Vital war work of local pilot inspires MP's call for memorial to heroics

TESSA Munt, MP for Wells and the Mendip Hills, has joined the campaign to commemorate the brave pilots and navigators of the Photographic Reconnaissance Units (PRU), who served during the Second World War.

- 

The PRU was formed on September 24, 1939, and throughout the Second World War it operated highly dangerous, clandestine photographic reconnaissance operations over all theatres of operation, and captured more than 26 million images of enemy operations and installations during the war.

The purpose of the PRU was to provide up-to-date intelligence to strategically plan the Allied actions in the war. Flying Spitfires and Mosquitos, the intelligence it gathered was used by all the armed forces, giving same day intelligence on enemy activity.

The intelligence provided by the PRU was used in the Cabinet War Rooms - now the ‘Churchill War Rooms’ located underneath the Treasury - and was instrumental in the planning of major operations; D-Day and the Dambusters Raid, the monitoring of major shipping movements such as the Bismarck and Tirpitz, and the locating of the site of the V1 and V2 rocket launching site at Peenemunde.

Due to the clandestine nature of their operations - they flew solo operations, unarmed and unarmoured - the death rate was nearly 50 per cent.

However, despite having one of the lowest survival rates of the war - life expectancy in the PRU was around two and a half months - there is no national memorial to the PRU.

The ‘Spitfire AA810 Project’ has led the campaign to establish such a memorial in central London.