Escape and Evasion / Survival aids - Silk maps and Escape Compasses + more!

[Grimebox]

Another example of an early war Air Ministry silk map, sheet 9.U. This example has a heat sealed edge and is shown alongside the hemmed edge version

[Grimebox]

A rare example of a Pointie Talkie in Chinese booklet printed on rayon. These were issued in escape wallets alongside maps. It covers a range of words and phases, my particular favourites being ‘fever with an enlarged spleen’ and ‘Malays like injections’ (not quite sure what situation you would be in to use that!)

[Grimebox]

Another very rare booklet also printed on rayon, ‘The Malay languages. Vocabulary and useful phrases’. This would also have been provided in an escape wallet. I have shown it alongside my other rayon printed booklets

[Grimebox]

Now I am assuming that this is a very rare beast as I have never seen or heard of one. It is a British blood chit for the Far East and was clearly part of a survival pack (I’m assuming the tropical version of the RAF 1941 pattern Mae West survival pack going by the shape)
As can be seen it is slightly larger than the standard blood chit of the same design and on the rear it shows the contents of the survival ‘back pack’.

[Truebrit]

Really nice pieces you have picked up there. As you say, rare and very interesting!

[Truebrit]

For a great - and in part amusing - tribute to the Great Escape, don’t miss Guy Martin’s Great Escape at 9pm Sunday on Channel 4. The show includes a scene where Guy is challenged to find a number of genuine Evasion and Escape devices in an example of a loaded WW2 RAF tunic...

[Grimebox]

Interesting bit on escape and evasion kit

[Grimebox]

Another version of Sheet J3 and J4 covering Italy. My earlier map is not marked with as much with the sheet codes. They are also in different fonts. I am not sure but I believe that this might be because they were made by different manufacturers.

[Grimebox]

Now the following maps appear to be very special. First off they are GSGS 4090 maps of Norway which are very rare in there own right (purportedly it is reported that only 100 copies of each were produced). There were 33 sheets that were produced, all single sided, and I have eight that were purchased together and are clearly a set for reasons that will become clear shortly, however, the most telling is that they have staple marks down the left hand side showing that they were once stapled together. The maps are very detailed to the extent that not every place name can be read.
The interesting thing about these maps is that they all cover the area around Telemark and even more interesting is the fact that all bar one map are marked with a line/lines in yellow pencil and red crosses. These lines would appear to end / start in the area of Tinnsjo and Vestfjorddalen. Both of these locations are pertinent to sabotage of heavy water production in Norway
Norwegian heavy water sabotage - Wikipedia
Tinnsjo - SF Hydro - Wikipedia
Vestfjorddalen - Rjukan Line - Wikipedia
Is it too much to think that these maps might relate to one of the operations surrounding the attack on the heavy water? Certainly worthy of a lot more research when I have the time!!
I will show the maps (and their marks) in separate posts in the order that they were in when purchased. First up is Sheet E 34 East - Nore

[Grimebox]

Sheet F 34 West - Sigdal