Oct 10, 2013 - Sale 2324

Sale 2324 - Lot 355A

Price Realized: $ 812
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(WORLD WAR II.) Inscribed map of Ledo-Burma Road with supporting materials. Diazo blue-line print, 17 x 31 inches, with manuscript notes; folds, 2-inch cello tape repair, laid down on board. [Ledo, India?, circa April or May 1945]
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Additional Details

The city of Kunming on China's south-central border had considerable strategic importance in the Allied fight against the Japanese, but supply lines had been cut. Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell tasked Colonel Lewis A. Pick with leading a massive engineering effort--the creation of a road from Ledo in northeastern India through the mountains of Burma, and connecting with the northern stretch of the Burma Road into China. Pick commanded a force of 63,000 men--with Chinese, Indian, and Burmese laborers working alongside mostly African-American soldiers--which fought and bulldozed hundreds of miles through the malarial jungle. Pick led the first convoy through the completed road on 21 January 1945.
War correspondent David L. Cohn (1894-1960) explored the new road in March 1945. At the conclusion of his trip, he was presented with this map, inscribed by the road's guiding spirit and commanding officer: "To David L. Cohn, the first correspondent to travel the Stilwell Road from Ledo to Kunming without restriction and in his own jeep. Lewis A. Pick, Maj. Gen. U.S.A., Ledo Road." Pick was promoted to Major General in April 1945, which helps to set the date. The map depicts both the newly built Ledo Road (later dubbed Stilwell Road) and the earlier Burma Road which terminated in Kunming, as well as towns, rivers, and national borders along the way. Cohn apparently annotated the map himself, showing his roadside campsites along the Burma Road portion of the route into China. Cohn described his journey (and this gift) in his Atlantic Monthly article, "The Old Man with the Stick: General Lewis A. Pick" (August 1945, pages 86-89.
with--an original Atlantic Monthly, August 1945, featuring Cohn's article A framed photograph of Cohn in his war correspondent uniform and other supporting materials.