The John Ball website <http://www.air-photo.com/> is one of the premier Revisionist websites, albeit a highly technical one. It would appeal to Sherlock Holmes type forensic investigators - and in the light of the Irving Trial that many are following with avid interest, I am pleased to run the letter below, just to demonstrate the quality of Revisionist pioneer work.
Here is John Ball's reaction and offer of help to David Irving - in response to the first-page article Kim Murphy article of January 7, 2000 in the Los Angeles Times:
David:
Further to the L.A. Times article, there are 2 important points contradicted by air photos. The 10th paragraph from the bottom states: "...the extermination campaign was carried out in deliberate secrecy (and evidence included) testimony of...prisoners who removed bodies from the gas chambers...."
Whether the alleged mass-murder centers were hidden from view or visible is important as Allied military commanders, political leaders, Polish partisan fighters, and German commanders have always testified they only heard isolated rumors but received no confirmations of the alleged mass-executions until June, 1944 when 2 inmates supposedly escaped from Birkenau. (Editorial comment: The inmates being Wechsler and Rudolf Vrba. Check Vrba's testimony at the Zundelsite!)
At Birkenau it is alleged 800 inmates were gassed daily from May, 1943 to Sept. 1944 at 2 large cremation buildings that were kept hidden from outside villagers and inmates by hedges and tree branches beside the wire fences and by a second fence with watch-towers 1 kilometer (.6 mile) out. http://www.air-photo.com/english/loadeng.html (Right Column: Aus. Area)
However 1944 photo enlargements in my 1992 book Air Photo Evidence shows there were no hedges or other barriers beside the single wire fence and there was no second fence 1 kilometer out but rather there were actively worked farms, roads, and villages so thousands of people a day had an unobstructed view of the cremation buildings. This means mass-executions for even one day could not have been kept secret and the only possible reason Allied spies did not report the supposed 1943 and '44 mass-murders was because the executions did not occur. http://www.air-photo.com/english/katyncomp.html http://www.air-photo.com/english/loadeng.html (Right Column: external view)
At Birkenau it is alleged by hundreds of supposed eye-witnesses that cyanide gas-pellets were dropped through 4 roof-holes over each of 2 gas-chambers. But the 1944 air photos and physical inspection of the roofs covering the 2 below-ground-level alleged gas chambers show the roofs had no holes in 1944 and the 2 holes in one roof that exist today were crudely smashed through the cement after 1945. So no holes existed to insert the gas pellets in the below-ground-level rooms and ventilate the enclosures. http://www.air-photo.com/english/altered.html
It is said victims were cremated with large quantities of coke stored in the cremation building yards and the chimneys emitted constant visible smoke. However air photos from May to Sept, 1944 show no large coke storage bins and absolutely no visible smoke coming from the 12 meter (39 foot) high chimneys, which indicates only a small number of corpses could have been cremated daily.
http://www.air-photo.com/english/coalcomp.html (Editorial comment: Check the 66 Q/A on "cremation" on the Zundelsite)
Mass graves are alleged to have been excavated from 1942 to '44 however the only graves visible on the May to Dec., 1944 air photos within or around Birkenau camp are 5 graves dug by the Soviets 50 meters (165 feet) outside the camp's west end identified on the February 19th air photos and seen in a Soviet film.
http://www.air-photo.com/english/loadeng.html (Right column: Cremations +5 graves)
http://www.air-photo.com/english/loadeng.html (Right column: Film Clips - 5. Birkenau Mass Graves)
At Majdanek it is alleged mass-shootings were secretly conducted from June, 1942 to '44, however the camp was surrounded by a single wire fence on two sides of which were hundreds of family homes in the Lublin city suburbs making secrecy impossible.
http://www.air-photo.com/english/loadeng.html (Right Column: Majdanek:camp)
Treblinka maps and models built for 1960's trials from supposed eye-witness descriptions show a large camp with dozens of buildings surrounded by fences and guard-towers with cement gas-chambers and immense mass-graves. But 1944 air photos show the area was a farm containing 5 buildings and with marks on the ground of 3 other possible earlier temporary structures, but no other marks from the dozens of described buildings, cement gas-chambers, and watchtowers.
http://www.air-photo.com/english/loadeng.html (Right Column: Treblinka:Treb.camp)
Belzec is alleged to have been a secret "death-camp" with large mass-graves however 1940 to '44 air photos show it was an active logging-camp on a visible hillside where mass-graves would have been impossible to excavate in the thin-soiled hill-top strewn with tree-stumps. http://www.air-photo.com/english/loadeng.html (Right Column: Belzec:camp)
Further descriptions are on the referred-to maps. A summary of 10 "eye-witness" stories contradicted by the air photos is on http://www.air-photo.com/english/loadeng.html
John Ball - Air Photo Expert, Geologist
URL: air-photo.com
MAIL: mineman@sprint.ca
Thought for the Day:
"Doesn't it all hinge on whether the enemies of free speech anticipated this trial or not? Did Miss Lipstadt attempt to goad David Irving into this action or did she and her publishers really misunderstand British Libel Law?"
(Letter to the Zundelsite)