Original Items: Only One Set of Two Available. Evasion charts or escape maps are maps made for service members, and intended to be used when caught behind enemy lines to assist in performing escape and evasion. Such documents were secreted to prisoners of war by various means to aid in escape attempts.
 
During World War II, these clandestine maps were used by many American, British, and allied servicemen to escape from behind enemy lines. Special material was used for this purpose, due to the need for a material that would be hardier than paper, and would not tear or dissolve in water.
 
Evasion charts produced for the US, UK, and NATO were printed on vinyl sheets in the 1960s. Modern evasion charts are made of Tyvek 'paper', which permit printing of minute detail while remaining waterproof and tear-resistant.
 
The first map is a WWII era (not dated) double sided map of Southern Norway’s Northern Section on one side and Southern Section. The scale is 1:1,000,000 and can be found at the bottom of the Southern Section side of the map. The reference box is located at the top left of the Northern Section and lists different types of roads and railways as well as waterways, mountains, boundaries and towns of importance. The map itself is in great condition and shows signs of light use with very minor staining.
Dimensions: 21” x 16”
 
The second map is another double sided examp. The one side is of Khar’kov and the otherside is for Rostov. The map is dated for June 1953 and the map was first published by the war office in 1948 with the second edition in 1952. The Khar’kov map is the second edition version and it states that at the top to the left of “KHAR’KOV”. The map has a scale of 1:1,000,000. This side also contains the geographical references which show railways, roads, waterways, factories, oil wells, mountain ranges and anything else of importance. There is also a box which shows the Index To Adjoining Sheets which is essentially a template to show the surrounding areas and where to place other maps according to location. It shows Khar’kov in the center:

Smolensk Moscow Penza
Kiev Khar’kov Stalingrad
Odessa Rostov  Elista

This was important to know, not only so you could join together maps correctly, but so you knew what areas you were sounded by.

The Rostov side is also scaled at 1:1,000,000 and is the Fifth Edition of the map. The reference box shows railways, roads, waterways, factories, oil wells, mountain ranges and anything else of importance. The condition is excellent and does show signs of use and wear but there is no significant damage available.
Dimensions: 26” x 21”
 
These two maps are wonderful examples of crucial items needed during war time. Maps were very important to have on you, especially during the days before handheld GPS. Armed with a map and compass a downed pilot stuck behind enemy lines or in unfamiliar territory would be able to navigate safely, know what areas to avoid and where to seek help.
 
Both come ready to display!
 
 
 
Norway During WWII
The occupation of Norway by NSDAP Germany during the Second World War began on 9 April 1940 after Operation Weserübung. Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940 and Germany controlled Norway until the capitulation of German forces in Europe on 8/9 May 1945. Throughout this period, Norway was continuously occupied by the Wehrmacht. Civil rule was effectively assumed by the Reichskommissariat Norwegen (Reich Commissariat of Norway), which acted in collaboration with a pro-German puppet government, the Quisling regime, while the Norwegian king Haakon VII and the prewar government escaped to London, where they formed a government in exile. This period of military occupation is, in Norway, referred to as the "war years", "occupation period" or simply "the war".
 
One of the most successful actions undertaken by the Norwegian resistance was the Norwegian heavy water sabotage, which crippled the German nuclear energy project. Prominent resistance members, among them Max Manus and Gunnar Sønsteby, destroyed several ships and supplies of the Kriegsmarine. Radical organizations such as the Osvald Group sabotaged a number of trains and railways. However most organizations opted for passive resistance.
 
Illegal newspapers were distributed, including Friheten, Vårt Land, Fritt Land. Illegal trade union periodicals included Fri Fagbevegelse.
 
Russian American Relations
Russia has a long history of Anti-Americanism, dating back to the Communist takeover in 1917. Relations were cold until 1933, when President Franklin D Roosevelt opened relations with the USSR. The two were allies in World War II, and agreed to divide Germany. They disagreed on the future of Eastern Europe. As Moscow took control there the Cold War emerged. Relations were hostile with large-scale war plans, but no actual warfare. A detente appeared briefly in the 1970s, then the Cold War returned and escalated in the early 1980s. Moscow lost control of East Europe in 1989, and the Communist Party collapsed in 1991, leading to a friendly era. After 2002 tensions returned and relations today are cool.
 
In recent Russian polls, the United States and its allies consistently top the list of greatest enemies.
 
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, which began following World War II. Historians do not fully agree on its starting and ending points, but the period is generally considered to span the 1947 Truman Doctrine (12 March 1947) to the 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union (26 December 1991). The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against NSDAP Germany in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

The Western Bloc was led by the United States as well as the other First World nations of the Western Bloc that were generally liberal democratic but tied to a network of authoritarian states, most of which were their former colonies. The Eastern Bloc was led by the Soviet Union and its Communist Party, which had an influence across the Second World and was also tied to a network of authoritarian states. The US government supported right-wing governments and uprisings across the world, while the Soviet government funded left-wing parties and revolutions around the world. As nearly all the colonial states achieved independence in the period 1945–1960, they became Third World battlefields in the Cold War.
 
The first phase of the Cold War began shortly after the end of the Second World War in 1945. The United States and its allies created the NATO military alliance in 1949 in the apprehension of a Soviet attack and termed their global policy against Soviet influence containment. The Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955 in response to NATO. Major crises of this phase included the 1948–49 Berlin Blockade, the 1927–1949 Chinese Civil War, the 1950–1953 Korean War, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The US and the USSR competed for influence in Latin America, the Middle East, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia.
 
Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, a new phase began that saw the Sino-Soviet split between China and the Soviet Union complicate relations within the Communist sphere, while France, a Western Bloc state, began to demand greater autonomy of action. The USSR invaded Czechoslovakia to suppress the 1968 Prague Spring, while the US experienced internal turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. In the 1960s–70s, an international peace movement took root among citizens around the world. Movements against nuclear arms testing and for nuclear disarmament took place, with large anti-war protests. By the 1970s, both sides had started making allowances for peace and security, ushering in a period of détente that saw the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the US opening relations with the People's Republic of China as a strategic counterweight to the USSR. A number of self-proclaimed Marxist regimes were formed in the second half of the 1970s in the Third World, including Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Nicaragua.

Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s was another period of elevated tension. The United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when it was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of glasnost ("openness", c. 1985) and perestroika ("reorganization", 1987) and ended Soviet involvement in Afghanistan in 1989. Pressures for national sovereignty grew stronger in Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev refused to militarily support their governments any longer.
 
In 1989, the fall of the Iron Curtain after the Pan-European Picnic and a peaceful wave of revolutions (with the exception of Romania and Afghanistan) overthrew almost all communist governments of the Eastern Bloc. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control in the Soviet Union and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, the declaration of independence of its constituent republics and the collapse of communist governments across much of Africa and Asia. The United States was left as the world's sole superpower.
 
The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy. It is often referred to in popular culture, especially with themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare. For subsequent history see International relations since 1989.