Defence Intelligence (DI) is an organisation within the United Kingdom intelligence community which focuses on gathering and analysing military intelligence. It differs from the UK's intelligence agencies in that it is an integral part of a government department – the Ministry of Defence (MoD) – rather than a stand-alone organisation. The organisation employs a mixture of civilian and military staff and is funded within the UK's defence budget. The organisation was formerly known as the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), but changed its name in 2009.
The Air Department of the British Admiralty was established prior to World War I by Winston Churchill to administer the Royal Naval Air Service.
Intelligence services in the Royal Air Force are delivered by Officers of the Royal Air Force Intelligence Branch and Airmen from the Intelligence Analyst Trade and Intelligence Analyst (Voice) Trade. The specialisation has around 1,200 personnel of all ranks posted to operational air stations, HQs and other establishments of the British Armed Forces, both in the United Kingdom and overseas.
RAF Medmenham is a former Royal Air Force station based at Danesfield House near Medmenham, in Buckinghamshire, England. Activities there specialised in photographic intelligence, and it was once the home of the RAF Intelligence Branch. During the Second World War, RAF Medmenham was the main interpretation centre for photographic reconnaissance operations in the European and Mediterranean theatres.
The Defence Intelligence Division of the South African National Defence Force is the primary military intelligence agency of South Africa which came into being on 27 April 1994. The other intelligence agencies of the country are:
The United Kingdom's Strategic Command (StratCom), previously known as Joint Forces Command (JFC), manages allocated joint capabilities from the three armed services.
The Royal Australian Survey Corps was a Corps of the Australian Army, formed on 1 July 1915 and disbanded on 1 July 1996. As one of the principal military survey units in Australia, the role of the Royal Australian Survey Corps was to provide the maps, aeronautical charts, hydrographical charts and geodetic and control survey data required for land combat operations.
The Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) was a department of the British War Office.
MI15, the British Military Intelligence Section 15, was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. It was set up in 1942 to handle aerial photography. In 1943 this function was transferred to the air ministry and MI15 became responsible for the coordination of intelligence about enemy anti-aircraft facilities.
The General Directorate of Mapping is the national mapping agency of Turkey under the Ministry of National Defense and is responsible for the official topographical mapping of the country in both hard-copy and digital forms.
The Australian Intelligence Corps (AUSTINT) is a corps within the Australian Army. It was formed on 6 December 1907 and provides intelligence personnel in every formation headquarters in the Army. As of 2007, the corps consisted of "169 officers and 232 other ranks".
The Finnish Defence Intelligence Agency is the combined signals (SIGINT), geospatial (GEOINT) and imagery intelligence (IMINT) agency of the Finnish Defence Forces. Operational since 2014, its responsibility is to support the defence of Finland through information gathering and analysis as an intelligence agency, organic to the Intelligence Division of Defence Command.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Alfred Earle, was a senior officer in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War who later served as Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff (1964–66), and Director General of British Defence Intelligence (1966–1968).
Aerial reconnaissance is reconnaissance for a military or strategic purpose that is conducted using reconnaissance aircraft. The role of reconnaissance can fulfil a variety of requirements including artillery spotting, the collection of imagery intelligence, and the observation of enemy maneuvers.
The Inter-Services Topographic Department (1940–1946) was a joint British Army and Navy organization created during World War II that was responsible for supplying topographic intelligence for all combined operations, and in particular, for preparing reports in advance of military operations overseas. This is an intelligence unit administered by the Royal Navy.
Group Captain Frederick Charles Victor Laws, was an officer in the Royal Air Force, an aerial surveyor, and the founder and most prominent pioneer of British aerial reconnaissance.
The Defence Intelligence Fusion Centre (DIFC) is based at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire. Largely created from the staff of the National Imagery Exploitation Centre and then known for several years as the Defence Geospatial Intelligence Fusion Centre, it can trace its history back to clandestine reconnaissance operations at the beginning of the Second World War by Sydney Cotton on behalf of MI6 and then MI4, and the formation of the Allied Central Interpretation Unit at RAF Medmenham.
The Defence School of Photography (DSoP) is a training centre for all photographers drawn from the three arms of the British Military and the Civil Service. The School has been located at RAF Cosford in Shropshire, England since 1963 and in its own purpose built building at Cosford since 1965. The school has gone through several iterations being firstly a Royal Flying Corps school, then a Royal Air Force School, then a Joint school before becoming the DSoP in 2003.
The National Collection of Aerial Photography is a photographic archive in Edinburgh, Scotland, containing over 30 million aerial photographs of worldwide historic events and places. From 2008–2015 it was part of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and since then it has been a sub-brand of Historic Environment Scotland. Many of the aerial reconnaissance photographs were taken during the Second World War and the Cold War, and were declassified and released by the Ministry of Defence. The collection also contains over 1.8 million aerial survey photographs of Scotland, during and in the years after the Second World War, as well as post-war Ordnance Survey, over 4 million photogrammetric images, and over 10 million aerial survey images of international sites as part of The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (TARA). The collection contains both military declassified and non-military aerial photographs from over a dozen different national and international organisations.
