UPDATED:  July 25, 2010 11:57 PM
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Student Finds ‘Top Secret’Japanese Map on WWII

By: Jennie L. Ilustre

When students think of summer adventure, it usually means an outdoor experience in an exotic place. Not indoors, far from nature. Well, Elizabeth Silliman, who will be a Yale College junior this month, majoring in history, just changed all that.

This summer, she was among 41 Junior Fellows at the Library of Congress (LOC) Asian Division in this nation’s capital. Who knew she would come across “an exciting find”?

During a one-day only exhibit of extraordinary finds held on August 5 at the LOC Jefferson Building, Elizabeth’s excitement over the World War II Japanese hand-drawn map was obvious. Tourists and locals lingered in the roomful of displays, amazed.

Elizabeth recalled she was “getting bored” sifting through a box of Japanese documents captured by the Allied forces during WWII. “When I found the map folded up in a dusty old pile of miscellaneous Japanese documents, I had no idea it might be anything special. As I unfolded it, I was impressed by how it had been drawn intricately by hand, and when I saw the word ‘Leyte’ and the year ‘1944,’ my interest was piqued.”

Leyte is a historic island in central Philippines. It is where Gen. Arthur MacArthur, commander of the U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE), landed with and American troops in October 1944 to liberate the Philippines, then a U.S. commonwealth in Asia. In 1941, Japanese forces invaded the Philippines after they attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, resulting in the U.S. entry into WWII.

Remarked Reme Grefalda, Asian American Pacific Islander Collection librarian/curator, Asian Division Primary Holdings Initiative at the Library of Congress: “It is a Japanese military map detailing the American military movement in Leyte, from the U.S. troops’ landing to their inroad plans.”

“The hand-drawn map is dated for presentation to the Japanese Command,” she said. “The penciled notations on the map are quite interesting–and one wonders how the Japanese were so precise in their intelligence-gathering to know the number of divisions to be sent by members of the Allied Forces serving with the Americans in the Philippine invasion.”

 

Historical evidence

Elizabeth came across the map in early July. As soon as she did, she showed it to her supervisor. Mari Nakahara, LOC Japanese reference librarian and also one of Elizabeth’s supervisors, said her first reaction was, the find was “Great, exciting!”

Ms. Nakahara added: “This collection provides important historical evidence of the Japanese World War II efforts, most of which were treated as ‘Top Secret.’ Included are reports on epidemiological studies of diseases compiled by doctors in Unit 731 of the Japanese Kwanton Army, which was responsible for studying and developing biological weapons, and two original lab notebooks related to attempts to develop atomic bombs.”

“Working with a diverse group of Japanese science, technology, and economics materials captured by the Allied Powers led by the United States, Elizabeth sorted, organized and created an inventory in order to prepare for cataloging to provide better access to the materials,” she explained.

Librarian/Curator Grefalda said the exhibit, which was open to the public, is a regular summer event in the library. “The junior fellows are assigned to each division and they are given boxes of files to go through. This map was found in the Japanese collection. In the past, some interns have come across old music compositions. Others have uncovered manuscripts never before seen.”

LOC Junior Fellow Elizabeth said, “My father was very excited about the map as we both love history and his father was in the Marine Corps in World War II. He helped me by researching the history of this battle so that I could compare American historical accounts with the markings on the map.” She is the only child of Molly Cowgill and Christopher Silliman, who have been very supportive of her summer fellowship.

 

Deciphering the map

“I translated the map mostly on my own, with some help from my supervisors in the Asian division,” Elizabeth recalled. “Many of the words on the map are outdated Japanese military jargon or abbreviation, which made them difficult for me to read. It took me about two weeks since I did it little by little with the help of a Japanese dictionary.”

She added: “Figuring out what the symbols on the map meant also took some detective work. For instance, airfields are indicated by little crosshatches, and dates on the map are written vertically with the day above the month. They make sense once you know what they mean, but they don’t look like dates at first. Also, the author of the map referred to Japanese divisions by nicknames like ‘spring division’ and ‘leopard division’ which I had to figure out. It was like putting pieces of a puzzle together.”

“This experience is so rewarding in how real and tangible they make history,” Elizabeth said. “This was a great end to my summer, and it made me feel satisfied with the work I put into understanding the map. I’m grateful that I had an opportunity to share this exciting find with people. I hope I was able to share my enthusiasm for it with people who visited the exhibit.”

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