Army Air Forces Aeronautical and Cloth Charts

Tue Jun 02, 2020 10:22 pm

I was working on a something that I was trying to find a wartime map for today and I realized a thread of Army Air Forces maps - similar to the thread about AAF Forms - would be a useful reference.

First, note that the maps produced by the AAF during the war can apparently be divided into two major types: Aeronautical Charts and Cloth Charts [or Maps] (aka "escape maps").

Second, the website WWII Escape Maps is an excellent reference for Cloth Charts. Unfortunately, however, the images on the website are too small to be usefully legible. The good news is that thanks to digitization efforts by museums and educational institutions, high resolution versions are now available elsewhere online.

Third, the AAF Cloth Charts were apparently based upon the International Map of the World.

Fourth, for the list of AAF Aeronautical Charts, it is important to note that certain gaps in the sequence are due to the way the maps were numbered. Essentially, they were numbered contiguously from left to right around the globe and once a full circle was made, the numbers continued on the next row, but right to left. Therefore, because no area was skipped, certain maps would just be blank areas of open ocean. I doubt these maps would have ever been printed. (Although, Map 17 is literally titled "Water"!) On the other hand, there are indeed some maps missing from the McMaster University collection that do indeed exist because they can be found elsewhere. Furthermore, there are a few sets of duplicates.

Finally, the legend for the Aeronautical Charts can be found here.

AAF Aeronautical Charts

AAF Cloth Charts

Sun Jun 07, 2020 7:27 pm

Fun fact: The plant used by the Aeronautical Chart Service was located in St. Louis and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

I also came across another excellent reference for cloth maps: US Cloth Maps of World War II. Unfortunately, like the WWII Escape Maps website above, the maps have been digitized at too low of a resolution to be particularly useful.

Finally, for this thread I have only been using scanned images (usually by educational/historical institutions) and avoiding those that are poor quality photographs (such as often come from collectible sales listings).

AAF Aeronautical Charts (Cont.)

404 - Mojave Desert
445 - Euphrates River
609 - Maug Islands[1]
611 - Parece Vela Reef[1]
615 - Hainan Strait[1]
617 - D I Naung Kai[1]
826 - Pakaraima Mountains

AAF Cloth Chart (Cont.)

AAF Special Chart

Gulf of Oman

Thu Jun 11, 2020 4:12 pm

AAF Aeronautical Charts (Cont.)

262 - Nova Scotia[1]
263 - St. Lawrence River[1]
264 - Georgian Bay[1]
265 - Green Bay[1]
266 - Lake Itasca[1]
267 - Yelllowstone River[1]
268 - Bitterroot Range[1]
269 - Columbia River[1]
304 - Crater Lake[1]
305 - Great Salt Lake[1]
306 - Laramie Range[1]
307 - Platte River[1]
308 - Illinois River[1]
309 - Lake Erie[1]
310 - Hudson River[1]
357 - Chesapeake Bay[1]
358 - Kanawha River[1]
359 - Wabash River[1]
360 - Kansas River[1]
361 - Sangre de Cristo Mts.[1]
362 - Bryce Canyon[1]
363 - Mt. Whitney[1]
364 - San Francisco Bay[1]
404 - Mojave Desert[1]
405 - Gila River[1]
406 - Estacado Plain[1]
407 - Wichita Mountains[1]
408 - Boston Mountains[1]
409 - Great Smoky Mountains[1]
410 - Pamlico Sound[1]
466 - St Johns River[1]
467 - Mobile Bay[1]
469 - Edwards Plateau[1]
470 - Santiago Mountains[1]
471 - Sonora River[1]
522 - Madre Lagoon[1]
525 - Lake Okeechobee[1]

Mon Dec 06, 2021 1:47 am

Although they were not produced by the USAAF, there three additional sets of aeronautical charts that were used by stateside pilots during the war: Sectional Aeronautical Charts. Note, while they were produced both before and after the war, I have only chosen to list the wartime versions below:

Sectional Aeronautical Charts

Interestingly, a number of maps (e.g. P-3, V-4, X-5) have duplicate entries in 1944-1945. Aside from some minor stylistic changes, the most important difference is that they are no longer marked "RESTRICTED". Uniquely, the September 1944 versions of W-2, X-1, and Y-2 and the March 1943 version of RS-9 have large letters superimposed on them for some purpose apparently related to an "Air Defense Grid". On a related note, there seem to be a paucity of maps from 1943. Whether this is because they were not created in the first place, or because they just never made it to the Library of Congress is unknown. However, the fact that the only maps with the superimposed letters are from 1943 suggest to me that they may have been regarded as more secret and therefore not delivered to the Library of Congress. There are also a couple of odd coincidences. First, the Motor City just so happened to receive the map designation V-8. Second, charts in the first half of the designation sequence seem to be disproportionately named for cities that begin with letters in the second half of the alphabet and vice versa. I don't believe either of these are intentional, but they are a bit of fun trivia!

There were also a set of "Regional Aeronautical Charts" that were in use at the time. Unlike the sectionals, the maps did not have a name - only a number. Provisional names have been added below to aid browsing and reference:

Regional Aeronautical Charts

1M - [Washington State] (September 1944)
2M - [Southern Montana] (October 1943)
3M - [Minnesota]
4M - [Great Lakes]
5M - [Quebec] (February 1943)
6M - [Northern California]
7M - [Rocky Mountains]
8M - [Great Plains]
9M - [Midwest]
10M - [Mid-Atlantic]
11M - [Southern California]
12M - [New Mexico]
13M - [Arkansas]
14M - [Piedmont]
15M - [Southwest Texas]
16M - [Gulf Coast] (July 1943)
17M - [Florida]

(Source: HathiTrust)

Thirdly, are a set of direction finding maps. Again, names don't appear to have been assigned:

Aeronautical Charts for Radio Direction Finding

21DF - [Northwest]
22DF - [North Central]
23DF - [Northeast]
24DF - [Southwest]
25DF - [South Central]
26DF - [Southeast]

(Source: HathiTrust)

Finally, while it doesn't date to World War II, it worth mentioning that the Library of Congress also has a collection of strip maps (aka Navigation Maps, Air Corps Maps, or Airways Maps) from 1924 to 1935.

EDIT (22-01-09): Information intended to accompany the strip maps above can be found in Airway Bulletin No. 1 and Aeronautical Bulletins No. 8 and 10. (The former is not to be confused with an identically named series that profiled individual airports. For the full set of the latter, see a post in the Vintage Aviation Books and Periodicals thread.)

EDIT (23-04-04): According to page 23 of Radio Data & Flight Information, T.O. No. 05-15-2, there were not only more regional aeronautical charts, but they all did indeed have names. The full list is:

Regional Aeronautical Charts

1M - Columbia River
2M - Big Horn
3M - Minnesota River
4M - Straits of Mackinac
5M - St. Lawrence River
6M - Lake Tahoe
7M - Pikes Peak
8M - Missouri River
9M - Lake Erie
10M - Long Island
11M - Death Valley
12M - Mt. Taylor
13M - Ozarks
14M - Mt. Mitchell
15M - Rio Grande
16M - Lake Pontchartrain
17M - Tampa Bay
18 - Guadalupe Island
19 - Cabo San Lucas
20 - Lago Chapala
21 - Yucatan
22 - Cuba
23 - Crooked Island
24 - Revilla Gigedo Island
25 - Popocatepetl
26 - Honduras
27 - Jamaica
28 - Puerto Rico
29 - Antigua
30 - Lago Nicaragua
31 - Panama
32 - Lago Maracaibo
33 - Golfo de Paria
34 - Ria Cauca
35 - Rio Guaviare
36 - British Guiana
37 - Devil's Island
38 - Mt. Cotopaxi
39 - Rio Japura
40 - Rio Negro
41 - Ilha de Marajo
42 - Bahia de Sao Marcos
43 - Nevados Huascaran
44 - Rio Purus
45 - Rio Tapajoz
46 - Rio Parnahyba
47 - Pernambuco
48 - Cerro Yerupaja
49 - Lago Titicaca
50 - Matto Grosso
51 - Chapada dos Veadeiros
52 - Itaparica
53 - Lago Poopo
54 - Pantanal de Sao Lourenco
55 - Uberaba
56 - Rio Doce
57 - Cerros dos Conos
58 - Paraguay
59 - Ilha Grande
60 - Cerro Aconcagua
61 - Mar Chiquita
62 - Uruguay
63 - Golfo de Arauco
64 - Rio de la Plata
65 - Monte Maxa
66 - Peninsula Valdes
67 - Cerro San Valentin
68 - Falkland Islands
69 - Cape Horn
70 through 75 not listed
76 - Fraser River
77 - North Sakatchewan River
78 - Lake Winnepeg
79 - James Bay
80 - Hamilton Falls
81 - Belle Isle
82 through 84 not listed
85 - Whitehorse
86 - Peace River
87 - Churchill River
88 - Hudson Bay
89 - Ungava Bay
90 - Cape Farewell
91 through 92 not listed
93 - Mackenzie River
94 - Yellowknife
95 - Southampton Island
96 - South Baffin Island
97 - Godthaab
98 - Iceland
99 through 100 not listed
101 - Banks Island
102 - Boothia
103 - North Baffin Island
104 - Godhavn
105 - Scorebsy Sound
106 - Melville Island
107 - South Ellesmere Island
108 - Dove Bay
109 - North Ellesmere Island
110 - Peary Land

(Source: AirCorps Library)

A note:

Charts 18 and up are not suffixed with an "M" for an unknown reason.

Last edited by Noha307 on Tue Apr 04, 2023 5:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:44 am

Very cool! Well done. Thank you.

Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:27 am

This is very fascinating!!!

Tue Dec 07, 2021 1:08 am

Taigh Ramey wrote:Very cool! Well done. Thank you.

RyanShort1 wrote:This is very fascinating!!!

Thanks guys! I was just lucky the Library of Congress had digitized most of them.

If you found this interesting, while working on this last night I came across a paper titled Military Aeronautical Charts in the Past and Today. I haven't had a chance to read it myself, but it sounds like it might be worth it.

Something that I had planned to include in the last post, but ran out of time to add was the collection of U.S. Navy Target Maps and Approach Charts that were mentioned in a recent thread as being uploaded to the website WWII NAR-PAC.

Target Maps and Approach Charts

The length of the number correlates with the scale of the map. I would presume that the additional numbers are for increased precision. On a different note, when one looks at the target maps of Japan, it's almost scary how much the we knew about the location of every major airfield and factory in Japan. The fact that complete air superiority was almost certainly required for this level of detail It really speaks to how thoroughly the United States was dominating Japan. To that point, if longer number do indicate more precision, the maps of Japan proper are the only ones that include decimal points. Finally, a special thanks to Jim MacDonald for not only making these maps available, but also doing such an excellent job organizing and (file) naming them. It really made the work on this list a lot easier.

EDIT (21-12-14): I ran out of time when I initially made the list, so I left the "7B" entries unsorted. This has been corrected.

Last edited by Noha307 on Tue Dec 14, 2021 1:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

Tue Dec 07, 2021 2:00 pm

Oh my sweet honey roasted eight pound five ounce crispy baby Jesus... I've been looking for every target/approach map I can find, saving and cleaning scans off of Ebay for five years now... and today, I find you've posted this absolute MONSTER find.

Dude, you have absolutely no idea how incredibly appreciative I am for all this right now. I need to go through the list and see if there's anything I might have which isn't on there, and contact them if I do.

This is mindblowing. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THESE!!!!!

Lynn

Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:06 am

lmritger wrote:Oh my sweet honey roasted eight pound five ounce crispy baby Jesus... I've been looking for every target/approach map I can find, saving and cleaning scans off of Ebay for five years now... and today, I find you've posted this absolute MONSTER find.

Dude, you have absolutely no idea how incredibly appreciative I am for all this right now. I need to go through the list and see if there's anything I might have which isn't on there, and contact them if I do.

This is mindblowing. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THESE!!!!!

Thanks! I have to say, I think that's the most effusive praise I have ever received. I'm equally appreciative of the thanks - it means a lot. I'm really glad someone is getting a use out of my need to organize things! However, Jim MacDonald deserves most of the credit. He was the one that took the time to scan and upload these maps. I am only the messenger, as it were.

By the way, have you had a chance to check out the most recent post on the AAF forms thread? Since I was able to find online examples of all three of the documents featured in a World War II training film, I realized that the exact exercise in the film could be recreated. Given that you mentioned being active with the Airmen's Preservation Society, I thought someone in the group might be interested in reenacting it.

Sun Jan 02, 2022 10:18 pm

Since the list in my original post was both missing entries and had duplicates, please find a complete list of AAF cloth charts below:

AAF Cloth Maps

[Unnumbered] - Road Map of West Africa
No. 4 - Tyrol
No. 6 - Balkans
No. 7 - Balkans
No. 8 - Mediterranean France
No. 16 - Owen Stanley, New Guinea
No. 17 - New Britain
No. 18 - Papua, New Guinea
No. 19 - Nassau, New Guinea
No. 20 - Ambonia, New Guinea
No. 21 - Halmahera, Moluccas
No. 22 - Southwest Java
No. 23 - North Celebes
No. 24 - South Celebes
No. 25 - Timor
No. 26 - East Java
No. 27 - Mindang-Lae-Wau
No. 28 - Wewak-Mandane-Mt. Hagan, New Guinea
No. 30 - South Burma [Also reported as C-30 - Andaman Sea]
No. 31 - North Burma
No. 32 - French Indo China
No. 33 - Central China
No. 34 - Southeast China
No. 35 - Northeast China
No. 36 - Central East Asia
No. 37 - Korea [Not printed]
No. C-40 - Luzon Island
No. C-41 - Mindoro Island
No. C-42 - Samar Island
No. C-43 - Mindanao Island
No. C-44 - North Borneo
No. C-45 - East Borneo
No. C-46 - West Borneo
No. C-47 - South Borneo
No. C-48 - West Java
No. C-50 - British and French Guiana
No. C-51 - Northeastern Brazil
No. C-52 - Japan and South China Seas
No. C-53 - East China Seas
No. 133 - K'un-ming, Yunnan, China to Chabua, Assam India (Eastern Portion)
No. 133 - K'un-ming, Yunnan, China to Chabua, Assam, India (Western Portion)
C-384 - Wei River
C-495 - Omei Mountain
C-800 - We Island
C-859 - Penang Island
C-860 - Bintan Island
C-920 - Nias Island
NG 51 - Taihoku
NG 52 - Naha
NH 51 - Shanghai
NH 52 - Kagoshima
NI 50 - Nan-Ching
NI 51 - Nan-T'ung
NI 52 - Nagasaki
NI 53 - Osaka
NI 54 - Tokyo
NJ 50 - Pei-Ping
NJ 51 - Ryojun
NJ 52 - Keijo
NJ 53 - Kanazawa
NJ 54 - Sendai
NK 50 - Jehol
NK 51 - Shen-Yang
NK 52 - Vladivostok
NK 53 - Vladimiro-Aleksandrovshoye
NK 54 - Hakodate
NK 55 - Nemuro
NL 49 - Unknown
NL 50 - Buir Nor
NL 51 - Tsitsishar, China
NL 52 - Harbin
NL 53 - Spassk-Dal’Niy
NL 54 - Otomari
NL 55 - Etorofu-Jima
NL 56 - Unknown
NM 49 - Unknown
NM 50 - Unknown
NM 51 - Unknown
NM 52 - Unknown
NM 53 - Khabarovok
NM 54 - Aleksandrovsk

(Sources: Cloth Maps, Charts and Blood Chits of World War II, Escape-Maps.com, SilkMaps.com)

Keep in mind that most of the above charts were double sided and, in at least one case, had two maps on a single side. This is shown on index map of some of the above:

(Source: Curtis Wright Maps)

Also, the USAAF apparently produced one "Strategic Air Chart" each for the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere.

Next, while far from standard, I recently came across one rubber topographical map each of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from August 1945.

Finally, MI9 produced a series of escape maps that are included here because they may be confused with American maps and were just as likely used by American airmen:

43/A - France (North West), Belgium (West and Central) Holland (Part of)[1]
43/B - France (South West), Spain (North)[1]
43/C - Holland, Belgium (Except West Coast), France (North East), Germany (West & Central)
43/D - France (South East), Germany (South West), Switzerland (Except South East)
43/E - Germany (North), Protectorate (Bohemia & Moravia), Slovakia, Poland, Hungary (North)[2]
43/F - Croatia (W & Centra), Montenegro (West), Hungary (West), Slovakia (South), Germany (South), Italy (North & Central), Switzerland (East)[2]
43/G - Slovakia (South), Poland (South), Hungary (South East), Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria (N Central & E), Croatia (East), Montenego (East), Albania (North)[3]
43/H - Greece, Albania, Bulgaria (South), Turkey in Europe, Turkey in Asia (Western Seaboard), Crete (Inset Right)[3]
43/K (East) - Spain (North East), France (South West)[4]
43/K (West) - Portugal (North), Spain (North West)[4]

Sun Jan 02, 2022 11:22 pm

Thanks for the plug, NOHA. I'm glad to make them available to everyone because they don't do any good sitting in a box in my War Room. I wish that I had known you were going to list the maps from NAR-PAC, I would have sent you an Excel spreadsheet or a PDF of the list and saved you a lot of time. Sorry that I didn't get that to you.

On some of the maps, there are a purple rectangle with a number inside the rectangle http://www.ww2nar-pac.com/wp-content/uploads/wppa-source/album-12/Kure-Honshu-Japan-7B-3-4-5A.jpg. This is the number of the map that will give a more detail on that particular area. On the majority of the maps there is an area highlighted in purple with a number next to it. Sometimes there is a description of the area highlightedhttp://www.ww2nar-pac.com/wp-content/uploads/wppa-source/album-12/Haneda-Airfield-Tokyo-Honshu-Japan-7B-3-3-90.17-331T.jpg, such as Steel Plant or Aircraft Factory. I haven't been able to match these numbers with any other maps, so I assume they are a target numbers to be used for pilot briefings and debriefings. I'm interested in hearing what others think of my assumption.

Mac

Sun Jan 09, 2022 6:16 pm

Another resource available to American military pilots on the eve of World War II was the Directory of Airports and Seaplane Bases. Apparently deriving from an earlier series of Airways Bulletins, it seems to have evolved into the three volume U.S. Army Air Force's Airport Directory [of] the Continental United States. Digitized versions are available from Scott's USAF Installations Page and AirCorps Library. A similar document for overseas bases, the Airdromes Guide[,] Southwest Pacific Area.[1]

Jim MacDonald wrote:Thanks for the plug, NOHA. I'm glad to make them available to everyone because they don't do any good sitting in a box in my War Room. I wish that I had known you were going to list the maps from NAR-PAC, I would have sent you an Excel spreadsheet or a PDF of the list and saved you a lot of time. Sorry that I didn't get that to you.

No problem. I just wish I knew exactly where the designations for each map came from. It's clear that the longer the number is the larger the scale is, but other than that I don't know what they mean. (It might seem mundane, but you'd be surprised what you can learn from understanding the way airplanes, maps, URLs, etc. are identified.)

One last idea I had was that - since they are military produced and therefore public domain documents - I could upload them to Wikimedia Commons. However, I wanted to make sure this was okay with you first before doing it. Also, I don't have any experience mass uploading a large number of images, so it might take a while to do - if possible at all.

Wed Jan 12, 2022 4:21 am

Noha,

I left you a PM. You can reply at my email address I included.

Thanks,

Mac

Wed Jan 12, 2022 1:24 pm

I have the following (4) in my collection. Not sure what to do with them, they were of interest to me at the time. Make an offer.

NK-50 Jehol / NK-51 SHEN-YANG (MUKDEN) - I have two of these, (1943) and (1944)
NO. 32, FRENCH INDO CHINA NO. 33, CENTRAL CHINA (1943/1944)
NO. C-52 JAPAN AND SOUTH CHINA SEAS/NO. C-53 EAST CHINA SEA (ADVANCE EDITION MAY 1945)

I thought I had more but this is what I could find on short notice. I think I typically pad $30 each on eBAY 20+ years ago.

Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:01 pm

I came across a listing of World War II aeronautical charts on an auction site and it keyed me onto a few more previously unstated categories of maps:

Cloth Maps

NACI-HO No. S7B-8-1 - Bonin Islands[1]
NACI-HO No. S7B-9-4 - Okinawa Shima & Parece Vela[1]
NACI-HO No. S8A-10-1 - North Central New Guinea[2]
NACI-HO No. S12-2-32 - Marshall Islands[3]
NACI-HO No. S12-2-36 - Central Caroline Islands[4]
NACI-HO No. S12-[Illegible] - Admiralty Islands & Northwest Bismarck Archipelago[2]
NACI-HO No. S12-17 - Marianas Islands[4]
NACI-HO No. S12-19 - Marshall Islands[3]
[Unnumbered] - Ocean Currents and Surface Winds for the West Pacific Area[5]

Long Range Air Navigation Charts

LR-27 - Philippine Islands[6][7]
28 - Caroline Islands[8]
52 - East Australia[9]
[Unnumbered] - Arabian Sea[10]
[Unnumbered] - West Australia[11]

Pacific Airways Plotting Charts

VR-201 - [Hawaiian Islands and Southern California][12]
VR-202 - [Gilbert Islands and Hawaiian Islands][13.1]
VR-203 - [Cook Islands][13.1]
VR-204 - [New Caldonia, Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands][13.1]
VR-205 - [New Caldonia and New Zealand][13.1]
VR-206 - [Caroline Islands, Marshall Islands, New Guinea and Solomon Islands][13]
VR-207 - [Midway, Hawaii and Wake][13.1]
VR-208 - [Northern Borneo, Philippines and Southeast Asia][13.1]
VR-209 - [Kurile Islands, Northern Japan and Western Aleutian Islands][13.1]
VR-210 - [Eastern China, Guam, Japan, Philippines and Wake][13.1]

Pilot Charts

No. 1401W - Pilot Chart of the [North Pacific Ocean][14]
No. 2601W - Pilot Chart of the South Pacific Ocean[15]
No. 2603W - Pilot Chart of the Indian Ocean[16]

Special Air Navigation Charts

S134 - Korea-Japan [17][18]

Target Maps and Approach Charts (Cont.)

CINCPAC-CINCPOA No. NO-4 - Nagoya-Ōsaka[19]
CINCPAC-CINCPOA No. SE-3 - Sendai Area, Japan[20][21]
CINCPAC-CINCPOA No. SE-4 - Sendai Area, Japan[22]

Various Charts

D-2222 - [Unknown][23]
VS-2 - Important Air Bases and Air Distance in the Pacific Area[24]

EDIT (23-09-08): Added link to digitized version of S134.

Last edited by Noha307 on Fri Sep 08, 2023 5:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Army Air Forces Aeronautical and Cloth Charts

Army Air Forces Aeronautical and Cloth Charts

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