Vintage Royal Air Force Escape Map
Maker - British Royal Air force
Era - 1954
Material - Silk/Rayon
Acquired - by Second Sunrise in 2017
In December 1939 the British ministry of defense formed a new section that came to be known as the MI6. Their function was to do everything they could for British soldiers that were caught behind enemy lines, which sadly there would be much need of on the years to come.
They created equipment to help people evade capture and, if caught, escape from the enemy, and one of the first items they made for that purpose was the Escape maps. These would be printed with a map over a certain region containing information about heights, roads, railroads, lakes, cities and so on. They often had other useful information on them, such as a glossary of simple words that might come in handy. Although the primary purpose of these maps was to help people, in this case pilots, to evade getting caught by enemy forces and to help them escape from said forces if they were captured, they were also ment to help raise the moral of soldiers who were made prisoners and to inspire and encourage them to escape.
A trained pilot was a very valuable asset to the British government at the time, which is a very good reason why the MI6 did what they could to get as many men home as possible. Returning pilots would also often bring valuable information back with them, which could be very useful.
One of the first companies to print these scarves was the same company that printed the Monopoly board games, and during the WWII special sets of Monopoly with secret compartments for maps were sent to imprisoned soldiers. We can only guess that this would have been a much appreciated gift! Over the years the maps have been printed on many materials such as mulberry paper, Rayon, vinyl and Tyvek "paper", but the first ones were printed on silk. The flexibility was of utter importance, since paper maps tend to break quickly in the creases and do not agree very well with water.
If needed, the textile maps could be used as sieves, band-aids and of course, scarves. Although wearing this important asset of information as a fashion statement was'nt exactly what the MI6 had in mind when they made them, photos can be seen of airmen doing just that! Shown here is a guy from the RAF (or maybe its the RAAF, Royal Australian Airforce) wearing one:
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During and after the war the maps were sometimes used to make pieces of clothing that had traditionally been made of silk, such as women's dresses and lingerie. Some of them are still around on the vintage market, so look it up if you like the sound of that!
So one day our phone rings four times in ten minutes, and it turns out that it's our friend Gil from Paris who is desperately trying to get hold of us. When we finally pick up, Gil tells us to quickly check our Emails, because he has just found something astonishing! In our inbox there was a picture of a box containing folded Rayon maps, with the name "Oslo-Stockholm" printed on them.
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RAF Escape & Evasion map, printed in June 1953. We guess that they were made for handing out to pilots going on reconnaissance missions over our dear part of the world. This side shows the south of Sweden and Norway, and the North of Denmark.
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Estonia, Latvia and northern Lithuania appears when the map is flipped around. The Swedish island Gotland and the Stockholm archipelago can also be seen to the right!
Even though the fabric is very thin, it is printed on both sides and although the colours used are far from bleak almost nothing of the print shows through on the other side.
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The print is very finely detailed and the amount of information about the landscape can easily live up to the standards of any modern-day map.
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G.S G.S refers to a printing series, and the red RESTRICTED speaks for itself.
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The northern part of the Stockholm archipelago, including islands named "fat island", "Southern arm" and "Northern ear".
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At the bottom of the edge, one finds an explanation of the symbols used and some rows of helpful words, here a part of the Norwegian glossary shows.
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Swedish glossary. These lists are focused on words connected to the landscape and roads.
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Our part of the world, printed on Rayon in 1953. Both Nyköping, where Kerstin grew up, and Eskilstuna, Douglas's birth town, shows here, aswell as our new hometown Stockholm.
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Oslo with surrounding areas is also shown in great detail!
What happened to that box of maps that Gil sent us a picture of, you may wonder. Well, of course we bought it! We kept one for ourselves, and the rest of them are up for grabs here at Second Sunrise. You can get one Right Here!
If you want to know more about Escape and Evasion maps, the internet is a good place to be. Have a look Here to read about things like the MI6 x EMI "Smash-hit" collaboration, grammophone records that contained maps!
This particular RAF escape map is now a part of our archive and we keep it as an inspirational piece. Do you know anything about it that you want to tell us? Let us know in the comments below!
Last week our archival post was about a lil' guy named Buddy Lee. You can read his story Here!
I would like to purchase a silk map RAF 1953 Escape map or any Baltic escape map that includes Estonia