In the 56 Recce diaries there is a detailed map, produced by their Intelligence Section, covering operations in the Castel del Rio area of Italy. I have posted some details on the "56 Recce Operations" post under this topic. This map is shown below: While researching this period of the Regiment’s history I came across, what must undoubtedly be, the original: This is a War Office map copied from a 1934 Italian original. It can be seen on an Italian site: .:: Geoportale Nazionale ::. Enter ‘Fontanelice’ in the search box, bottom RHS – you need to be careful how you type this as the site seems slow to react, select it from the list that appears. Middle boxes click on ‘Immagini’ and double click ‘Carta IGM scala 25,000. You can zoom in or out, or also select the scale from the ‘Selezione scala’ on the LHS, try 1:10000. Unfortunately I don’t speak Italian but, if you zoom right out, you will see this map covers the whole of Italy and Sicily, I can't say for sure if they are the same era. It is also possible to find locations by entering longitude/latitude co-ordinates in the ‘Zoom su coordinata’ boxes on the LHS. Searches for other sites such as Cassino, Anzio etc produce the relevant map. Thought this was a great site for anyone interested in the Italian campaign, so may be worth keeping the link for future reference. The particular map is also available on the British Library website: Maps - See all of the items in this exhibition of Europe&n=35&r=10 6th map down titled Fontanelice. You can also find many other WW1 and WW2 maps. My apologies if someone has previously posted these links.
Again many thanks, just tried a few locations on Sicily and will be revisiting with war diaries. Brain
At Kew at the weekend I found a number of maps in one of the diaries for 80th Medium Regiment and after having them untagged, was able to make some reasonable photographic copies. Intrigued, I've just spent the last hour matching grid references from various RA, AGRA and RASC diaries including my fathers unit. They are a useful addition to the echodelta site. Expanding my search to the British Library and I came across this map of Cassino. Might be of interest perhaps, its certainly very detailed. This has been pot luck, I may be posting some later questions on how best to find maps covering the east side of Italy. http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/maps/europe/zoomify138654.html
The McMaster Library have quite a collection of WWII era topographical maps of Italy available on line at WWII topo maps of Italy. Mark
