Original Item: Only One Available. This is a vintage, original, never-issued WWII Army Air Force cloth 2-sided color "escape" map which was issued to pilots and bombing crews. Condition is excellent, though there are stains from decades of storage and age. The war in the Pacific would eventually draw closer to a nuclear response and Japan's unconditional surrender.
It is double sided and measures 24 inches high by 26 inches wide.
Font side top border reads EASTERN ASIA 1:1,000,000 TOKYO NI 54 and shows Tokyo, the harbor and surrounding islands. This side is dated 1943
Reverse side top border reads EASTERN ASIA 1:1,000,000 OSAKA NI 53 and shows Osaka,and much of the lower half of Japan. This side is dated 1944
The map was:
Prepared under the direction of the Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, by the Army Map Service (PT), U.S. Army, Washington, D.C. 1943.
The series of maps began in early 1943 with cloth maps of Kagoshima, Nagasaki, Osaka and Tokyo, followed several months later with the rest of the maps in the series. The maps all contain a scale of 1:1,000,000 in the modified polyconic projection of the IMW The maps of Japan were drawn from Japanese Imperial Land Survey Maps dated 1937, with data revised based on intelligence reports. Chinese and Japanese place names were corrected to modified Hepburn (Romaji system). All of the maps included elevation tints, although maps such as this one without elevation tints were made specifically for the US Navy of all of the maps in this series except NL50/NL51.
A wonderful wartime map that was a necessity for our boys in the air and on the sea.
