The pictures are considered important for archaeology and military studies and will be shown to the public within two years, according to a report in the Beijing Times.

The Japanese military took a total of 37,000 aerial pictures of airports, railway stations, bridges, piers, towns and famous icons, such as the Summer Palace in Beijing and city walls in Nanjing, mostly for military purposes.

The American National Archive preserved the valuable photos after Japan's surrender of World War II and opened them to the public in 1995, 50 years after the end of the war, as required by American law.

China's State Bureau of Culture Relics allocated a special fund to the Museum of Chinese History in 1998 to research and buy some of the pictures while they were still in the United States.

Experts from the museum studied the mountains of pictures for about four years and selected 11,000 pieces in March.

They cost more than US$200,000 to buy.

"These pictures are extremely precious," said Yang Lin, an archaeologist with the museum.

"The technology of aerial photography and satellite remote sensing has developed quite late but Japan had the most advanced filming technology during World War II.

"Before the 1960s we didn't have a single aerial picture and therefore we can't get clear ideas of the appearances of land forms, mine distributions, city layouts and their changes.

"These pictures may be very helpful in studies in many fields."

The Forbidden City, Zhongnanhai and Jingshan Hill can be seen very clearly in the pictures and some famous places long since lost are also shown.

Experts from the Museum of Chinese History are cataloguing the photos and will establish a database to share them with the public.

(China Daily August 30, 2002)