Beschreibung:

A small collection relating to US landings on D-Day, comprising: 1. 8 color "Chart-Maps" of the US "Omaha" ("Beach 46") and "Utah" ("Beach 49") landing areas showing elevations and physical features with German defenses marked in red, numbered US Chart Map numbers 1001-1008, with key and instructions for use with Profile Sheets and Tidal Curves on the verso of each. Each 620 x 900 mm, dated May 21, 1944, produced by the Information Section of the Office of the Chief Engineer, ETOUSA. Chart 1002 with Profile Sheet and Tidal Curve taped on and marked up for 6am on June 6, 1944. Each with printed classification "BIGOT - TOP SECRET Until operations are announced, thereafter RESTRICTED." Some browning and nicks to some of the maps. 2. 8 accompanying "Profile Sheets" of similar format, each with three vertical cross-sections representing specific points marked on each chart. 3. 3 sets of graphs showing tidal curves at "Utah" and "Omaha" beaches for 30 May to 12 June 1944, security level "TOP SECRET" canceled with replacement "RESTRICTED" stamp. 4. 2 folding instructions, and 2 indexes, for use with the maps. 5. 2 copies of a "Landing Craft Silhouettes" transparency, with scale cross-sections of 9 different classes of vessel used in the attack, designed for use in conjunction with the Chart Maps and related material, in paper wrappers bearing printed instructions, 130 x 205 mm. 6. 25 gelatin silver prints of the D-Day Operations, mostly 9 by 7½ inches. 7. 2 16mm reels labeled "True Glory" reels one and two, presumably the 1945 documentary of D-Day compiled from footage shot at the time. 8. 3 letters to or from the widow of Hugo van Kuyck and Lieutenant General Arthur G. Trudeau. The charts that made the D-Day landings at Omaha and Utah beaches possible, once the property of their designer, Belgian architect Hugo van Kuyck [1902-1975]. Van Kuyck had fled Europe for the US, then worked in London in 1943 during the build-up to the cross-channel attack. He had discovered that the beaches used in training exercises in the UK were profoundly different from those in France. Lieutenant General Arthur G. Trudeau [1902-1991], chief of staff for the US amphibious forces during World War II, explains in one of the included letters: "It had never been checked before, but when you consider that the beaches we were to land on in France had a very flat slope, and the difference between high and low tide sometimes made a difference of about a mile and a half between the actual shore line, then a more exact knowledge ... becomes more important." Van Kuyck designed this ingenious system of charts, diagrams and overlays, with which one could check exactly how close any landing ship could get to the beach at a given time in the tidal cycle before running aground, by moving the scale cross-sections of the ships along the marked up vertical profile. Provenance: Hugo Van Kuyck; thence by descent; Jay Snider.