Phrae Aerial Photomosaic

This page discusses World War II aerial photos taken by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and provided on-line by the Geo-spatial Digital Archive Project (GDAP)¹ in its Williams-Hunt Aerial Photograph Digital Collection.²

The Williams-Hunt collection has two separate sets of aerial photos for Phrae,³ both dated in 1944 and located as shown:⁴

In the following, all the aerial photos were joined manually into mosaics because Microsoft’s ICE, a panorama program, introduced too much distortion.

Photomosaic No. 1

The area around Phrae outlined above in red was recorded in six RAF aerial photos taken on 07 March 1944:⁵

A higher resolution image, zipped, is available for download here.

The following GDAP images were used in the above photomosaic⁶

02580.jpg
02581.jpg
02582.jpg
02583.jpg
02584.jpg
02585.jpg

and are available as a zipped bundle here.⁷ They were manually assembled approximately like this:⁸

Photomosaic No. 2

An alternate, macro, two-photo view dated 24 January 1944, as outlined in blue on the site map above, was also recorded:⁹

A higher resolution image is available for download here.

The following GDAP images were used in the above photomosaic:¹⁰

02577.zip
02578.zip

and manually assembled approximately like this:¹¹

GDAP, the source of these photos, has asked that the following information be included regarding the aerial imagery shown above:

• Williams-Hunt Aerial Photos Collection
• Original from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
• Digital Data from Center for Southeast Asia Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University
• Digital Archive from Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy (CRMA), Thailand

Last Updated on 13 January 2026

1. webpage, at link <http://gdap.crma.ac.th/>, is no longer available[↩]
2. webpage, at link <http://gdap.crma.ac.th/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=3>, is no longer available. The collection and its origin are described in detail in:

   ● Lertlum, PhD, Col Surat, and Dr Elizabeth Moore, Williams-Hunt Aerial Photograph Collection, (undated); available as here linked.
   ● Moore, Elizabeth, The Williams-Hunt Collection, Sari – International Journal of the Malay World and Civilisation, 27(2)(2009), pp 265-284.
   ● Periasamy, Makeswary, “A View from the Top”, biblioasia, 5(1) (Apr 2009), pp 38-42.[↩]

3. N18°08 E100°09 Source: Google Earth fix on apparent center of town.[↩]
4. “Terrain” map from  Nations Online Project: Searchable Map and Satellite View of Thailand using Google Earth Data (link: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/google_map_thailand.htm is no longer available). Annotation (red & blue colored items) placed with Microsoft Publisher by author; my ref: \02370 Phrae, KaengLuang\WH\Phrae photomosaic locatns.jpg[↩]
5. Photos were manually assembled. The mosaic is oriented so that north is top-of-page.[↩]
6. average size is 200 KB[↩]
7. my ref: bPROJECT\_MAPS\THAILAND Maps\Williams-Hunt (WH) Aerials\Phrae\Phrae relignmts\Phrae composite 1 ok\Phrae composite 1 ok.zip[↩]
8. Drawn by author using Microsoft Publisher; my ref: \02370 Other locations\02370 Phrae, KaengLuang\WH\Phrae photomosaic locatn-1.jpg[↩]
9. Again, photos were manually assembled with mosaic reoriented so that north is top-of-page; my ref: \02370 Other locations\02370 Phrae, KaengLuang\WH\Phrae-meld-02577-8.jpg[↩]
10. \02370 Other locations\02370 Phrae, KaengLuang\WH\0257x.jpgs[↩]
11. Drawn with Microsoft Publisher by author; my ref: \02370 Other locations\02370 Phrae, KaengLuang\WH\Phrae photomosaic locatn-2.jpg.[↩]