BAOR ROAD MAP

Does any one else remember the time before Sat Navs and GPS? The good old BAOR Road Map. Got lost with that many a time! Way more convenient than the OS maps though! Did suffer with 'uber security' in that having got somewhere new you had no idea where the barracks were. Those were the days.

I remember the BAOR Road Map which was quite a size!

You could map read the complete route fron Calais or was it the Hook all the way to Hannover or even Hamburg, I think!

The map was printed on both sides and even had large scale areas in the corners covering complicated Autobahn crossovers and city areas ie. Oberhausen-Dusseldorf-Dortmund Ruhr area.

Thats it. We always hoped that the russians would use them to try and find us. That way we would have an extra few minutes to write our wills!. We guessed that they would just hire a taxi to each of the barracks anyway!! I think it was Calais and Zeebrugge because they were the main ports that squaddies used in those days.

somewhere in my collection of junk or should i say memorabilia i have one i used it a few years ago when i went over to germany on a motorbike trip down memory lane, it got me to bunde an lubbecke no problem,this year i bought a new map with the autobahn routes more updated.
the funny thing was when i got through rotterdam and on to the autobahn things looked all to familiar,going in may so lets see how i go on this time , sat nat not for me a couple of mates have it and have got lost or been taken down one way streets.

It seemed to get you to the ports okay. Perhaps they were telling us something! Good luck in May. If we haven't heard by June we'll know it didn't work! Take some piccies to put on the main website.

yes i will take some photos, if i get chance to nip over to Osnabruck and Minden will get some of there as well, not sure when i will be back once i get going could end up anywhere,last time ended up in denmark, russia sounds good.

I've still got one of the Special BAOR Road Maps. Issued in 1958 and compiled from parts of the Allied Road Maps of Europe series.
Sheets 1, 6, & 7.

alan 8376 You are not that much younger than me, what dates were you in Aden and what unit please?

brian beckett wrote:

I've still got one of the Special BAOR Road Maps. Issued in 1958 and compiled from parts of the Allied Road Maps of Europe series.
Sheets 1, 6, & 7.

Maybe I can get off another shot about my so-far futile quest for information about those operational route signs that used to be in place along various roads and highways. I know the route names were printed on those huge maps in a small box over the road, but that's about all I recall. They disappeared in 1960 or thereabouts. Can you check and confirm or deny that they're on your map please, Brian? (Or anyone for that matter).

Bearing in mind I'm not talking about those "up route, down route" signs that appeared during excercises. These were permanent signs placed by the RMP featuring names like: "Snap, Jack, Juno, Joker, Mars" etc. I found them very helpful on those frequent occasions when that sinking "lost" feeling prevailed.

Sorry the route names do not appear on my BAOR map or infact
would they have appeared on the Allied Route Maps it was
compiled from. I retained a set of these for a number of years
after demob until they became so out of date due to the
massive building of motorways around Europe.

May be able to help have a 1945-1946 1 Corps District map from the Dutch border to Holtzminden in the east and Osnabrück in the north but the job to scan it is a challenge…will let you know when I get round to tackling it!
Regards
Steve

I have still got my BAOR road map from the 1970's and i lent to a colleague of mine a few years ago in the early 21st century and he got to where he had to go in Germany and did not get lost once, much to my surprise, as i always did especially round the Rhur area looking for the right Autobahn to get to the boat home

I was responsible for getting the route maps printed by the engineers at 1 (BR) Corps when I was in CMOC. Good days.

I see Jim so it was your fault we always got lost and ended up in pubs to ask directions of course, it would have been rude not to have a few beers when the landlord gave you directions to where u were supposed to be going

I always thought it was a bit strange that we only ever gave the packet leaders maps, if you got separated from your convoy you were doomed.

Happily us lot in the AAC had one each cos they had so many in the squadron map rooms so we all got lost mainly in our cars lol with a nice lady with us but nuff said of that

I bet you never stuck to the MSR's either.

True lol but i wont say any more incase i incriminate myself

When CMOC was activated I had a great Job, I had a motor bike and got to drive along the MSR's monitoring the packs and checking with the MP's were different chalks were. Great stuff, I loved it.

Have to honest we rarely did a lot of driving apart from beign given a grid ref and off we went to get the HLS's set up for the aircraft but we did have lots of fun though

Taffy, did you get involved in the harrier hides in the woods at all? That was another part about CMOC I loved.

No we did not lol we kept away from crab air, as they did not like Teeny Weeny Airways, cos we could do it better than them and they did not like it , cos it harder to camo a helicopter than a harrier

so you found your way to this site taff,now tell every one the truth [nearly everybody in the AAC was nicknamed general cockup]

No only the aircrew lol us groundies had some common sense when not kipping

jim wrote:

Taffy, did you get involved in the harrier hides in the woods at all? That was another part about CMOC I loved.

I've got some rather poor photies of that. Well it was a Kodak instamatic and I probably shouldn't have been photographing our harriers at all...but.