----------------------------Original message----------------------------
You could contact the Public Affairs Office at the Defense Mapping Agency,
St Louis Site, 2nd & Arsenal Sts, St. Louis, Missouri, for more
information on these cloth charts.  This is the successor organization to
the original producer.
 
The Aeronautical Chart & Information Center (ACIC) in the late 1960's
still had many silk E&E charts in the warehouse.  (ACIC was one of the DMA
predecessors.) The newer series being introduced at that time were made of
plastic and intended to be part of the crew survival kit for use as
anything from a pancho to a rain catcher for drinking water, as well as a
map.
 
The general consensus was that the E&E chart scale, medium (250K to 500K
if memory serves me), made them somewhat impractical for local ground
navigation but their other uses made them essential to the kit.
 
The US Air Force Survival School at Fairchild AFB, Washington, may be able
to give more background information on these other uses.  Other sources
may be nearby at Travis AFB (Fairfield) or Mather AFB (Sacremento).  Your
student should also talk to veterans in the local Air Force Association
chapters for their experiences with the charts.
 
Happy hunting,
 
Ed Taylor
GEOname Products, GDE Systems, Inc.
GEOname Digital Gazetteer
GEOname Page: http://www.gdesystems.com/IIS/SlipSheets/GEONAME.html
 
> _______________________________________________________________________________
> Subject: AAF Cloth Charts
> Author:  Maps and Air Photo Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>
> Date:    11/10/1995  10:44 AM
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
> Colleagues:
>
> I have a student/researcher who is studying the AAF Cloth Charts,
> i.e. 'survival scarves', 'silk charts' issued to pilots during WWII.  She
> is interested in their use, design, what went into their development, the
> problems encountered with printing on both sides, etc.
> What is frustrating is that I remember reading/hearing something about
> these maps re the above questions but sometime in the last 20+ years.
> Needless to say, I can't remember where I saw it.  Any help would be
> greatly appreciated.
> I am crossposting this between Mapsl and Maphist.  My apologies for any
> duplication.
>
> David Lundquist
> Map Librarian
> Shields Library
> Univ. of California, Davis
>