British Somaliland

[Philippe]

I've never gone looking for this before, but I was wondering if anyone knew of any good sources for maps of Somalia.

I'm interested in the passes through the hills that were the scene of some interesting fighting during the successful Italian invasion of British Somaliland. Especially the one to the southwest of Berbera.

Perhaps there is something attached to the regimental history of the Black Watch (which I don't have access to) ? Apparently during the fighting (which was not allowed to become Thermopylae in East Africa, though it was on some people's minds) the Black Watch fixed bayonets and charged at a walk for several hundred yards. Sounds crazy until you realize they were probably expecting to have to go hand-to-hand with irregular Abyssinian banda, who were very good at close-in fighting with traditional weapons.

I did some map searching in the obvious places, but whenever I found a detailed map of Somalia, it tended to go blank when I zoomed in on the Ogaden.

I would imagine that there were Admiralty maps of the area at very least. And I know from the little reading that I have done that period maps have to be taken with a big grain of salt, especially the Italian ones.

And how hard is it to get ahold of a copy of the relevant section of the Black Watch unit history? I may be able to find the Italian Ministry of Defense history in the New York Public library, so it would be amusing to see both sides of the battle in languages I can almost read (I have problems with English).

[Kingfish]

Here are a few of Sudan / Ethiopia, but it may not be of the area you are interested in

These maps is a 1:100,000 scale of Sudan / Ethiopia, but it does not provide an index map to reference, so I have no idea what area in covers.

These maps are of the SW portion of Ethiopia. 1:200,000 scale

[civdiv]

The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at UofTX is pretty well known, but this is where I usually start;

Perry-Castañeda Library

and here is some info on the campaign;

http://stonebooks.com/history/somaliland.shtml

and here;

http://www.comandosupremo.com/KerenBattle.html

[ February 16, 2006, 05:53 AM: Message edited by: civdiv ]