‘MIRACLE OF MAPMAKING’

Family Donates ‘Top Secret’ D-Day Map to Library of Congress

Joseph P. Vaghi Jr. was a lieutenant commander during WWII and credited his survival to the map.

The family of a World War II veteran has donated a rare D-Day map to the Library of Congress nearly 80 years after the document was used to coordinate the arrival of Allied troops for their fateful battle against German forces. Above the topographical details of the Normandy coast, penciled annotations, and drawings of houses, green lettering on Joseph P. Vaghi Jr.’s map reads, “TOP SECRET,” The Washington Post reports. Vaghi’s secret map from June 6, 1944 is a rare World War II relic, one which survived the Navy lieutenant’s trip across the English channel and provides rare insight into the goings-on of the historic invasion. Though Vaghi died in 2012, the legacy of his meticulous mapmaking lives on thanks to the map, with which he had credited his own survival. Vaghi's son told the Post that he had considered the map the most important part of his life apart from his family. Its importance is not lost on specialists, either, as the library’s cartographic acquisitions specialist called it “a miracle of mapmaking.”