time that they were no longer secret.
The photographs were taken from Allies airplanes, in great danger once flew alone, unprotected and usually at low altitude.
In photographs of Auschwitz, for example, you can see prisoners in single line, and photographs of D-Day you can see bodies floating in the sea.
But the photo is not only historical interest. Even today, such photographs are used to find unexploded bombs.