Etablissement Cinématographique et photographique des armées.

[Bertrand HUGOT]

ECPA : Etablissement Cinématographique et photographique des armées.

ECPA,
2 à 8 rue du fort
F-94205 IVRY SUR SEINE
FRANCE

01.49.60.52.00.

ecpa@calva.net

opening hours :
10-16 Monday to Thursday,
10-15 Friday

how to join ?

South -East of Paris. By Metro, line 7 at the terminus, Mairie d'Ivry, you ride back up the Robespierre's street, you arrive at a round about, cross over it then take to the street towards the Fort. (I took 10-15 minutes from the terminus) After to let an ID against a pass, you can go to the Médiathèque (media library).

The media library.

In this media library there are 91873 photographs taken during WW2 then 350000 pictures taken by the Propaganda Kompanies. In these last and may be the more important for us, 90 albums taken by the Lufwaffe PK and 127 by the Heer's PK. The others are made by the Kriegsmarine PK and Africa Korps PK.

There are not really an index, but this catalogue was made by a kind of rough estimate for the period, place, theme and name of the PK. These captions available in the filing 'Fonds Allemand' are not complete or hazy. If someone identify a place, an insignia or a gruppe can put its captions and so help future researchers. These captions are written at the beginning of each reports.

Photographs are shown in a heavy filing case. In a same filing class you can found a report taken on the Atlantic Wall then suddenly visit the Tunisia and to end in Russia.

You can order pictures for yourself or to publish them. Price for one print in 13*18 cm is 45 FF ( 6,86 euros) then the fees according to the number of copies.

The archivist can help you in your researches and some of them speak English.

[Richard T Eger]

From 12 O'Clock High!:

Bertrand H
ECPAD
Thu Feb 28 20:41:44 2024
212.30.116.58

Hi,

Many fans of Luftwaffe know the archives of the ECPAD (L'Etablissement de Communication et de Production Audiovisuelle de la Défense). More 350,000 prints taken by the Germans Propaganda Kompagnies are available in France at Le Fort d'Ivry where you can look all these pictures, then order them.
A web site is now opened and some prints are readable. Take a look at :

www.ecpad.fr/ecpa/index.htm

If you type DAA in the "recherche simplifiée" you will find a Stuka and a Me 109.

Sincerely,

Bertrand H


(This appears to be the same organization or one a part of the other as the ECPA.

Regards,
Richard)

[This message has been edited by Richard T Eger (edited 26 March 2024).]

[Richard T Eger]

From 12 O'Clock High!:

Amanda likes airplane noise.
Which Stukageshwader...?
Sat Aug 24 21:05:58 2024
205.188.209.112

Does anyone know which Stukageshwader attacked Poland on Sept. 1, 1939 before the war was actually declared? Any info on this would be greatly appreciated

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

CJE
First bombs of WWII
Sun Aug 25 19:32:12 2024
193.251.78.157

They were dropped by Oblt Bruno Dilley's Kette of 3./St.G.1.
Text can be found in Cajus Bekker's "Angriff Höhe 4000" and photographs at ECPA (France).

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

Christoph Awender
Attack on Dirschau bridge..
Sun Aug 25 07:34:09 2024
62.47.186.121

Hello!

Most likely you mean the attack of the 3./St.G.3 on the Dirschau bridge at 04:35. They should attack the bridge to destroy the ignition cables already prepared on the bridge.

Christoph
http://www.wwiidaybyday.com

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

Amanda likes airplane noise
yay
Sun Aug 25 07:37:23 2024
64.12.96.104

yup. So, Stukageshwader 3. thanks.

[Richard T Eger]

From 12 O'Clock High!:

Andreas Brekken
Photographs of the PK Berichter - Did they all end up at BA?
Wed Oct 2 09:49:14 2024
129.240.8.184

Hi!

Just curious about a couple of "things":

The so called Propagandakompanie photographers were often employed by commercial companies (before, after, during??) their engagement as photographers in the armed forces.

This makes sense, and is paralleled by the war reporters of today.

My question is:

Did all of their work end up in the Bundesarchiv?

Do their "mother companies" keep archives like they do in Norway?

Just curious....

Andreas

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

Steve Coates
No
Wed Oct 2 19:06:47 2024
62.7.65.184

A large number are also at the ECPA in Paris.

[Richard T Eger]

From 12 O'Clock High!:

Wayne Bowman
Ju87 markings
Fri Jan 31 00:50:24 2024
64.228.36.19

Can anyone tell me if there was any correlation between the fuselage markings (i.e. "T6+BB") and the numbers sometimes shown on the landing gear fairing (i.e. "B2")for the Ju87?

I'm trying to piece together some makings for a Ju87-G1 (other than Rudel's A/C) but there seams to be very little info available that I can find.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Wayne

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

JIm P.
Actually, that does appear to be the case, at ....
Fri Jan 31 01:54:41 2024
67.242.219.232

least for St.G. 2. Without references to hand I can't be more specific other than to say it does appear that the number on the wheel spats in most cases appears to equal the letter for the specific aircraft.

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

G.R.Morrison
Right you are - example
Fri Jan 31 14:52:38 2024
204.238.196.60

My friend recalls correctly, and here's a fine, yet little-known example: While Staffelkapitaen of 1./S.G. 2 it would have been "logical" for Rudel to fly "T6+AH", yet he flew "T6+HH", with an "8" on the wheel spat of his Ju 87D-1, because this letter matched his radio call-sign. (Nice photos in the ECPA collection.)

I can only recall (I'm at work, w/out my refs of course) one instance where the number on the spat did not mirror the aircraft's individual letter of the alphabet, and this was a III.Gruppe machine (a Ju 87D-5).

Are you seeking a particular machine or pilot?

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

Wayne Bowman
Thanks a lot guys. Actually...
Fri Jan 31 17:14:32 2024
64.228.124.91

... I had initially tried to find markings for Anton Korol's G1 but had no luck. The markings on the G1 (identified incorrectly as a G2) on page 290 of Griehl's book on the Ju87 are interesting as well, but only the first two characters of the code are visible (looks like "GC+"??), though I'm not sure that my painting skills are up to trying the temp. white squiggle pattern on this machine. I'm also unsure of which unit this A/C belonged to.

Had I known before I sarted this project that there were only 20 or so G1 models made, and the associated problem of finding good reference photos of such a limited number of A/C, I would have gone with the G2 option instead.

In general though, any examples of valid codes for G1s from 10Pz/ SG2 would be like gold for me.

Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,

Wayne

[Richard T Eger]

From 12 O'Clock High!:

nik zorro
OTTO KITTEL
Sun Feb 9 20:03:30 2024
195.167.116.167

I'M LOOKING FOR OTTO KITTEL'S AIRCRAFT, COLOUR PROFILE

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

Isao Dakeshita
KITTEL Machine
Mon Feb 10 03:27:22 2024
219.109.69.103

ECPA has nice photo!

[Richard T Eger]

From 12 O'Clock High!:

Richard T. Eger
"Missing" material
Thu Feb 27 04:35:51 2024
162.33.246.86

Dear fellow researchers,

I'd like to throw an idea out for some discussion. Most of us know the classic that the Luftwaffe loss records for 1944 are missing or don't exist. Then there is the contingent that says that only 3% of the Luftwaffe records survived the war.

Now, you go to the PRO, IWM, BA/MA, NARA II, AFHRA, or the National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland. You dive into records others have seen - maybe, except that, frankly, the records are so vast that there certainly remain many, many records that haven't seen a researcher's eyes since WW II, waiting to be discovered. These are the ones that have been cataloged or, at the very least, are accessible to the public.

But, beyond these, what about the "missing" records? I'm not talking about "missing" in the classic sense of something having gotten lost or destroyed, but records packaged up neatly which simply sit in archives or government warehouses pining away for someone to catalog them.

I'm beginning to get a bit of an inkling of this and, quite frankly, it is raising my blood pressure a bit. I just thought I'd toss this out to see if others are familiar with such situations and might like to put in their two cents. Who knows, with enough information brought to hand, there might even be a way to find these missing "Arks of the Covenant" in those huge government warehouses!

Regards,
Richard

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

Ferdinando D'Amico
Speaking of raising blood pressure...
Thu Feb 27 15:35:49 2024
80.104.163.125

...why not speak of the photographic material at the ECPA (Paris), the "other" half of the Bundesarchiv stuff, with a few thousands rolls of Heer, Marine and Luftwaffe 1940-44 negatives not yet printed, both for the scarce money and personnel and because their priority is certainly not the highest (euphemism). One or two new albums (about 200 new photographs) have been realized per year in the recent past, but there are hundreds waiting...

And what about the Photographic Branch of the Italian Air Force (Rome), where in the past ten years have been "lost" all the albums containing b/w contact prints of the negatives (and also Agfacolor film) of the Regia Aeronautica, mainly for the 1942-43 period...? The nice "Catch 22" consequence is that, even if you have obtained in the past copy of one photograph, or even if you know perfectly what photograph to ask for, you can't have it, simply because there is no more reference to it...

Talk about blood pressure raising...

HTH, all the best

Ferdinando D'Amico

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

Franek Grabowski
Speaking of raising blood pressure...
Fri Feb 28 17:19:58 2024
213.25.54.73

Well, we should add that they (ECPA & BAMA) want excessive fees for the stuff they have no copyright for. Both archives are rather unfriendly, eg. it's not possible to obtain a photocopy of a contact prints in ECPA.
Otherwise I think the future is in the computer databases like AWM one, where the one may search by the keywords and in the high quality scans making the access very fast without any waste for processing.
All the best
Franek

[Richard T Eger]

For discussion of copyrights, user fees, etc., as they relate to the ECPA, the reader is referred to the "Document Handling Issues" forum, "Copyrights, user, fees, etc." topic.

Regards,
Richard

[Richard T Eger]

From within a thread on 12 O'Clock High!:

CJE
ECPA
Thu Mar 6 04:21:34 2024
80.11.88.217

...

I have been told ECPA reached an agreement with BA and the whole collection should be returned to Koblenz within a couple of years, ECPA keeping a copy of the negative for their own exploitation.

[Richard T Eger]

From 12 O'Clock High!:

Scott Gentile
Looking for DO-17 cockpit pictures
Sat Apr 12 12:47:47 2024
12.242.247.65

Any pictures of any version would be a great help.

Thanks,
Scott.