Provenance of D-Day maps - Armchair General and HistoryNet >> The Best Forums in History

rinkerdink · #1 11 Nov 12, 03:40

Hi All,

I have recently migrated to Australia but before we left Europe I aquired a few histprical artifacts/ items for posterity and my ongoing interest, these range from Napoleonic items through the a set of GSGS maps that I was told were used on D-Day. There are some markings on these maps that look like they were written on back in the day. I took them to the Royal Engineers Museum in Chatham, Kent and was told that they "look" right as in of the age and also that the writing is of the style you would expect of that time. I also sent a picture of a section of one of the maps (that showed sketched landing zone around Pegasus Bridge) to the Green Jackets museum to see if the curator could shed any light for me but to no avail. I was wondering if there was any body on here that knows about these maps, there likely use on the D-Day operation and could offer an opinion on the likely provenance of them. I'm not sure how to attach pictures but I could email the section i sent to the rgj museum curator if anybody is interested? There is also a rough drawn map or banding machine copied map that looks like it shows the access routes for the landing craft, I've never seen or heard of anything like this? the chap from the RE museum thought they must be of Naval origin but it seems strange all the maps were together?

Thanks for reading and any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Chris

Carl Schwamberg · #2 11 Nov 12, 20:03

Rich Anderson is a currently published historian of D-Day or properly Operation Neptune, & familar with a lot of the maps/documents of the operation. He would be my first recomendation. PM me for more info on approaching Anderson about this.

If you have scanned any of the maps onto your machine you can use the 'Manage Attachments' controls tin the 'Additional Options' section below the 'Reply to Thread' section. Scroll down from the text box in 'reply to thread', its a half page down.

rinkerdink · #3 12 Nov 12, 03:29

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, i'll pm you about the contact, I think the section of one of the maps should be attached. I have similar markings on another of the maps indicating break out zones from a beach landing zone. Can't remember the beach off hand but it was one of the ones that the Canadians and British forces landed on.

Hopefully the jpeg will have uploaded correctly...

rinkerdink · #4 12 Nov 12, 03:39

rinkerdink · #5 12 Nov 12, 03:39

2 sorry dummy posts so i can PM

rinkerdink · #6 18 Jul 13, 05:11

Hi all,

As the migration stress has settled down now I am looking to shed some light on these maps, any thoughts or opinion will be most welcome or indeed any pointers to where I may find some answer.

Thanks

Chris

Kevin Kenneally · #7 29 Jul 13, 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by rinkerdink

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, i'll pm you about the contact, I think the section of one of the maps should be attached. I have similar markings on another of the maps indicating break out zones from a beach landing zone. Can't remember the beach off hand but it was one of the ones that the Canadians and British forces landed on.

Hopefully the jpeg will have uploaded correctly...

The man sheet you have shown is the area about seven kilometers south of "Sword Beach" in the "Roger" Section of this beach.

http://members.shaw.ca/junobeach/ima...20Overlord.jpg

Look at the link and go to the full-size map to help you locate this.

Kevin Kenneally · #8 29 Jul 13, 20:27

Please see the attached picture of Sword Beach.