On 15 May 1942 after photographing German destroyers berthed at the port of Kiel, Spitfire pilot Flight Lieutenant D. W. Stevenson photographed 'heavy construction work' near the Peenemünde aerodrome. Later in the month Constance Babington Smith decided "the scale was too small ... then something unusual caught my eye ... some extraordinary circular embankments ... I then dismissed the whole thing from my mind." Then a year later on 22 April 1943, Bill White and Ron Prescott in RAF de Havilland Mosquito DZ473 were sent from Leuchars to photograph damage from Allied bombing at the Stettin railyards: "On leaving Stettin, we left our cameras running all down the north coast of Germany, and when the film was developed, it was found to contain pictures of Peenemünde." The Medmenham interpreters studied the elliptical earthworks (originally photographed in May 1942) and noticed an "object" long projecting from what was thought to be a service building, although it had mysteriously disappeared on the next frame.