Books offered by JF Ptak Science Books

German Report on British Bombing Raid on Hydrierwek Scholven AG 1940

Allied Bombing and a Report on Damage to German Industry:

Fliegerangriff in der Nachct vom 17./18.8.40 auf die Hydrierwek Schloven AG. 

1940.  Fine condition.  With 27 original photographs displaying bombing damage 

**NOTE: Hdydrierwerk Scholven A.G. was a synthetic petroleum plant and was one of the earliest targets of the British in the Ruhr Valley. It was owned by the Hibernia Mining Company, as a hydrogenation plant in 1935. Gelsenkirchen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the Ruhr area.

Publication Data: no indication of author/printer or which agency/department was responsible, but this looks like (to me) to be the beginning of a standard protocol on reporting damage from British bombing raids. It seems as though the typing under the captions is first generation. This may be a unique copy or perhaps (at worst) one of several. I would say it was of extremely highly limited distribution.

Size: 11.5 x 8.5 inches. 20 leaves with 27 original photographic images of damage caused by the bombing. Each leave is quite thick—much more stiff and heavy than a 110-lb cover stock sheet. The photos are all 3 x 4.5 inches, and are clear and bright.

Condition: fine condition.

Provenance: ex-library, U.S. Library of Congress. This book was part of a very large collection of 90,000 pamphlets that we bought of the U.S. Library of Congress. Known simply as the “Pamphlet Collection” it is identified by a distinctive and tiny 3mm perforated stamp, plus a bookplate at the front pastedown.

Binding: bound in thick cloth boards.  $500.00

"Gelsenkirchen in the time of the Third Reich In the time when the Nazis held sway in Germany, Gelsenkirchen, owing to its location in the heart of the Ruhr area, was a centre of wartime industry. In no other time has Gelsenkirchen's industry been so highly productive. This brought about, on the one hand, after the massive job cuts in the 1920s, a short-term boost in mining and heavy-industry jobs. On the other hand, the city naturally became the target of many heavy Allied bombing raids during the Second World War, which destroyed three fourths of Gelsenkirchen. Even today, many old above-ground air-raid shelters can be found in the city, and some of the city's official buildings such as Hans-Sachs-Haus downtown and the town hall in Buer have air-raid shelters still kept more or less in their original form. Two synagogues in Gelsenkirchen were destroyed in the anti-Jewish riots of Kristallnacht in November 1938. The one in Buer was burnt down. The one in downtown Gelsenkirchen was likewise destroyed. Exactly 66 years later, the cornerstone was laid there for a new synagogue. The Institute for City History set up a documentation site: "Gelsenkirchen in National Socialist times". Throughout the time when Hitler was in power, from 1933 to 1945, the city's mayor was Carl Engelbert Böhmer, an NSDAP member..." 

Von Braun on the Development of Liquid Rockets (1945/1951)

JF Ptak Science Books 

Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, March, 1951.  Individual issue in the original wrappers.  Nice copy. Includes the von Braun article (described following) and GVE Thompson "The Lunar Base".  Issue contains 46-pages.  Very good copy.  $85

I was prepared to just list this for sale in the books for sale section of this blog and be done with it--until I semi-realized that this famous (or at least significant) report is not to be found available online.  Von Braun is far from being of interest to me--I don't need to know his part of the space program from 1946-1977, though I am interested in his what he was doing from 1936-1945 when he was trying to kill London.

Again, I'm no expert on this man, but reading between the lines of his politically whitewashed account of German/Nazi flying bomb program makes me wonder about his enforced/codified forgetfulness and suggestive memory.

The paper in hand is his "Survey of Development of Liquid Rockets in Germany and their Future Prospects", a six-page effort that appeared in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society on March, 1951. It is a reprint of a reprint of a report that he wrote for his Anglo-American interrogators in the summer of 1945, when he and the Allies were scurrying around and trying to figure out what to make of the post-war world with all of this valuable German technology-ops. 

In any event, von Braun wrote out this history and prognositcation (as there is a big chunk of the paper devoted to future space travel and such) for them in 1945 which then found itself in print by at least 1946.  There are many glosses. For example, his use of the A.-prefix determiantion throughout the course of the document to refer to the V-weapons though it is noted in the first sentence of the report (and no doubt by an editor), that the A.4 "is known to the public as the V.2".  (Perhaps that has the scent of freshness to it, to rid the report of a small part of its scrubiness...or not.)

He writes occasionally in the third person, and also makes the case that the development of the rocket complex at Penenemunde was for research in high-flight/super-fast travel, when the place had always been intended for military applications.  He does mention that the A.4 had severe problems with the guidance system, but that was acceptible since they were given large-target areas to bomb--such as "London". 

It is an itneresting read for what it says about the future of vast fast travel, as well as for what it does not say about defeat and responsibility and the use of slave labor and bombing large civilian areas. 

"Making Military Drawings While Flying on an Aeroplane: how the sketches were made in mid-air".  London:  Illustrated London News,  1911.  1st edition.  Folio.  Original printed wrappers.  Very good condition.  Very nice copy removed from larger bound volume 

This spectacular drawing is made from the viewpoint of the artist sitting directly behind the pilot of a Wright-style aeroplane. In the foreground we see the lap of the artist and his drawing pad as he sketches the terrain; the pilot's head takes up much of the center of the drawing, and in the background we see the distant horizon. Simply wonderful.   $125

Allied Bombing and a Report on Damage to German Industry--: Fliegerangriff in der Nachct vom 17./18.8.40 auf die Hydrier.  1940.  Fine condition.  With 27 original photographs displaying bombing damage  Title: Fliegerangriff in der Nachct vom 17./18.8.40 auf die Hydrierwerk Scholven A.G.

NOTE: Hdydrierwerk Scholven A.G. was a synthetic petroleum plant and was one of the earliest targets of the British in the Ruhr Valley. It was owned by the Hibernia Mining Company, as a hydrogenation plant in 1935. Gelsenkirchen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the Ruhr area.

Publication Data: no indication of author/printer or which agency/department was responsible, but this looks like (to me) to be the beginning of a standard protocol on reporting damage from British bombing raids. It seems as though the typing under the captions is first generation. This may be a unique copy or perhaps (at worst) one of several. I would say it was of extremely highly limited distribution.

Size: 11.5 x 8.5 inches. 20 leaves with 27 original photographic images of damage caused by the bombing. Each leave is quite thick—much more stiff and heavy than a 110-lb cover stock sheet. The photos are all 3 x 4.5 inches, and are clear and bright.

Condition: fine condition; Binding: bound in thick cloth boards. $650

Provenance: ex-library, U.S. Library of Congress. This book was part of a very large collection of 90,000 pamphlets that we bought of the U.S. Library of Congress. Known simply as the “Pamphlet Collection” it is identified by a distinctive and tiny 3mm perforated stamp, plus a bookplate at the front pastedown.

Gelsenkirchen in the time of the Third Reich: “In the time when the Nazis held sway in Germany, Gelsenkirchen, owing to its location in the heart of the Ruhr area, was a centre of wartime industry. In no other time has Gelsenkirchen's industry been so highly productive. This brought about, on the one hand, after the massive job cuts in the 1920s, a short-term boost in mining and heavy-industry jobs. On the other hand, the city naturally became the target of many heavy Allied bombing raids during the Second World War, which destroyed three fourths of Gelsenkirchen. Even today, many old above-ground air-raid shelters can be found in the city, and some of the city's official buildings such as Hans-Sachs-Haus downtown and the town hall in Buer have air-raid shelters still kept more or less in their original form. Two synagogues in Gelsenkirchen were destroyed in the anti-Jewish riots of Kristallnacht in November 1938. The one in Buer was burnt down. The one in downtown Gelsenkirchen was likewise destroyed. Exactly 66 years later, the cornerstone was laid there for a new synagogue. The Institute for City History set up a documentation site: "Gelsenkirchen in National Socialist times". Throughout the time when Hitler was in power, from 1933 to 1945, the city's mayor was Carl Engelbert Böhmer, an NSDAP member.”

Rare Report on the 413th Fighter Squadron, WWII (1945)

Tyler, Parker R.: From Seattle to Ie Shima with the 413th Fighter Group, a Narrative.  Self-published, 1945. 30pp,  11x8 inches. Good condition.  Personal recollection of Capt Parker Tyler, jr.:  mimeographed, typewritten, and gathered by staples. $350

The First Woman to Fly in an Airplane Was When?

ITEM:  issue of the Illustrated London News with the story/report of the first woman to fly in an airplane.  25 July 1908.  The story occupies about a half-page of the 32-page issue, which is removed from a larger bound volume, though intact.  Nice condition.  $125

I wondered about how long after the Wright's first powered flight (17 December 1903) that it took for a woman fly in an airplane, either as passenger or pilot.  I was a little surprised--when I found my answer, my glasses weren't quite up to seeing the date on the top of the page very clearly, and on closer inspection I was a little taken aback to see how wrong my assumption was.  It didn't take five weeks or five months, but five years before this happened.

It seems as though this honor belongs to Therese Peltier, who on 8 July 1908 was a passenger in the aircraft of her significant other, Leon Delagrance, flying a distance of about 700 feet¹.  An earlier great name for the history of women in aviation, E. Lillian Todd, was the first to design and build an airplane, though she was not able to fly the unflyable aircraft.  A half-dozen or so women aviators appear in 1909, and by 1910 the course for women in aviation expands dramatically. (An interesting chronology of "firsts" for women in aviation can be found here; another site, Women in Aviation Web Magazine, can be found here.)

The image above, from the Illustrated London News for 25 July 1908 (the original issue of which is available at our blog bookstore), shows Ms. Peltier getting ready for the flight.  It is interesting to note that the picture and story occurs in a section of the magazine called "Chronicle of the Car"

which is where reporting on aeroplanes and flight occurred, the subject not quite at the point where aviation deserved its own category.  Of course the automobile was new, then, too, so it makes a little sense to have them lumped together...but not much.  The "Chronicles" part of the magazine was a half-page affair, the last page before the advertisements began, the last leaf before the rear cover. 

Notes:

1.  It seems as though there is debate on this, mostly over the Delagrance aircraft was indeed "modern" enough to be considered a modern heavier-than-air airplane, this over the way the control of the plane was handled.  I'd say we just left Ms. Peltier alone on this one.

From the Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum site

Military Balloons, 1889

Yon,  Gabriel. 

Aerostats et Aerostation Militaire a l'Exposition Universelle de 1889.  Paris:  E. Bernard et Cie,  1893.  1st edition.  Cloth.  Good condition. Ex-library.  Roy 8vo, 52pp, large folding chart (12x25”) featuring the cross section and plan of a large transportable balloon. Original printed wrappers, all rebound in the cloth and marbled boards style adopted for the Langley deposit.

Provenance: The Library of Congress, via the Smithsonian Institution Collection and the Samuel Pierpont Langley Aeronautical Library (carrying the acquisition date of 1929). $250

Rare Material on the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory, 1964

OGO--Orbiting Geophysical Observatory Materials, Manuscript, Blueprints, etc.

Published by TRW and various, 1962-1964.

Includes: "Final Report, Investigation of OGO-A Malfunction, Vol 1, Technical Considerations." TRW, 1964. 4 parts, 75pp. PLUS "OGO Structure Subsytem Design Criteria", offset mimeo sheets, with folding blueprints, photos etc etc.

***From Astronautica.com: "The OGO--Orbiting Geophysical Laboratory--Class: Earth. Type: Magnetosphere. Nation: USA. Agency: NASA. The purpose of the six Orbiting Geophysical Observatories was to conduct diversified geophysical experiments to obtain a better understanding of the earth as a planet and to develop and operate a standardized observatory-type satellite. OGO consisted of a main body, two solar panels, each with a solar-oriented experiment package (SOEP), two orbital plane experiment packages (OPEP) and six appendages, EP-1 through EP-6, supporting the boom experiment packages. The main body of the spacecraft was attitude controlled by means of horizon scanners and gas jets so that its orientation was maintained constant with respect to the earth and the sun. The solar panels rotated on a horizontal axis extending transversely through the main body of the spacecraft. The rotation of the panels was activated by sun sensors so that the panels received maximum sunlight. Seven experiments were mounted on the solar panels (the SOEP package). An additional axis, oriented vertically across the front of the main body, carried seven experiments (the OPEP package). Nominally, these sensors observed in a forward direction in the orbital plane of the satellite. The sensors could be rotated more than 90 deg relative to the nominal observing position and more than 90 deg between the upper and lower OPEP groups mounted on either end of this axis." $500.00

Early Technical Aviation--1890

[A. Ritter v. Miller-Hauenfels.] Der mühelose Segelflug der Vögel und die segelnde Luftschiffahrt als Endziel hundertjährigen Strebens.  Vortrag gehalten am 18. Januar 1890 im Polytechnischen Club in Graz  von A. Ritter v. Miller-Hauenfels ...

Published in Wien by Spielhagen & Schurich, 1890.    9x6 inches, 66pp.  Original printed wrappers with more modern string binding.  Nice copy, formerly the copy of Viktor Silberer and then of the Library of Congress. Good, strong copy.  Scarce.  $175

In his lectures at Graz Miller-Hauenfels looks at the possibility of human (non-powered, gliding) flight via forward-progression bird flight, basing his work on that of Marey, Lilienthal and Parseval.

Full text here.   Review of the work here:

Balloons and the Defense of London, 1938

ITEM:   weekly issue of the Illustrated London News, as described below.  Cover art illustrates a pictorial two-page spread on the balloon defenses of London.  Very nice copy, removed from larger bound volume.  $75

This series of drawings, published in the Illustrated London News 22 January 1938,  by the incredibly prolific and detail-oriented G.H. Davies depicts one segment of the city defense program being formulated by the British government in the last year  or so leading up to the beginning of the European end of World War Two. (I own 150 or so of these images by Davies--he never fails to provide the detail where you need it.)   The overall plan for defending major British cities consisted of anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, R.A.F. fighter squadrons and interceptors, and the "Balloon Barrage".  London and suburbs are featured here, all to be protected by a series of ten squadrons of fifty balloons each, handled by a crew of ten.  The thinking was that it would make low-level bombing by fighter aircraft impracticable, and force any aircraft attempting such an approach to a higher altitude where they would be theoretically susceptible to the interceptor squadrons. 

I'm not terribly sure why the thinking was against low altitude attack, but my best guess is that the planners were thinking about the He-111Bs and Ju52s or other such aircraft that the Nazis checked and tested out against the Spanish Republicans during the Civil War. Perhaps freshest of all memories of the German operation Feuerzauber (Magic Fire) was the Guernica raid, just a year or so before the publication of these images, where that militarily insignificant town was attacked from the air in twenty minute intervals over three hours, destroying it in a terror blitz.  If I was sitting around a big table at 10 Downing, I’d have that picture in my head.  .

Be that as it may, the "air mine field" looks terribly inefficient and vulnerable to me, sort of like an exposed Maginot Defense Line, but without the very deep misunderstandings that went along with the highly questionable French effort. 

Explanation of the Images:

a)    The first image shows the incredible perimeter defense network, which extended ten miles around St. Paul’s; the balloons were moored at 100 yard intervals, making for 1100 or so balloons to “fence” the perimeter.
b) The second image shows  London center and immediate suburbs, with another 500 balloons in a smaller circle inscribed in the larger.
c)  The third image  is a close-up of the balloons, looking down;  seems as though they were tethered at about 2000 feet or so
d)  The last image is a close-up of London center.