{"id":1787940,"date":"2019-10-25T12:18:59","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T16:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1787940"},"modified":"2019-10-25T12:19:35","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T16:19:35","slug":"the-secret-mission-to-seize-german-map-data-in-world-war-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/10\/the-secret-mission-to-seize-german-map-data-in-world-war-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Mission to Seize German Map Data in World War II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greg Miller\u2019s crackerjack story<\/a> in the November 2019 issue of Smithsonian<\/em> magazine is about the quest to capture German geodetic data\u2014and German geographers\u2014during the dying days of the Second World War. Said data was a strategically critical treasure trove, of immense interest to the U.S. War Department, and the team led by Floyd W. Hough was in a race to find it before it was destroyed, carried away by the enemy, or fell into Soviet hands.<\/p>\n

Little is publicly known about the true scope of the information that Hough and his team captured, or the ingenuity they displayed in securing it, because their mission was conducted in secret, and the technical material they seized circulated only among military intelligence experts and academics. But it was a vast scientific treasure\u2014likely the largest cache of geographic data the United States ever obtained from an enemy power in wartime.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The data seized by Hough\u2019s team went on to form the basis of the ED50<\/a> geodetic datum, which in turn led to the Universal Tranverse Mercator<\/a> system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greg Miller\u2019s crackerjack story in the November 2019 issue of Smithsonian magazine is about the quest to capture German geodetic data\u2014and German geographers\u2014during the dying days of the Second World War. Said data was a… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[593,231,256,500,1032],"class_list":["post-1787940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-surveying","tag-datum","tag-geodesy","tag-military","tag-world-war-ii","tag-wwii","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1784986,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/02\/indiana-university-is-digitizing-its-collection-of-russian-topo-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787940,"position":0},"title":"Indiana University Is Digitizing Its Collection of Russian Topo Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"13 February 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"Indiana University's collection of some 4,000 Russian military topographic maps is being digitized, thanks to a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources. \u201cThe world-changing differences documented by maps in the Eastern Bloc Borderlands project cannot be overstated,\u201d says Michelle Dalmau, head of Digital Collections Services for IU\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conflicts"","block_context":{"text":"Conflicts","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/conflicts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1787403,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/06\/d-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787940,"position":1},"title":"D-Day","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"6 June 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the Bodleian Map Room Blog (no relation) has a post showing some of the Bodleian's map holdings that deal with Operation Overlord. (The Bodleian has posted about D-Day before: see this post from June 2014 marking the 70th anniversary, and this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conflicts"","block_context":{"text":"Conflicts","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/conflicts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Map from The Neptune Monograph","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/neptune-monograph-omaha-east-1024x801.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/neptune-monograph-omaha-east-1024x801.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/neptune-monograph-omaha-east-1024x801.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/neptune-monograph-omaha-east-1024x801.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1283,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/03\/women-in-cartography-continued\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787940,"position":2},"title":"Women in Cartography (Continued)","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"21 March 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"On the Library of Congress's map blog, a post about the women cartographers employed by the military and government during World War II\u2014the so-called \"Military Mapping Maidens.\" The Guardian has a brief item on ocean mapper Marie Tharp. CityLab's Laura Bliss presents\u00a0a selection of maps by women mapmakers like Mary\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"wac-cartographer","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/wac-cartographer-191x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":764,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/02\/gps-and-the-first-gulf-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787940,"position":3},"title":"GPS and the First Gulf War","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"8 February 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Scientific American on\u00a0how the U.S. military used GPS during the first Gulf War in 1991\u2014the first war in which GPS played a major role.\u00a0\"GPS would change warfare and soon became an indispensible asset for adventurers, athletes and commuters as well. The navigation system has become so ubiquitous, in fact, that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GPS"","block_context":{"text":"GPS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4988,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/09\/more-maps-of-the-2017-german-federal-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787940,"position":4},"title":"More Maps of the 2017 German Federal Election","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"27 September 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Cartogrammer extraordinaire Benjamin Hennig has produced cartograms of the 2017 German federal election results. A second set of cartograms looks at voter turnout and each party's share of the vote.\u00a0These cartograms distort for population to compensate for densely populated areas, so that the choropleth maps used for election results are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/hennig-german-elections-1024x662.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/hennig-german-elections-1024x662.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/hennig-german-elections-1024x662.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/hennig-german-elections-1024x662.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1808020,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/07\/d-day-map-donated-to-library-of-congress\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787940,"position":5},"title":"D-Day Map Donated to Library of Congress","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"7 July 2022","format":"link","excerpt":"A top-secret map of Omaha Beach used in the D-Day landing has been donated to the Library of Congress by the family of the soldier who carried it into battle, the Washington Post reports (mirror: Stars and Stripes). [MAPS-L]","rel":"","context":"In "Conflicts"","block_context":{"text":"Conflicts","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/conflicts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1787940"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1787942,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787940\/revisions\/1787942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1787940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1787940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1787940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}