This photo came at a steep price...

This photo came at a steep price...  In this age of satellite imagery and the Internet, it's shocking to realize just how difficult it was to obtain an image like the one at right was in World War II.  This particular image shows the Japanese air strip at Buka, Bougainville.  To get it, a volunteer crew had to fly a reconnaissance plane over the base, which was of course full of Japanese fighter planes.

Today, I can just dial it up on Google Maps (though of course the image is probably several years old).  Military planners today can get an up-to-date photo of anywhere on earth in very short order.