LITMIR.BIZ

       Sheet A showing Germany and Austria at 1:2,000,000 scale, one of MI9’s earliest silk maps, which used Bartholomew mapping. It may be the map referred to as ‘Double Eagle’ in the War Office print records.

      Where copies of individual sheets (either singly or in combination) survive, it has proved possible to identify the particular print medium, i.e. tissue (a very fine paper), silk or man-made fibre (MMF), almost always rayon but sometimes referred to as Bemberg silk. In some cases it has proved possible to be more precise. The Waddington list, for example, indicates that some of the maps were printed on Mulberry Leaf (ML) paper or Mulberry Leaf Substitute (MLS). Appendices 1–9 record the details of all the maps so far identified using these sources, including coverage, scale, dimensions, production details such as colour, print quantities and combinations, print medium, print dates and location of surviving copies.

      MI9’S CARTOGRAPHIC INEXPERIENCE

      MI9 may have been the initiators of the escape and evasion mapping programme but they were apparently not well versed in cartographic techniques, processes and procedures. Very many of the maps lack even basic identification. Many carry no title, series designation, date or edition number, and some carry no scale indicator. The proper referencing of military mapping is of fundamental importance in an operational scenario to ensure that everyone is using the same, and most up-to-date, version of the map. Even when cartographic referencing information is shown by MI9, it can prove to be very misleading. The most obvious examples of this are the sheets of GSGS Series 3982. The original operational map series designated with this GSGS (Geographical Section General Staff) number was the Europe Air series at a scale of 1:250,000 which existed prior to the outbreak of the War. These were reproduced as escape and evasion maps, largely on silk and tissue, at a reduced scale of 1:500,000. In reducing the scale, MI9 did not in any way alter the detail shown on the original map (even the series number) with the exception of the scale factor, so that on the resultant sheet, the font size of place and feature names is very small, although the detail is still legible.

       Sheet D of [Series 43] showing the title which identifies it as using ‘New Frontier’ and with the legend which identifies ‘Former Frontiers’ and ‘Present Frontiers’.

      The date on most of the sheets was in fact often the date of the original operational paper map and not the date of the escape and evasion map production. This is notably the case where compilation and imprint dates shown on the escape and evasion maps pre-date the start of the escape and evasion map production programme itself. This is also confirmed by the imprint numbers shown in the marginalia, often indicating print volumes well in excess of those produced as escape and evasion versions. The one exception to this was where boundaries are shown ‘at 1943’, for example in [Series 43]. Indeed, when D. Survey eventually assumed responsibility for escape and evasion map production in 1944, they proposed changes to the printing colours of boundaries and country names. In a letter dated 28 November 1944, MI9 came back strongly opposed to change, insisting that their policy of ‘present frontiers in red and pre-Munich frontiers in mauve’ be adhered to, not least because it had always been specified as such in their training courses and lectures.

       Detail from Bartholomew sheet C showing that MI9 stripped out most of the coverage of SE England in case copies fell into enemy hands.

       Sheet A4 showing details of the port of Danzig.

      MI9’s lack of knowledge of map production processes and procedures manifested itself in many other ways. It is a cardinal cartographic rule that different versions of the same map are identified differently, usually by a change in the edition number or, at the very least, in the production/print date. Both MI9 and the companies they initially used to print the maps were oblivious to such practices. As a result, the escape and evasion maps carried no edition numbers or production dates, and some maps apparently identified as being the same were in fact different. To give a few examples: there were at least two versions of sheet C with one version extending one degree longitudinally further east than the other version.

      There were also at least three versions of the Danzig port plan. Whilst all three versions provided large-scale coverage of the port of Danzig, one carried the sheet number A4, whereas the second version carried no sheet number and the third carried the sheet number A3. The three versions varied also marginally in scale and in geographical extent. They also carried different intelligence annotations, the sheet marked A4 carrying far more intelligence information than the other two versions, in the form of annotations directing escapers, for example, where to find Swedish ships, where the arc lights were located and how far the beam of light extended. In the case of sheets J3 and J4 (covering Italy), the geographical areas of coverage of the two sheets were sometimes reversed and the scale was varied, sometimes being produced at 1:1,378,000 and at other times reduced to 1:1,500,000 (see Appendix 1).

       Detail showing the sheet identifier from sheet S3 of the Bartholomew series; sheet S2 is printed on the reverse so the identifier S3/S2 has also been included.

      These are the principal variations identified to date: there may well be others yet to be discovered. It is important to describe them in detail since they are only really identifiable when surviving copies of the maps can be compared. The differences do, however, highlight the extent to which individual sheet identification of MI9’s escape and evasion maps needs always to be treated with caution.

      The solution to the challenges posed by MI9’s lack of adherence to usual cartographic identification procedures has been to use the standard cartographic technique of showing in square brackets [ ] any information which does not appear on the printed maps but which helps to identify them. The series number and series title, for example [Series 43] and Series GSGS 3982 [Fabric], have been rendered in this form to aid identification.

      Where the base map used for escape and evasion map production carried no sheet number, MI9 devised an arbitrary sheet numbering system. In the case of their early attempts based on the maps of John Bartholomew & Son Ltd of Edinburgh, the sheets carried an upper case Roman alphabet letter, often in conjunction with an Arabic number, for example C, H2, or S3.

      MI9 caused themselves significant production problems when they decided (for unknown reasons) to cut and panel sheets to produce an escape and evasion map by piecing together up to nine sheet sections of an existing operational series, rather than simply reproducing the operational map sheets on their existing sheet lines. [Series 43] is a good example of this practice. It is clear that this escape and evasion series was produced by panelling together

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