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The American cartographic planning for D-Day
November 25
http://www.gsu.edu/magazine/2010fall/269.html
'Mapping History: Geography professor Jeremy Crampton tells the story of
mapmakers who helped win World War II and shape post-war Europe' (by Jeremy
Craig for the GSU Magazine [Georgia State University]), Fall 2010. An
informative note about the cartographic preparations for D-Day and of the
creation of a cartographic unit in the Research and Analysis (R&A) branch of
the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), led by a young professor from Ohio
State University, 26-year-old Arthur H. Robinson:
'To navigate the dangers that lay ahead in this and other battles,
intelligence relied on specialized 'bigot' maps - bigot standing for the maps'
secret classification. Gathering the information for these critical maps was a
responsibility of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), America's first
centralized spy agency. From a network of secret agents, informants and
resistance fighters stationed in cities and villages across Europe - who often
faced great risk, even death, if apprehended by the Nazis - the OSS amassed the
data they needed. Then, quietly, behind closed doors in Washington, D.C., a
group of men and women from academia helped win the war simply by making sense
of the data and putting it on maps that were easier to understand.
'For years, the stories of these geographers and cartographers remained
in the background, as most historians focused on the drama of OSS spies and
informants on the front lines. Now, Jeremy Crampton, an associate professor of
geography, is using newly declassified archives from OSS vaults to help tell
the stories of those whose maps helped soldiers navigate the battlefields and
later helped policymakers draw up new boundaries for the post-war years. He has
co-authored a chapter of an upcoming book, 'Reconstructing Conflict:
Integrating War and Post-War Geographies,' about the geographers' and
cartographers' work.
'The importance of the geographers' role in planning can't be
underestimated,' Crampton said. 'Not many people have looked at this period in
geography. And because there were so many people, not just geographers but
academics working for this short, intense period in government, I think it says
a lot about the relationship between academia and intelligence, and the
policies of the war ...' [see remainder of the article]
Tony Campbell
[email protected]
** extract from: 'Latest News' - for the full story see the link above
http://www.maphistory.info/newslatest.html
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