Gruppe Wijtschaete

[jjd]

I have a German map, which came from my grandfather who served in WWI 1914-1919, with Cameron Highlanders. I believe the map is WWI but he did work for HM Admiralty maps as a printer in WWII and there is a large stain of what appears to be printers ink on the map.

The map is entitled Gruppe Waijtschaete at 1:40000 scale, and measures about 1m x 60cm, it is in black and white; the easternmost 15cm appear to be a French map at the same scale glued to the German one. The map is centred on Menin. It has been annotated with a series of up to seven east-west blue dotted lines with various numbers and letters attached, there are also various red flags with numbers and various brown triangles, circles and crosses. The blue lines extend from Wytschaete in the west to St Louis in the east, Werwick in the south to Oygem in the north.

A scanned section is attached. Can anyone tell me more? Would it be worth donating to a museum and if so which?

John D

[sjustice]

Hi John,

Bumping this for you. Are there any north-south lines marked? This would help identification.

I am aware of Gruppe Waijtschaete in 1917 but I'm not 100% sure regarding earlier; I can't find anything regarding a similar formation 1940-45, but that's not conclusive!

Regarding a repository for the map, the IWM has a very large collection of such maps and would love to have it I am sure. They should also be able to help with identification. If you don't get final answers there, try the Centre for War Studies at the University of Birmingham and/or Prof. Stephen Badsey at Wolverhampton.

Good luck and cheers,

Simon

[David Filsell]

Some four years ago a skip was located by the IWM - it contained amongst other things trench maps. Fortunately a bin diver managed to rescue many of them. Keep it.

[jjd]

Thanks for the replies, having researched a little more I'm pretty convinced its WWI, if it dates from 1917 then my grandfather would have been in the 5/Camerons by then (previously 4/Camerons & Lovat Scouts). There is a north-south solid line running from In de Strer through Gheluvet to near Messines (but lost in staining), with sectors marked K, L, M, N. Have tried to add scanned image but can't get post to accept it. John

[sjustice]

That does sound like the German front line in early 1917. Given your grandfather's profession I suppose it could be a duplicate; it is in amazing condition, how has the map been kept?

Would be great to see more if you can manage it. Also, when you have reached 5 posts you can direct message, in which case try dropping a note to CROONAERT (Dave) who probably knows more about German military maps than anyone here.

Cheers,

Simon

[roel22]

Gruppe Wijtschate definitely is WW1, fought near Messines in 1917. Adolf Hitlers unit was part of it.

Roel

[jjd]

Thanks for replies, I have tried to paste in some more scans but forum won't let me, I can paste in text but not an image (any thoughts). AOK4 sent me a message suggesting it was marking dumps and medical facilities. Suspect my grandfather picked it up on battlefield. It would have lain in his cellar until late 1970s and has since been folded and kept in a draw. I suspect he knocked over ink, done when it was folded by distribution of stain marks.

Regards

John

[jjd]

I have posted 4 scans of map in Gallery entitled Menin Map. If anyone would like other areas scanned please post here

John

[Phil Evans]

John,

Where have you posted them? I hope one of them was immediately West of your initial one. If you are having problems (it may be you are exceeding the 250kb limit), I'm quite happy if you email them to me for me to post. My email address can be found on my website shown at the bottom of my posts.

I would tend to agree with Jan. I will have a more in depth look this evening.

Phil

[Phil Evans]

For those as thick as me, hopefully this is a direct link to John's pics: Menin Maps

Phil

[jjd]

Have now added scans of easternmost part of map to gallery. This includes the whole of the French map glued onto the German one. For those interested the grid numbers on the map they are as follows:-

The German south axis starting in the west runs from 7 down to 1 then 99 down to 73. The north axis runs from 51 down to 18, west to east. The eastern axis is obscured by the French map but starts with 2100 then 2000 in the south-east corner. The western axis starting in the southwest corner goes 2200; 2100, 2000 then 7900 to 6000 in the northwest corner.

John

[CROONAERT]

It's a 'Gruppenkarte' and dates from the first quarter of 1918 (the grid reference system dates it to post-December 1917 and the frontline depicted on it shows it as it was post-3rd Ypres but pre-April 1918). More tomorrow when I've had more than a cursory glance at it.

Dave.

[CROONAERT]

As Jan mentioned, it shows the locations of supply dumps (and ammunition dumps, though they don't seem to be indicated as such) and depots. The 'cross in a circle' sign indicates locations where red cross signs have been observed. These are likely to be medical facilities, but not necessarily so.

Various headquarters (Army, Corps, Divisional ,Brigade and Regimental) are also indicated. The 'dashed' lines are regimental boundaries and the others (I don't know what they're called, but they look like an 'I' on their sides) indicate divisional boundaries.

I suspect that some (most?) of the annotations are British additions.

Dave

[jjd]

Thanks for your help Dave

John

[AOK4]

Hello,

The text in the side mentions Brennstoff (gasoline) and Nahkampfmittel (close combat weapons), indicating that the symbols on the map would be connected. The colored roads with the extra information in the form of numbers and/or letters is indicating (if you know the meaning) for what kind of traffic the road can be used (there were also rules about in which directions certain roads could be used, which roads were seen by the enemy, what the quality of the roads were etc.). The black stuff could perhaps be either some kind of gasoline or some kind of tar, indicating the map was used by Kraftfahrer (military motorized transport corps) or Strassenbau units (road building).

The thicker line (the I serifs) is the Gruppe (Army Corps) boundary, the thinner line (I sans serifs) are the divisional boundaries: K, L, M and N within the Gruppe Wytschaete.

The red symbols are indeed Army HQ (4th in Kortrijk), Group HQ (W probably indiciating Wytschaete in Kortrijk, O ???) and then divisional, birgade and regimental HQs.

Jan

[jjd]

Jan many thanks the German translations very informative.

John