Pembrokes in pictures. Just visible here under the fuselage of Pembroke C(PR) Mk 1 XL953 are the sliding door runners covering the photo-recce version’s vertical camera windows. Other cameras could be housed in a removable cabin frame and took images through optically flat side windows. The PR Pembrokes were based in Wesf Germany during the Cold War and used in Operation Hallmark to photograph installations inside East Germany while flying along the edges of the Berlin Air Corridors.
To extend their life after micro fatigue initiations were found in the wing spars, 14 RAF Pembrokes were re-sparred at BAC Weybridge in 1970-71. The first four to be done are seen in this official photo: XF796, WV736, XF799 and WV735. WV735 took 13 months to modify while the last to be completed, XL954, took only two. Note the cockpit roof bulge in XF799 (second from back) which housed the remote controls for the transponder and HF radio.
