Thread by @rentaquill

Great pod today - @wehaveways – chewing the cud in Burma. Got me thinking about mapping for the country and all that jungle. Who did it? And in 1942, how good was it?

(These are 1954 HMSO issues, done for illustrative purposes, little more.)
#mapmen 🧵

Start big. Overviews are useful. This one is a public domain, US Army-sourced map showing the transportation routes across the China-Burma-India theatre between 1942-1943. It ain't all that. But...

... to my mind, the pre-war maps are where to start. They can be a real help (@robert_lyman's superb book has made these names familiar, but - check these out - it’s the ‘red numbers’ correlating the areas, that helped me understand who moved where. Mimbu, Meiktila etc.)

When the Japanese invaded in ’42, they needed maps too. This is one of 20 in a series, large scale.

Colonial outreach meant Allied maps of the region were pretty common, but, surprisingly, Japanese efforts at mapping their 'areas of interest' weren't what you'd call prolific 😬.

Zooming in now, our Directorate of Military Survey ran the Survey of India Office, in Calcutta, which used its survey intel to make these. There's a whole series.

This is Meiktila 😊 I’ll add three. But does this start bringing the reality of the terrain home - OR WHAT?

You’ll see 'Army Map Service' stamps: the relationship between mapping organisations was nebulous, and it's a treasure trove of unappreciated insight - 😉📗🔥🗺️🧑‍🤝‍🧑 - but this is Tharrawaddy.

Imagined being handed this.

... or this. This is Minbu. Have a look at the contours on this map. It's not exactly Walmington-on-Sea, is it. To be honest, you'd either laugh or cry - but it's okay! - #mapmen have got you covered on that ...

... no matter what, troops could always find light relief in the idiosyncratic inclusion of such important points of interest as Camping Grounds. Vines on A Trellis. Cliffs. And Submerged Rocks.

Bless 'em. 😂 Anyway. Back to the grindpebble. 😊
#mapmen 🧵