The Attack [Pacific Theater]

Japan’s impressive early gains in the Pacific Theater.

Issued less than a week after victory was declared in the Pacific (8/15/1945), this striking poster map highlights Japan’s spectacular advances in the early years of the war. Bright red arrows represent various successful assaults across the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Caroline Islands, New Guinea, and the Aleutians. Aerial assaults on Midway and Pearl Harbor are also depicted. The prewar and maximum extent of imperial Japan’s borders are shaded in gray, though the postwar boundaries had yet to be determined.

The map was designed by Robert M. Chapin, Jr. and published as a supplement for the August 20, 1945 issue of TIME Magazine. Chapin was a professionally trained architect who found jobs to be in low demand during the Great Depression. He took a job in the photo department at Newsweek in 1933, where he apparently picked up a knack for cartographic design. By 1937, he was hired by Time (a rival of Newsweek) as the head of the cartography department, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1970.

During his long tenure at Time, Chapin’s prolific output helped establish a pattern for 20th-century newsroom cartography. The use of bold colors, uncluttered design, and legible typography was immensely popular, and the maps were reprinted for distribution in classrooms and public spaces throughout the country. Despite their widespread appeal, the maps are uncommon on the market and often overlooked in institutional collections. This version is listed in only two examples in WorldCat as of May 2024 – Franklin & Marshall College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. OCLC# 320130075.