This copy of "Armistice Agreement Maps Volume II" was discovered five years ago at Camp Zama, Japan. (Claire Jenq/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP ZAMA, Japan — Tucked away inside a cardboard box at the headquarters of U.S. Army Japan is a relic of the original armistice that ended the Korean War 72 years ago.
A booklet containing a set of maps detailing the agreed-upon boundary between North and South Korea resurfaced five years ago in an unlikely place: a locked case at an intelligence unit on this base outside Tokyo.
“Armistice Agreement Maps Volume II” was discovered by staff at Zama’s Asian Studies Detachment, which provides intelligence agencies with open-source information, from newspaper articles to tourist maps.
Though the edges are yellowed and water stains mark the back cover, the 31 pages of colored armistice maps inside remain intact, showing the Military Demarcation Line, ports of entry and main lines of communication as they were drawn in 1953.
The maps are part of the Korean War Armistice Agreement, signed July 27, 1953, in the village of Panmunjom by representatives of U.N. Command, North Korea and China. The agreement ended three years of open conflict and established what remains one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders.
The index page of "Armistice Agreement Maps Volume II," held at Camp Zama, Japan. (Claire Jenq/Stars and Stripes)
The signing brought about “the cessation and absence of hostilities,” Mike Bosack, deputy secretary of U.N. Command’s Military Armistice Commission, said by phone on July 11. “It ushered in a new era of security paradigm on the Korean Peninsula, which was that of peace building.”
The director of Zama’s Asian Studies Detachment, Kevin Kyler, said the maps were nearly discarded in 2020 during an office-wide effort to reduce the unit’s paper holdings. Staff didn’t immediately recognize their significance.
“We’re not a museum. We’re not an archive,” he said at his office in the Asian Studies Detachment on May 11. “And, so, if you’re not careful, old stuff gets shredded.”
Kyler salvaged the maps and said that he presented copies to Eighth Army in South Korea. He now stores the physical documents securely alongside other Cold War-era materials, including U.S. Army gazetteers and Japanese intelligence reports.
“I thought these documents were interesting because of who signed them (representatives from UNC and China) and the level of detail to define the DMZ … dozens of maps were needed to specify the zone,” Kyler wrote in a July 24 email. “Map making was a special art requiring huge printing presses.”
Such copies are typically off-limits to the public and rare to see outside the National Archives, where the originals are held. Bosack said U.N. Command retains its own signed and laminated copies. This bit of history at Zama is not available for public viewing or scheduled for display.
A map in "Armistice Agreement Maps Volume II" shows the Korean Military Demarcation Line, along with the Demilitarized Zone's northern and southern boundaries. (Claire Jenq/Stars and Stripes)
U.S. Forces Korea’s historian, Benjamin Harris, said 18 copies of the agreement were signed at Panmunjom — six each in English, Korean and Chinese. Two copies in each language went to the United States, North Korea and China.
While the provenance of Zama’s copy is still uncertain, Harris said its presence there is plausible.
“When UNC relocated from Tokyo to Seoul, UNC Rear (UNC-R) was established,” he wrote in a June 26 email. “The UNC copy may have stayed with UNC-R. UNC-R relocated from Camp Zama to Yokota in 2007, and the maps may have drifted to the Asian Studies Detachment.”
More than seven decades later, the boundaries formalized in “Maps Volume II” remain central to military and diplomatic operations on the Korean Peninsula.
“It’s an interesting ‘Antiques Roadshow’-type find,” Brendan Trembath, deputy director of U.N. Command Public Affairs, said by phone on July 11.
Those working in and around the Demilitarized Zone remain “very conscious of where the lines are and constantly referring to GPS devices to know where those lines are,” he added.
The document’s cover features the signature of Marine Col. J.C. Murray, the U.N. Command representative at the time of the signing and a principal author of the agreement, along with signatures from the North Korean and Chinese delegations.
The first page of "Armistice Agreement Maps Volume II" was signed by Marine Col. J.C. Murray, the U.N. Command representative at the time of the signing and a principal author of the agreement, along with signatures from the North Korean and Chinese delegations. (Claire Jenq/Stars and Stripes)
Despite its historical importance, Kyler said viewing the document in person is difficult. The detachment is not open to the public and is focused on digitizing its holdings. “Maps Volume II” is among their digitized collection.
Bosack said the armistice’s legacy remains essential to understanding regional stability.
“Peace exists on a spectrum,” he said. “It extends from war to what we call a negative peace to what we call a positive peace. A negative peace is merely the cessation and absence of hostilities, and that’s what we achieved on July 27, 1953.”
