iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

It would be impolite not to offer a map-map to accompany the @newsofthewar.bsky.social this week. So here's Petsamo, as offered by AMS in '43 (via GSGS in Dec 1942; from the 4093 series, published in 1940). Lovely.

010

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 15/10/2026

This might be my favourite. Not sure why. Probably the juxtaposition between place names and - BEER. This sector was all alcoholic drinks, flowers, trees, and car marques.

010

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 15/10/2026

A little Polish joy this morning. These panoramic sketches weren’t created during the Battle of Monte Cassino - they were drawn afterwards by Second Lieutenant Zdzisław Brunne and Officer Cadet Jan Bisiński, serving in 12 Kompania Geograficzna (12th Geographical Company) of the 2nd Polish Corps.

0103

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 14/10/2026

Someone's asked me, 'what's your favourite scale?' On a 1:50k map sheet, a hill is a few contour lines, a farm is still one ugly black square. A map truly made at 1:25k shows the steepness of the slope, plus the farmhouse, its barns, and quite probably its yard, too. Good morning. Here's CAPRI. 😉

2253

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 13/10/2026

Don't listen to chatter about Putin and Trump. Look at this map instead. Soviet transpolar flights in the run up to WW2. Politically, Soviets were on a mission to prove tech capabilities, domestic and internation. Aesthetically, just a nice map.

040

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 13/10/2026

Some indication of the contours is useful: this burnt out Gloster Gladiator of No 263 Squadron sits on the frozen surface of the Lake after being destroyed by the Germans.

020

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 13/10/2026

The old Norwegian fot, of 1824, was 313.74 mm, half an alen of 627.48 mm. The British foot is 304.8 mm - so the Norwegian foot was 9 mm, or roughly 3%, longer. Over a mountain that adds up. A pilot might have discovered the hard way that 1,000 Norwegian feet were c.1,029 British feet.

111

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 13/10/2026

This is why i find these maps fascinating. There's a note on this sheet, reminding holders its spot heights are marked in Norwegian feet. In theory, that was a moot point by 1942, because Norway adopted the metric system in 1875, so surveys and maps of the war years used metres. However.

120

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 13/10/2026

More ice and snow. Lake Lesjaskogsvatnet (all bets are off on pronounciations), on the LESJA sheet, from GSGS 4090. E28 - dated 1942 - but an enlargement of old 1:200,000 mapping, which was always less than optimum. The kicker is in its inherent dangers. 👇

110

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 13/10/2026

Today's first bit of coordinated WW2 mapping looks at the Arctic. Routes de Guerre du Pole by Jacques Mercier, published c.1939. Divisive, but increasingly a land mass being pinned to the wall. Lovely, innit.

020

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 12/10/2026

... this: PAYA THONZU TAUNG, the Burmese name for Three Pagodas. Where the dash-dot international boundary bends, you'll find the wee symbol for a pagoda. That's fine, but i'm more intrigued by 'Merrifield's Pole'. A surveyor, no doubt. Pole in hand. So ... WHO WAS MERRIFIELD?!

130

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 12/10/2026

... there isn't an emoji for 'just one more post-ish', so it has to be a 🧵. Anyhoo: here's the quarter inch sheet for Kyeikdon, showing what was last surveyed in 1926. First compiled by the Survey of India. This image should be huge, if bluesky plays ball. What most people look for is ... 🧵

120

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 12/10/2026

Dipped into this over the weekend. Bamboo and Bushido, by A.G. Allbury. Deeply moving in its simplicity. Made me think though, that there's a whole bucket of books-and-maps to explore ~ contemporary endpapers are a thing of wonder. That said, I also dug out a map... 🧵

130

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 12/10/2026

As @falklandsinuk.bsky.social reminds me, the City of London hosted a victory parade on 12 Oct 1982 for the Falklands Task Force ~ 🇫🇰 ~ so obviously we need a map of the Falkland Islands. Surveyed and drawn by No 2 Topo, 14th (Corps Fd Svy) RE in 1943, published as GSGS 4465 in 1944. Lovely.

050

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 12/10/2026

Accurate to 50 metres. The black grid corresponds to the Gauss-Krüger grid on army mapping at 1: 50,000; the white grid is just a basis for correlation. At 1:20,000, it’s 108 x 44 cm – most likely, it would have been used to improve conventional printed maps.

070

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 12/10/2026

Also on a large scale. See what Kiev looked like in 1941. Bildplanskizze der Stadt Kiew is an aerial photomap, produced during Op BARBAROSSA. Photographs, taken by Koluft 6, were modified with grids and labels by Vermessungs- und Karten-Abteilung (Mot.) 608...

170

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 12/10/2026

Monday. The way of things on a large scale, then. It is, of course, another in the BOGUS series for the run up to June 1944. One map. One set of easily remembered codewords. As the legend @davetrott.bsky.social says: smart is simple and complicated is stupid.

030

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 11/10/2026

Produced in 1939, this is another Intourist map. Its aim, to highlight the Soviets’ focus on industrialization and infrastructure development. Its unintended impact: showing just how bloomin’ helpful railways might be if you’re invading from the west. Printed in the US, mind.

040

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 11/10/2026

I expected the bears, and the cossacks on horses. There's an Ichthyosaur near Astrakhan - obviously - but then zebras? It's a map created by Exportizdat and Intourist, the state travel organisation, and dates to 1939.

030

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 11/10/2026

It's a fleeting dilemma: to post maps of geopolitically sensitive areas, or not? As I said, fleeting. We don't learn for the future by ignoring the past. Soviet mapping, ostensibly of what it referred to as the European part of USSR. Details ~ including zebras 🦓 ~ below.

150

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 10/10/2026

The lovely @orbness.bsky.social offered thoughts on geo+politics and mentioned geo+logy. The lovely @orbness.bsky.social gets a bonus map. Giamusho Nan'yō- Kyoku's geological mapping of Java, made when it was under Japanese occupation in 1942. Scale, 1:100,000, Limited to 3,000 copies.

010

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 10/10/2026

On a more cheery note, of course it’s always thought-provoking to remember just how well Germany had mapped and documented key British infrastructure by 1940. The central electricity network here, plus critical nodes (targets) within London and the industrial heartlands.

031

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 10/10/2026

Map of the day, energy in WW2. Les mots juste du jour, Lynette Nusbacher - who is spot on, as always. I’ve said it before and will say it again: all geopolitics start with ‘geo’ - 🇺🇦’s close conflict with 🇷🇺 is about to knock the price of 🇬🇧’s diesel coming in from 🇺🇸. Plus ça change…

051

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 09/10/2026

It's the details that draw you in. HMS Havannah - a Royal Navy 36-gun fifth-rate frigate, launched in 1811. Can't imagine what she looks like, but do know she picked up coral and shells from 63 fathoms.

020

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 09/10/2026

Beware Macdonald Rock. It is covered - or so the very tiny small-print says - with about 6 feet of water, with foul bottom running to the North East about 1/4 mile.

110

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 09/10/2026

These sheets have a certain aesthetic quality that makes them worth poring over for hours. Don't they?

100

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 09/10/2026

Who doesn't love a but of the Kermadec Islands? First made by New Zealand's Department of Lands and Survey to cover their northernmost land masses, but then republished by GSGS in 1942. Scale 1:31,680.

Kermadec Islands map published by GSGS in 1942

170

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 09/10/2026

Light mapping this morning. Tiny bit of Bagnold, pre-LRDG. Amazes me, how simple a map can be yet still put things into perspective. These chaps travelled huge distances equipped with little more than smart socks and a sense of humour. Watch the whole 8-minute film on YT. Search 1930 Egypt Bagnold.

020

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 09/10/2026

With the @newsofthewar.bsky.social heading to New Zealand this morning - and if I may say so, we hugely enjoyed putting this series together - a couple of LRDG maps won't go amiss today. First up: the Libyan Desert showing the routes of Major R. A. Bagnold's Expeditions 1929 & 1930...

The Libyan Desert showing the routes of Major R. A. Bagnold's Expeditions 1929 & 1930

070

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 08/10/2026

Three days away. Feels like three weeks. Good to check in with Dave, and check the sea’s still there too.

330

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 08/10/2026

Verisimilitude. Love it when the outside is complemented by a particularly fine view inside. Nothing official in the margins, but I suspect this is from ‘A Plan of London, Westminster, and Southwark’, by Benjamin Baker in 1807.

040

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 08/10/2026

Getting into London, getting back into the London Bomb Map, and reminded that layersoflondon.org ties these sheets to an image archive, well worth exploring.

041

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 07/10/2026

Good to finish the day getting my bearings around ‘something of a terrain challenge’ — several kilometres of period concrete providing the clue as to where. Story to follow, and it’ll be a long one.

360

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 07/10/2026

That’s more like it. Getting my breath back, in deepest England - FW3/24 pillbox just east of Froxfield. There’s also a video; it’s open and fairly ungraffitied; nice example. But there were a lot of stinging nettles and some uncouth language. So that’s enough about that.

080

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 06/10/2026

Can’t escape the mapping.

190

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 06/10/2026

Stellar day with the likes of Rob Crane (COPP) and @DDayLogs .. strong finish with a swing past the local landmarks.

250

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 06/10/2026

Huzzah. Looking forward to a strong day …

1111

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 06/10/2026

Great day ahead: in Newbury for the Defence Surveyors, Association seminar - and a local (over breakfast, little cafe in the high street) reminder of how much Britain owes to surveyors, sorting out our defences - and everything else. Voila, the old view of Norfolk 👇

150

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 05/10/2026

Packed for a week on the road: passing through Alamein again, later today -- Enham Alamein, that is. Astonishing little village. The Egyptian gov gifted it a large amount of money out of gratitude; which was nice, and Montgomery became VP of its rehabilitation charity, the Enham Trust.

060

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 05/10/2026

And while I think about it, here's Caen: routes and bridges at 1:25,000, Aug 1943. WW2 mapmakers had to contend with their best work being utterly trashed by the RAF/USAAF et al. From a great height. Day and night. One minute it's a great map... the next, it's less use than Edelweiß (IYKNK).

070

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 05/10/2026

To be fair, the New Zealanders had their eyes on the ball throughout in '44. Someone pencilled in 'Happy New Year Fritz' on this sheet, to show where the artillery left a few timely gifts in the Orsogna Sector.

020

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 05/10/2026

One of the mapmakers: a chap named Mayne, I believe ~ no, not that Mayne, another Mayne ~ sorting out the mapping for 2 NZ Division's advance up through Italy in June 1944.

292

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 04/10/2026

Last week, the Royal Marines headed to the @faroe_islands. These sheets were compiled by GSGS. The north sheet, in 1944; the sheet showing Suduroy and Sandoy (try that after half a Martini), in 1940, based on a Danish map from 1932. Lovely stuff. 🇫🇴

170

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 04/10/2026

I've heard tell, it's hard to research the Russkies ~ but good sources exist. This, for example, is a 1939 textbook for the Military Topographic School on aerial phototopography ... rather well written. Focused on ensuring the science of mapmaking is easily digested.

040

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 04/10/2026

I do forget about Bluesky, and I shouldn't. So... who wants to see some WW2 maps, and hear about the mapmakers? This is a favourite of mine. Prome, Sandoway, Thayetmyo - 85: J9 - some of the Survey of India's fine work in Burma, published in (not updated since) 1929. Come on, isn't this awesome?!

76211

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 29/06/2026

I confess, I have a thing for endpaper maps. And as I’m re-reading Alan Moorehead’s White Nile for the umpteenth time - I’m minded, there’s still a book worth writing on John Hannington Speke.

010

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 25/06/2026

Waiting for the washing machine. Idling through the back bookcase. Picked out ‘The Blunted Sword’ - David Divine - 1964 - and never made it past the first page. 😞 “It is a tragedy of our time that it appears in the highest degree improbable that it can succeed in its intention”

010

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 23/06/2026

Sand waves. Beach. Sort of explains why Ralph Bagnold’s thinking on the movement of sand dunes dropped into invasion planning.

120

Merryn @merrynwalters.uk · 23/06/2026

There are worse ways to start the day

0110