Normandy Maps

[Paul Reed]

One of my current projects is looking at, and copying, all the war diaries for British & Commonwealth troops in Normandy: at infantry battalion and armoured unit level (at least for now). This is part of a long term project on my part to produce a series of reference guides to the British Army in Normandy; such things exist widely for WW1, but it is long overdue for WW2. Anyway, I digress!

War Diaries continually contain map references. In Normandy a series of standard sheets were used (extract from one below). I have photographed sections of these at TNA, but what I could do with is someone - or several people - with individual examples or even a complete set of such maps covering the Normandy area. I would then have them commercially scanned and placed on CD. This would make it the Normandy equivalent of a 'map CD' and be an excellent companion to any research on the subject, and useful when 'over there'.

Anyone who helped would have a free copy, and if Lee agreed, copies would be made available to members of this forum who wanted them in return for a donation towards this site.

The maps are 1,50,000 in scale and were produced by Ordnance Survey. Dates are normally 1942/43.

So... anyone got any or access to any?

[Rich Payne]

Sounds like a wonderful idea. I am afraid that I only have a 1:250,000 1943 dated Brussels-Liege sheet so that doesn't help much.

I look forward to seeing the result.

If you are later able to do the same for the BEF movements in May / June 1940 then please put my name down for the first copy!

[AndyBaldEagle]

I was going to copy the War Diaries for June to September for certain units for a chap who runs two websites dedicated to Normandy and Arnhem- Airborne mainly. However the cost is getting prohibitive.
I will ask a friend of mine about the maps, he is a militaria collector/dealer of sorts and comes across gems more often than I do!!

I did foind some very good maps at the rear of a report on 'Market Garden' today at TNA but obviously thst slightly off topic, and they weren't in that much detail!

CD sounds good idea as well, wish I had time to sort something like that out! (work keeps getting in the way!!)

Regards to all

Andy

[Paul Reed]

(rikp @ Jan 29 2006, 07:32 PM) [post=45018]Sounds like a wonderful idea. I am afraid that I only have a 1:250,000 1943 dated Brussels-Liege sheet so that doesn't help much.

I look forward to seeing the result.

If you are later able to do the same for the BEF movements in May / June 1940 then please put my name down for the first copy!
[/b]

Thanks for that - at the moment I am sticking to NW Europe but I will keep you informed.

(AndyBaldEagle @ Jan 30 2006, 07:14 PM) [post=45073]I was going to copy the War Diaries for June to September for certain units for a chap who runs two websites dedicated to Normandy and Arnhem- Airborne mainly. However the cost is getting prohibitive.
I will ask a friend of mine about the maps, he is a militaria collector/dealer of sorts and comes across gems more often than I do!!

I did foind some very good maps at the rear of a report on 'Market Garden' today at TNA but obviously thst slightly off topic, and they weren't in that much detail!

CD sounds good idea as well, wish I had time to sort something like that out! (work keeps getting in the way!!)

Regards to all

Andy
[/b]

Hi Andy - drop me an email about the Arnhem diaries.

I use a digital camera to do the copying; otherwise it would be too costly and space consuming. However, with the maps you can't get a good enough copy and to get the maps TNA have in their own collection digitised would be a telephone number sum, sadly.

Any help much appreciated!