A detailed, fascinating and very rare “confidential” map of Okinawa prepared by the US military during the vicious Okinawa campaign. Annotated by a participant.

Okinawa provided unique strategic advantages as a necessary stepping stone to the invasion of the Japanese homeland, and it became clear from early on in the war that any successful end to the war required Allied control of the island. Thus the specially-created 10th Army—constituted from units of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps–landed on Okinawa on April 1, 1945. The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, lasted for 82 days after the landing, concluding on June 22.

The size of the forces involved and the ferocity of the defense rendered it the most destructive battle in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War, claiming the lives of over 14,000 American and over 77,000 Japanese personnel. More than one hundred thousand Okinawans perished during and after the battle, many forced into suicide by the Japanese occupiers. This was the last major battle in the Pacific and marked the closest American ground forces would get to the Japanese homeland, prior to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Mapping Okinawa
The map depicts Okinawa in two sheets, extending from the densely settled southern districts around Naha and Shuri to the mountainous northern end. It records the island’s complicated coastline, beaches, reefs, anchorages and offshore islets, while inland it locates settlements, airfields, roads and tracks against a background of topographical relief and areas of heavy vegetation.

Both sheets are marked “ADVANCE COPY” and “CONFIDENTIAL.” They were initially issued in January 1945 as a general topographic map, but this example was subsequently overprinted in purple to depict primary and secondary roads and route numbers. The overprinting is not dated, but there exists a similar map with red overprinting dated June 21, 1945, a day before the battle ended.

Compiling the map
A detailed imprint on the southern sheet explains how the map was made:

“PREPARED UNDER DIRECTION OF ENGINEER, POA / BY 64^TH ENGR. TOP. BN. USAFCPBC JAN. 1945 / HORIZONTAL CONTROL FROM A.M.S. SERIES L891 / COMPILED BY 64^TH ENGR. TOP. BN. UTILIZING 1633^RD ENGR. / PHOTOMAPPING PLATOON MULTIPLEX AERO PROJECTOR STUDIES / FROM VERTICAL AND OBLIQUE PHOTOGRAPHY OF NAVY SORTIES 10 OCT. 1944.”

As best as I can tell, this means that the map was compiled by the U.S. Army’s 64^th Engineer Topographic Battalion. The battalion’s mapmakers used the Army Map Service’s larger-scale L891 series as the “base map,” then added topographic data and terrain features extracted from aerial photography. The photographs had been obtained during the first major American carrier strikes against Okinawa, on October 10, 1944, when Navy aircraft photographed approximately ninety percent of the target area while attacking airfields, shipping and military installations. Technicians of the attached 1633rd Engineer Photomapping Platoon used stereoscopic viewers to examine the imagery in three dimensions and trace contours and other features onto a plotting surface. The 64^th’s mapmakers then combined and reconciled this photographic intelligence with the Army Map Service base map.

The 64th Engineer Topographic Battalion
The 64th was one of the principal American military mapping organizations in the Central Pacific. Its predecessor, the 64th Engineer Topographic Company, reached Hawaii in 1942 and initially worked on maps associated with the defense of Pearl Harbor. Enlarged into a battalion at Schofield Barracks on April 5, 1944, it brought together specialists in photogrammetry, compilation, drafting, lithographic reproduction, and map distribution. The 1633rd Engineer Photomapping Platoon joined it later that year, adding the ability to derive accurate contours and planimetric detail directly from aerial photographs.

From Hawaii the battalion supplied cartographic materials to support campaigns in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, the Marianas, the Carolines, the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Its products served Army, Navy and Marine Corps planners and ranged from strategic briefing charts to large-scale landing and artillery maps. In April 1945 the main battalion moved to Guam, where its map plant continued the rapid revision and mass production of Okinawa mapping for Tenth Army and other Pacific commands.

The unit also maintained a mobile element. In August 1944, three officers and sixty enlisted men formed a Provisional Engineer Topographic Mapping Detachment attached to XXIV Corps. The detachment landed on Okinawa on April 20, 1945, where it prepared and revised maps for forces in the field, presumably including the road map offered here. Its personnel remained at work there until July, rejoining the parent battalion on Guam shortly before Japan’s surrender. The battalion subsequently moved to Tokyo and continued mapping for the American occupation.

Annotations by Ellis Daher Fysal
The reverse side of Sheet 1 bears the ownership stamp of Ellis Daher Fysal (1907–1997) of Asheville, North Carolina. Fysal added 18 notations to the map in three different colors of ink, suggesting that they were added at different times—whether during his time on Okinawa or some time thereafter, I cannot say. Some of the notes indicate locales of interest to him: A few beaches, a “lepper[sic] colony,” and “Happy Valley Civilian Village.” Others indicate events: “Jap plane shot down;” “bloody show” (presumably a particularly awful skirmish or battle); and, most awful of all, “suicide cliff” at the southern end of the island, where at hundreds if not more Japanese soldiers and civilians leapt (or were pushed) to their deaths.

Born in Syria, Fysal came to the United States with his mother and uncle at the age of three. Raised in Wilson, North Carolina, he attended the University of North Carolina, where he played guard for the Tar Heels from 1929 through 1931, earned an A.B., and pursued graduate and legal studies. He subsequently coached football at UNC, Elon and Wake Forest, as well as boxing and wrestling at Elon. Meanwhile, he developed what became a lifelong career in lifesaving and water safety with the Red Cross, beginning as a volunteer and joining the organization’s paid staff in 1938 as a regional safety instructor.

During World War II Fysal served American forces as a civilian Red Cross specialist. In 1945 he spent eight months in Hawaii and on Okinawa, training Marines, Seabees and other servicemen in first aid, lifesaving and combat-oriented water safety—including silent swimming and swimming through burning oil. Back in North Carolina by December, he resumed work as a Red Cross field director and later served the Asheville chapter in disaster and nursing programs. He retired in 1972 after forty-eight years of volunteer and professional Red Cross work and died in Asheville on June 12, 1997.

References
OCLC records a variety of related maps under the title “Okinawa Shima,” none matching this overprinted “Road Map” edition.