Evasion or victory: MI9’s cartographic program in the Second World War and silk escape maps

Abstract

During the Second World War, the United Kingdom developed one of the most singular –and for decades least narrated– operations in the applied history of cartography: the clandestine production of maps intended to facilitate the evasion and escape of Allied servicemen captured in Europe. This operation, coordinated by MI9 (Section 9 of the Directorate of Military Intelligence of the War Office), combined three closely interdependent components: 1. an institutional philosophy («escape-mindedness») that transformed the attempt to escape into a duty; 2. a system of coded correspondence that enabled guidance, requests, and verification of resources; and 3. a cartographic programme that employed textile supports –silk, tissue, and semi-synthetic fibres– to maximise portability, durability, and concealment. This article reconstructs and analyses MI9’s cartographic programme by examining its organisational context, its technical materiality (cartography on fabric), its production and distribution mechanisms (large-scale smuggling operations), its real operational uses (escape routes towards Switzerland and Sweden), and its cultural afterlife in the post-war period. The study also incorporates a brief case note on the presence and public dissemination of Second World War silk escape maps held by the National Library of Spain, as an indicator of the international circulation and heritage preservation of these cartographic artefacts.