![]() ![]() Looking for maps within British Army operational records You may be able to find other maps by looking speculatively through files and volumes of textual records from the Second World War period. Only a small proportion of the maps preserved among our records are listed in any of these catalogues. Try looking in the subject binders under the headings ‘Military mapping’ and ‘Military operations’ a summary catalogue available at The National Archives, with separate binders arranged by place and by subject.card indexes arranged by place name and by military map designations (including GSGS numbers).the published catalogue Maps and Plans in the Public Record Office 4: Europe and Turkey (TSO, 1998).Some Second World War maps that are not yet listed in the online catalogue are noted in paper catalogues and indexes held in our reading rooms at Kew: Additional searches possible only at our reading rooms in Kew Maps were given reference numbers starting with the letters GSGS and though we do not use those references in our catalogue you may find other sources refer to maps by these GSGS numbers. You may find it useful to look at maps alongside written records about Second World War events, strategy and operations. Use the department reference, which is always a letter code, to do this (the code for the War Office is WO). Use the advanced catalogue search to target the records of one or more entire departments (for example, the War Office. the name of a regiment or other army unit.Search our catalogue using the following kinds of keywords and include the phrase ‘AND (map OR plan)’ after the words you are searching with: The amount of detail for each map in our catalogue varies and many maps, including those that form part of wider sets of operational records, are not described in the catalogue at all. Bear in mind that a search in our catalogue from the catalogue homepage will also search for records in other archives around the country – keep your eye on the ‘Held by’ field to establish whether the records are here or elsewhere. To see the maps you will have to either visit us in Kew or order copies. You will need the document reference to see the record itself. Though the maps themselves are not viewable online, you can use our catalogue to locate document references for maps. Though The National Archives holds many GSGS maps, we do not have complete or discrete sets and most are found among operational records or other wider sets of files. The Map Section at the Air Ministry was also under the technical supervision of MI 4 officers. A Distribution Section was set up to handle supplies of maps to overseas expeditions. MI 4 at Cheltenham had limited accommodation so new accommodation for MI 4/GSGS was acquired at Eastcote in north-west London. This resulted in fragmentation of functions and records. In late 1940, the Map Depot moved to Alperton in west London and remained there throughout the war. However, General Staff and the Map Library remained in London. In September 1939, MI 4 moved to Cheltenham. The War Office Map Library, which was also part of MI 4, acquired maps and cartographic intelligence data. It was organised into small sections, each of which specialised in maps of a particular region. The Directorate’s role during the war was to supply maps to the forces, collect data on foreign survey networks, provide training, and prepare survey data for Expeditionary Force mobilisation. GSGS operated under the Directorate of Military Operations and Intelligence which in 1936 began to map north-eastern France and Belgium at 1:50,000, though some of this work was allocated to Ordnance Survey. The rest of the staff were civil technical assistants and clerks, together with some Royal Engineer non-officer ranks. Senior staff members were usually Royal Engineer officers with surveying qualifications, although there were a few Royal Artillery or infantry officers. Most of the maps used by British land and air forces were made by the Geographical Section, General Staff (GSGS, also known as MI 4). They are also maps used by the military forces themselves, some in theatres of battle, and many of them are annotated or show other signs of use and wear. As early as 1919, the War Office had agreed to supply mapping for the RAF and the Air Ministry. The maps held here were those used by the War Office and the other central government departments that oversaw military operations during the war. The origins of the maps held by The National Archives ![]()
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