Propaganda Corps, Ideals of the New Philippines--Japanese Army Propaganda on Liberating teh Philippines. 1941/2. 37 12mo. Printed wrappers. Very good condition.
There are several essays in this work, all of them address the victory of the Japanese army over the United States and allies (USAFFE), and calling for Filipinos to accept their new responsibilities in rebuilding their country according to Japanese and "Asiatic" ideals. In general the approach to the newly-captive population was that of a liberator, helping the Philippines to escape from the captivity of the United States. The Japanese call for a Marshall Petain model of rehabilitation: "...you must surmount tremendous difficulties everywhere you go". There is no escaping the very determined, strict approach: ”Filipinos must follow the Japanese way or they will be deemed a traitor to the Philippines and to the Japanese Imperial Army. "Those who spread rumors about the return of the US Army to the Philippines are unpardonable criminals because they disturb the tranquility of the country". You shall never regret your collaborations with us",Yosihide Hayasi (Director General of the Japanese Occupation) writes strongly of the anti-Imperialist efforts of Japan and their Army's liberating efforts, and the plan to spring about a great Asiatic Asia, free of Western influence and the eradication of Anglo Saxon and Western imperialism. "Believing in the superior blood of Asiatic peoples, the Filipinos will wash away the defects of the Anglo Saxons." There is a further short essay by Jorge Vargas (Chairman of the Executive Committee), entitled "Philippine Islands Grateful to Japanese". There is also appended (from pp 28-37) the "Field Service Code of the Japanese Army”heavy belief in strength, discipline, honor, obedience.
Binding: self wrappers. Rarity: there are 14 copies of this work found in the massive and tremendously useful librarian's and bibliographic tool, the OCLC/WorldCat, nearly all in superior research libraries. $175.00
05/13/2012
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. $750.
[BROADSIDE] Grave Folly of Pro-Czech Policy... published by the Militant Christian Patriots, September 1938. Rare. From the Pamphlet Collection of the Library of Congress. 10x8 inches. Old vertical fold. Very good copy. $175
Here's a slathering piece of propaganda published by the Militant Christian Patriots (of London) on how the British government was dealing with the Nazi/Seudeten problem in September 1938. In their gunsights was Anthony Eden, who was seen by this group as a Bolshevist supporter, and who as the Foreign Minister of the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was against the appeasement policy of the government towards Nazi territorial acquisitions, particularly in this case with Czechoslovakia. Eden. identified here as "backed by the Zionists, Fabian_Scoailists and "pacifist" League of Nations enthusiasts" was a multiple threat, and seen to be capable of directing national policy towards a confrontation with Germany over the looming Czech problem. On the other hand, Neville Chamberlain, who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at this time (and from May 1938-May 1940), was seen as a better ideological fit with his issues and policies of appeasement of the German nationalist needs and territorial rape. Chamberlain certainly gave what Christian Militants wanted--a free hand to Hitler in Czechoslovakia (and more), and perhaps an acknowledgement of defeat to the Nazi nation. Winston Churchill certainly thought so:
"We have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat... you will find that in a period of time which may be measured by years, but may be measured by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi régime. We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude...we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road...we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged..." Winston Churchill, MP, 1938
The Christian Militants saw it all differently, tending to agree with Hitler on the Czech matter, and seeking to keep the U.K. out of confrontation and thus away from war by giving Hitler (and then Mussolini) what they demanded to satisfy their growing national needs.
"I am asking neither that Germany be allowed to oppress three and a half million Frenchmen, nor am I asking that three and a half million Englishmen be placed at our mercy. Rather I am simply demanding that the oppression of three and a half million Germans in Czechoslovakia cease and that the inalienable right to self-determination take its place." -Adolf Hitler's speech at the NSDAP Congress 1938
Eden resigned his position earlier in the year, in March 1938, but stayed in the fray. As everyone knows things went badly at the end of the month of September, 1938, with Chamberlain letting everything go and appeasing Hitler in the Munich Conference (known to the Czechs as the "Munich Dictates" and worse) in which bits of Czechoslovakia were given to Germany in a series of meetings in which that country was not invited.
And so the P.M. returned to the home country having done nothing in Germany but give away a part of someone else's country, all in a feeble attempt at maintaining peace for Europe's key players. He landed at Heston Aerodrome and held a piece of flimsy paper in his hand, which was battered by a tiny wind, and declared that there would be "peace in our time" because Hitler's signature said it would be so, all of which was a "prelude to peace" in Europe as a whole:
"My good friends, this is the second time there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Now I recommend you go home, and sleep quietly in your beds."
Less than a year later it would all come crashing down, the appeasement policy (such as it was) a shambles, and the world plunged into war. Chamberlain would last as P.M. for a little longer, until May 1940, when he was at last replaced--by Winston Churchill.
"Mike Quinn". The Yanks are Not Coming. 1940. Published by Keep America out of War Committee, 1940. 15pp. Printed wrappers. Rare. Only a few copies located in OCLC/WolrdCat. $125
This pamphlet is a reminder that it wasn't simply right-wing groups (like the Lindbergh-sponsored "America First") that sought to keep the United States out of the war in Europe in 1940. It was a "European War" to these groups at this point--it was of course a World War, World War II, but it just didn't involve the United States, yet. The "Keep America Out of War Committee" produced this vicious pamphlet, equating the war with the sole pursuits of "big business", connecting the "filthy mess" of fighting to connected interest of Parliament and the Reichstag in producing a money-making scenario for the controllers of industry.
Now there are plenty of ugly wartime relationships during WWII--and not just those that existed through December 1941, but were in place for the duration of the war. But the arguments made in this pamphlet seemingly in support of the average working man protecting them from the multinational corporations who were conducting the war for the sake of profits takes the argument into an entirely different and bad place. ("The best way we can help the people of Europe is to keep Wall Street out of it" claims the pseudonymous author, Mike Quinn. Besides, as he continues in the section called "We're Too Busy": "We've got a first class job on our hands straightening out this civilization we have right here". Too busy for war.
Vannevar Bush. Original photograph, 8x10 inches, by the photographic studio "Hessler", with "Hessler" signed in pencil in clear margin at bottom right. Housed in the original card-stock, embossed photo-holder. Outer folder is in Good condition; photograph is excellent. $450
Lovely portrait of Bush and his wife, taken I feel shortly after WWII. Bush was of legendary importance to the United States during WWII.
\Vannevar (pronounced “van ee var”) was a flinty no-nonsense New Englander who was an organizational and mechanical genius who as a professor at MIT developed a remarkable analog computer that greatly advance computation capacities for solving differential equations. This was in the 1930’s, and even after creating an improved electromechanical version of the machine still chose the wrong way to go in the soon-to-materialize digital computer revolution. During WWII Bush was one of the most important Americans in the war effort, overseeing the entire scientific effort of the U.S.—an enormous effort dispatched beautifully (and successfully). His importance in this regard is difficult to overstate.
Corps Parachutiste. No date, and no place of publication other than "Imprime en Angleterre" (stamped on the back cover). 7x5 inches, 16pp, illustrated with photos. Very nice condition. In printed wrappers. $150
From the "Pamphlet Collection" of the Library of Congress, which stamped the pamphlet 17 April 1944. I do not know exactly when this was printed, except to say that it was 1940-1944. My guess is that it was printed in England for distribution to French in exile and also to the French in France.
There are no copies whatsoever located in WorldCat/OCLC.
The full work, as follows (a small gift to others with a soft spot for Airborne):
Henry DeWolf Smyth. Atomic Energy for Military Purposes. Being the entire issue for October, 1945, of Reviews of Modern Physics, pp 351-491. Original printed wrapper. Good copy. $125 Formerly the copy of Al Wattenberg, a present-at-the-creation physicist under the stands at Chicago in 1942 (as we read from University of Illinois/Urbana:
In 1941, Al was close to finishing his PhD but the war effort intervened. Fermi invited Al to join his group, studying the fission of uranium. The group included Herb Anderson, Bernard Feld, Walter Zinn, and Leo Szilard. As a young and talented instrumentalist, Al learned to use Geiger counters, served as a draftsman and a machinist, and maintained and built photon and neutron detectors. Herb Anderson trained Al to make neutron sources and, after 1943, Al made and maintained all the radium and beryllium sources for the entire Manhattan Project. He also worked with Fermi on measuring the neutron activity in the uranium graphite structure. It was here that Al observed Fermi’s enormous thoroughness and redundancy in experimental work, an example that affected Al’s approach to experiments for the rest of his life.
In 1942, the group moved from New York to the University of Chicago. They made quick progress in controlled fission, working 18-hour days, while learning about the theory of chain reactions at lectures given by Fermi. The construction of the first pile started on November 16, 1942. On December 2, 1942, the group obtained the first controlled nuclear chain reaction. Eugene Wigner presented Fermi with a bottle of Chianti, which everybody present signed. As a young member of the group, Al cleaned up after the event—and kept the historical bottle until 1980, when he donated it to Argonne National Laboratory.
The Smyth Report is a significant event in the history of physics as it preemptively determined the stuff that could and couldn't be publicly discussed about the making of the bomb. Even the cautious and methodical Lee Groves came 'round fairy quickly to the publication of the Report, which made its first appearance in print in a separately printed format just 12 days after the explosion at Hiroshima.
Propaganda Corps, Ideals of the New Philippines--Japanese Army Propaganda on Liberating the Philippines. 1941/2. 37pp, 12mo. Printed wrappers. Very good condition. Year: 1942 (no place of publication listed).
There are several essays in this work, all of them address the victory of the Japanese army over the United States and allies (USAFFE), and calling for Filipinos to accept their new responsibilities in rebuilding their country according to Japanese and "Asiatic" ideals. In general the approach to the newly-captive population was that of a liberator, helping the Philippines to "escape from the captivity of the United States". The Japanese call for a "Marshall Petain" model of rehabilitation: "...you must surmount tremendous difficulties everywhere you go".
There is no escaping the very determined, strict approach: "Filipinos *must* follow the Japanese way or they will be deemed a traitor to the Philippines and to the Japanese Imperial Army. Those who spread rumors about the return of the US Army to the Philippines are unpardonable criminals because they disturb the tranquility of the country". And "You shall never regret your collaborations with us."
Yosihide Hayasi (Director General of the Japanese Occupation) writes strongly of the anti-Imperialist efforts of Japan and their Army's liberating efforts, and the plan to spring about a great Asiatic Asia, free of Western influences "and the eradication of Anglo Saxon and Western imperialism". "Believing in the superior blood of Asiatic people" the Filipinos will wash away the defects of the Anglo Saxons. There is a further short essay by Jorge Vargas ("Chairman of the Executive Committee), entitled "Philippine Islands Grateful to Japanese". There is also appended (from pp 28-37) the Field Service Code of the Japanese Army, heavy belief in strength, discipline, honor, obedience.
Binding: self wrappers. Rarity: there are 14 copies of this work found in the massive and tremendously useful librarians' and bibliographic tool, the OCLC/WorldCat, nearly all in superior research libraries. $200
02/09/2012
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.”
This small archive—from the estate of J.D. Coker, who served in the U.S. Navy on the US Strategic Bombing Survey Ships' Bombardment section, and who later became a leading official in the U.S. Atomic Preparedness programs (such as the President's Committee on Emergency Preparedness)—are mimeographs and manuscripts that comprise what seems to be the summary of the Navy's bombardment of Kamaishi, Muroran, Hitachi, Kushimoto, Shimizu and Hamamatsu. This was about the extent of the Allied naval bombardments against Japan, as it was not possible for battleships to maneuver close enough to the Japanese homeland to fire against industrial and production centers. (It may have also been the case that the aircraft used to protect the assaulting ships could have perhaps done as much damage to the targets as the ships themselves.)
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