War Office: 1:250000 Europe Air (Not to be Published) Palermo, Messina. , London: Geographical Section General Staff, No. 3982 Published by the War Office printed by Ordnance Survey ,1939.

A large folded map of Sicily, the Straits of Messina, Malta and Gozo. Contemporaneously joined sheets. Scale 1 inch = 3.95 miles 1cm =2.5 Km. Messina is identified as Italy Sheet J 33/5 1st edition. Compiled and drawn at WO 1938. Heliographed and printed at OS 1939. With Air Information as supplied by the Air Ministry Feb. Mar. 1939. They almost certainly formed a wall map in a wartime operations context. They came from the estate of Commodore C.A.R. Shillington CB VDR RNVR. There is some wear from wartime usage, folded as it came to us. Shows land and water aerodromes, landing grounds, seaplane mooring areas, airship bases, airports, radio communications, etc. Curiously the reference table showing comparative city sizes lists only German ones, from Berlin through Cologne, Bonn, Coblenz. Obviously a lot of hasty mapmaking was taking place in 1938/39. A nice wartime souvenir map. (Book ref. 9723)  £55.00

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