Blog 7
Theme — Normandy Case Study: Map Reading
Maps are an essential aid to good reading, miniature gaming, and battlefield visits. It’s simply is impossible to study a battle without having a good map. Unfortunately, many authors and publishers of military history don’t seem to agree. Black and white maps often leave me wondering whether I’m looking at a road or river or a boundary line. Although I usually find the Osprey Publishing Campaign series a handy reference, the maps are almost always unusable to some extent due to the binding and, worse, in some earlier publications, devoid of any scale. The maps in the official histories are either foldouts that can be left open while reading, packaged in an envelope, or carefully designed so nothing is lost in the binding. By far the best are the maps in the American and Canadian official histories that also include the terrain. Good maps add greatly to the cost of a book, but enduring books benefit by having detailed, readable maps.
Fortunately, the maps from the US Army Green Books covering the ETO were published as The US Army Atlas of the European Theater in World War II by Barnes & Noble Books in 2004 and by the National Historical Society in 1996. Copies of at least the former are still available.
Modern maps can also be quite helpful, particularly in laying out miniature battlefields and planning visits to the battlefields of Normandy. It’s relatively easy to follow the WWII-era Normandy road network, much of which dates to the Romans. The only major difference is that modern surveying has often assigned new values to elevations, which sometimes creates a bit of a challenge in identifying which hill is the “right” one as known to those who fought there.
My study of the Normandy Campaign has benefited from having a library of French Institut National de l’Information Géographique et Forestière (IGN) 1:25,000 (1cm = 250m) maps. As previously noted, this scale was common among all of the armies in Normandy.
Listed below are most of the essential 1:25,000 IGN maps for the Normandy battlefields. Please note that these maps are periodically updated, may receive new numbers or titles, and possibly different coverage.
* 1211E Valognes and St-Sauveur-le-Vicomté — the interior of the Cotentin Peninsula.
* 1210OT Cherbourg-Octeville — the northwestern corner of the Cotentin Peninsula.
* 1211OT Les Piex — southwestern corner of the Cotentin Peninsula and early US battlefields.
* 1212ET Lessay — VIII Corps supporting attacks for Operation Cobra.
* 1214ET Coutances — the western Operation Cobra and VIII Corps battlefields.
* 1310O St-Vaast-la-Hogue — the northeastern corner of the Cotentin Peninsula.
* 1310 Cherbourg-en-Cotentin — includes 1310O and Cherbourg.
* 1311E Ste-Mère-Église and Utah Beach — the eastern part of the VII Corps operational area.
* 1312E St-Jean-de-Daye — the center part of the battlefields of the Battle of the Hedgerows.
* 1312O Périers — includes much of the early US battlefields south of the Cotentin Peninsula and western assembly area and line of departure for Operation Cobra.
* 1313E St-Lô — the battlefields west and southwest of the city, particularly those of the US XIX Corps supporting attack in the wake of Operation Cobra. This map does not cover the June and July Battle of the Hedgerows during the advance toward Saint-Lô. For this see 1412OT, 1312E, and 1430O. All are needed to follow the battles all around Saint-Lô and a great way to experience the frustration of combat leaders who invariably discover the battles always take place at the intersection of four map sheets.
* 1313O St-Sauveur-Lendelin — the western part of the Operation Cobra advance.
* 1412OT Pointé du Hoc — Omaha Beach, west toward Utah Beach; south toward Saint-Lô.
*1413E Caumont l’Évente — the opening battlefield of Operation Bluecoat.
* 1414E Vire — the US and British attacks east of the Vire in support of Operation Cobra.
* 1415O Sourdeval — all but the southern and southeastern parts of the Mortain Counterattack battlefield.
*1415 Tinchebray — the southern and eastern parts of the Mortain counterattack battlefield.
* 1512OT Bayeux — the ground to the coast north of this city and to its east and south.
* 1513E Thury-Harcourt — the battlefields southwest of Caen.
* 1513O Aunay-sur-Odon — the early battlefields around Villers-Bocage and the eastern part of Operation Bluecoat.
* 1514E Évrecy — the battlefields east of Villers-Bocage and southwest of Caen.
* 1514 SB Condé-sur Noireau — the southeastern part of the Operation Bluecoat battlefield.
* 1612OT Caen — the area from this city north to the sea and with 1512OT completes the coverage of the British and Canadian beaches.
* 1613O Bretteville-sur-Laize — the battlefield southeast of Caen.
* 1613E Mèzidon-Canon — battlefields east of 1613O during the advance toward Falaise.
* 1614O and 1614E, and 1740 Falaise — closing the Falaise Gap.
*1715OT Argentan — closing the Falaise Gap.