Lessons from the Experience of the Map Information Section, OSS

Abstract

EARLY in the war the procurement, evaluation, and distribution of maps for the research and operational branches of the Office of Strategic Services became urgent problems that no organization in Washington was prepared to solve. Because of the nature of modern warfare, nearly every military or war agency, such as the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Board of Economic Warfare, required identical map coverage. The Army Map Service and other operational supply agencies also required maps of the same areas. The situation was not peculiar to the United States; a competitive scramble for maps arose in London and Berlin' as well as in Washington. In the United States and Britain individuals were at first permitted to borrow from established depositories. As a result, many of the most usable maps from the major collections were securely locked away in the file cabinets of individual workers. Other maps were shipped out of Washington to all parts of the United States, with little or no record of destination. Because of the conflicting demands, the custodians of the larger collections were forced to refuse the loan of maps to agencies that abused withdrawal privileges. In I942 the Division of Maps of the Library of Congress and the State Department's Division of Geography and Cartography curbed the circulation of their holdings and the Army Map Service and the Hydrographic Office refused to lend maps except through official liaison channels. The problems of map procurement were further aggravated because research workers, including geographers, had little knowledge of sources of supply or of the nature of the material available. Widespread ignorance about map intelligence produced an array of credulous requests that taxed the already overworked staffs of the older and more comprehensive map collections.2