Fine large-format WWII "Newsmap," providing up-to-date coverage of World War II to American servicemen. The verso, meant to be displayed the next week when the recto has gone out-of-date, has a chart of fighter planes with photographs and descriptions.
A Press Association photograph of a German machine gun post outside of the city of Stalingrad accompanies the brief recounting, "... new gains for the Nazis within the city limits." Accompanied by a map of the North African theater (by Liam Dunne), the start of the Second Battle of El Alamein gives the text cause to posit, "... this might be an attempt to clean the Axis from North Africa." Along the right and bottom sides are photographs of Americans in Port Moresby and Guadalcanal.
The base map is surrounded by news-style articles, images, photographs, and other information regarding the war's progress, including smaller maps illustrating a single theater or front.
This series was first published on April 27, 1942, by the Orientation Course Section. The course distributed the maps to company-sized units of the Army, libraries, and Service clubs, and the army in turn distributed them to other branches of the military. Newsmaps were edited in New York, initially under the Special Service Division and then the Morale Services Division after its establishment, and except for overseas editions, printed in Chicago.