JF Ptak Science Books // Blog Bookstore

Rare Report on the Execution of French Communist Patriots (1941)

From the OSS Library

 

Patriotes Francais, Recit du Martyre de vingt-sept travailleurs francais, fusilles a Chateaubriant, le 22 Octobre 1941, par un Francais Anonyme.

[Paris?] [1941/2/} 8”x6”, 8pp (paginated pp 5-12)

NO copies located in WorldCat.

Good condition, only: printed on an inferior paper, making the pamphlet brittle-ish; boudn with staples. Very compelling narrative. $150

This is a report on the massacre of 48 French communist party members, taken hostage in retaliation for resistance attacks on German soldiers, and then shortly thereafter executed by the occupying Nazis in Chateaubriant.

Provenance: rubber stamped “Library/Office of Strategic Services”, the precursor to the CIA.

 

 

Heisenberg's A-Bomb History (1946)

HEISENBERG, Werner. Uber die Arbeiten zur technischen Ausnulzung der Atomkernenergie in Deutschland. In Die Naturwissenschaften, vol 33, #11 18 December 1946 (but published in august 1947). Heisenberg on pp 325-329 of the issue. Offered in the full volume of 376pp. Bound in black library cloth, bound with the original front wrapper. The volume is printed on inferior paper, making the pages browned and brittle for their age. A good copy, only.   $250

This is widely seen as the first German history of the Nazi atomic bomb project. One interesting thing that pops out here is what may be the not often considered meeting that the scientists had with A. Speer in 1942 in which it was decided to not pursue a bomb but rather a reactor that could power a naval vessel and then at some point be used in the making of a nuclear weapon. See Paul Lawrence Rose, Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project, 1939-1945: A Study in German …,intro and the first chapter.

"Bring Rome in Your Home"--Fascist Women of Italy Radio Broadcasts, 1937

Women of Imperial Italy, by Alice Seelye Rossi; printed in Rome, 1937, by Stamperia Romana. 8"x5", 20pp, numerous photo illustration. Printed wrappers somewhat dusty. Ex-libris stamp on rear cover. Scarce title: WORLDCAT locates only 2 copies.  $120

In regards to the answer to the question above: not anymore. Probably not so much in 1937, though I am sure that the picture of the "fascist" in the "fascist Woman" was prettier and rosier than what people would come to know by 1942.  In 1937, when this pamphlet was published, the "women" were broadcasting far and wide--one aspect of radio propaganda from the Fascists in Italy, a hearts-and-minds attempt at a part of the coercion of Italia imperiale that occupied the years 1935 until the end of the war. By 1937 Mussolini's National Fascist Party (in power since 1922) had extended itself by occupying Libya and by invading Ethiopia; Albania, Greece, and Yugoslavia would come between 1939-1941, as would France, when Italy entered the war in 1940 and entered into the country at the tail-end of the German invasion. So the broadcast heard here in 1937 was the beginning of Italy looking for the "Fourth Shore", and deep into Mussolini's Fascist state. (Ezra Pound would also do his level best to look the part of traitor that he was, lobbying the Italians for years before being allowed to get on the air to broadcast to the Allies on his misunderstood and inscrutable economics, vicious and virulent anti-Semitism (offhandedly addressing the U.S. president as "Franklin Delano Jewfeld/Jewsevelt"), and general attempts to tell the U.S. population to not support the war effort against the Fascists and that instead they should be down on their knees praising Mussolini, who he saw as another Thomas Jefferson. And so on.)  

I've shared the few pages in this brief pamphlet on the Fascist Woman as it appears in the pamphlet. For the great majority of people living in the U.S., Europe, Great Britain,  Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and many other places, the idea of the "fascist" would change dramatically in about a year, and then spin its grinding way downward until the start of the war in 1939. 

 

 

Women of Imperial Italy, by Alice Seelye Rossi; printed in Rome, 1937, by Stamperia Romana. 8"x5", 20pp, numerous photo illustration. Printed wrappers somewhat dusty. Ex-libris stamp on rear cover. Scarce title: WORLDCAT locates only 2 copies.  $120

In regards to the answer to the question above: not anymore. Probably not so much in 1937, though I am sure that the picture of the "fascist" in the "fascist Woman" was prettier and rosier than what people would come to know by 1942.  In 1937, when this pamphlet was published, the "women" were broadcasting far and wide--one aspect of radio propaganda from the Fascists in Italy, a hearts-and-minds attempt at a part of the coercion of Italia imperiale that occupied the years 1935 until the end of the war. By 1937 Mussolini's National Fascist Party (in power since 1922) had extended itself by occupying Libya and by invading Ethiopia; Albania, Greece, and Yugoslavia would come between 1939-1941, as would France, when Italy entered the war in 1940 and entered into the country at the tail-end of the German invasion. So the broadcast heard here in 1937 was the beginning of Italy looking for the "Fourth Shore", and deep into Mussolini's Fascist state. (Ezra Pound would also do his level best to look the part of traitor that he was, lobbying the Italians for years before being allowed to get on the air to broadcast to the Allies on his misunderstood and inscrutable economics, vicious and virulent anti-Semitism (offhandedly addressing the U.S. president as "Franklin Delano Jewfeld/Jewsevelt"), and general attempts to tell the U.S. population to not support the war effort against the Fascists and that instead they should be down on their knees praising Mussolini, who he saw as another Thomas Jefferson. And so on.)  

I've shared the few pages in this brief pamphlet on the Fascist Woman as it appears in the pamphlet. For the great majority of people living in the U.S., Europe, Great Britain,  Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and many other places, the idea of the "fascist" would change dramatically in about a year, and then spin its grinding way downward until the start of the war in 1939. 

 

 

Orders and Instructions on Living in France and on the "Disposition" of the Jews, September 1940

Ce qu'il faut savoir ... en territoire occupé, (Ed : H. Thomas, 47 rue de Turenne, Paris,) 6x4”, 46pp. No doubt the work of the Nazi government. Printed ca. August/September 1940. Original wrappers. Provenance: Library of Congress, with their stamp on the front wrapper and their surplus/duplicate stamp on the cover's back.  Good copy. $200

By the title, Ce qu'ill faut savoir en territoire occupe (“what you need to know in the occupied territories”) we see that this short/small and rather plain pamphlet is an outline of expected behavior of conquered France...or shall I say “overrun” in its six miserable weeks of fighting which found no good end, all of it coming to a close on 22 June 1940, though there were strong pockets of resistance that would arise and take hold until the defeat of the Germans five years later. It is almost ephemeral, having virtually no “presence”, if appearance were to judge—it looks like nothing, nearly. It is hardly that, and represents a coming great evil.

It contained the rules of society from the Germans and from Vichy, and in no small way dictated the expectations of the conquerors. The thinking was wide and brutal and trite, defining the occupied territories, the new justice system, economics of the occupation, and the like, as well as the “camouflage” of street lights, rates of exchange, bicycle rules, and the use of motorcycles.

What caught my eye was the header for a two page section on French Jewry, “Les Dispositions pour les Juifs”.

It is announced simply that the “German authorities” and of course the Vichy government have taken measures against Jews in the occupied territories.

• (“Les autorites allemands ont pris des dispositions contre les Juifs demeurant en territoire occupe...a ces dispositions pourront en etre adjointes d'autres prises par le gouvernement francais de Vichy...”) and then went about its business.

The first thing to do was for the Jews to make themselves available and report to authorities before 20 October 1940. It encouraged the head of a household to make a report on the entire family.

• (“Pour le moment, les obligations faites aux juifs en territoire occupe sont les suivantes de ne pas rentrer, pour les juifs qui ont lui la zone occupe de se presenter avant le 20 Octobre 1940 a la sous-pretecture de leur arronfissement de domicile pour se faire inscribe a un registre special. La declaration du chef de familie est valable pour toute la familie.”)

Next of course came the subjugation, demanding the identification of all businesses either run by or principally owned by Jews to identify themselves as such, with fines and imprisonment (and confiscation) the consequences of not doing so. A Jewish business was also defined as having more than 50% investment by Jewish interests.

• (“...d'afficher en langue allemand et francais la mention entreprise juive a tout comemrce dont le proprietaire ou le deteneur est juif. Les dirigeants des communautes israelites doivent fournir. Les contraventions sont punies de prison et d'amende, ou d'une de ces deux peines. La confiscation des bien pourra en outre etre prononcee...”)

Then comes the identification of who is a Jew, and according to this document, someone is a Jew if their grandparents were (“or appeared to be”) Jews.

• (“Sont retenus comme Juifs ceux qui appartiennent ou, la religion juive ceux qui ont plus de deux grands-parents.”)

Just a couple of hundred words. Two pages. And yet it outlines the basics of population control and discrimination, setting the stage for removal. All contained in this little pamphlet, which I should point out was not free, but sold for 3 Francs. There would be a many-orders-of-magnitude price to pay in the very near future.

 

The Great Amen--a Scarce (unlocated in WorldCat) USAAF WWII Recollection

Robert J. Evans, Great Amen. Self-published, printed by Bureau Mailing Service (Brooklyn), 1946.  11"x8.5", 49pp. Offset printed. Bound in cloth-backed paper wrappers, which have chips here and there. Good condition. Approximately 35,000 words.  $400

• NO copies located in WorldCat/OCLC. 
• The table of contents tell part of the story of Staff Sergeant Robert J. Evans, who wrote of his adventures as a gunner on what I think must have been a B-24 (as there  are mentions of belly gunners, and also what seems to be the names of the crew of nine airmen...also a close look at the rudimentary drawing of the aircraft on the cover gives it a nose looking very much like a Liberator). Training in Texas with the USAAF and the trip abroad take the first 10pp, the combat experience beginning on p. 11, in Italy. There are almost no dates mentioned, oddly enough, and no mention of bomber group; though I suspect the action takes place in 1944, as there is a chapter dedicated t a bombing of the Moosbierbaum oil refinery in Austria--a target hit numerous times from June 1944 into March 1945.  This took place in 1944 as there is a mention of Christmas 1944 that comes later on in the story. In any event that was the only bombing action I could find, though it was lengthy; there's plenty of daily life/color in these pages, though, which makes it an interesting read.
  

 

On aerial defense, bombs, and gas, 1936-1940.

Five pamphlets published 1936-1940, stapled together in a manila folder. Provenance: Library of Congress.  Each 8.25” x 5.75”, original wrappers.  Of the five, only one is located at all in WorldCat (with one copy only). The pamphlets seem to rank last-to-first in terms of interest here, to me, although even the first pamphlet no doubt contains some difficult-to-find detail on civil defense uniforms. In GOOD condition, at least.  $200

Prescriptions concernant les vetements de travail pour les troupes des organisms locaux de defense aerienne passive.  Department militaire federal, Service de la defense aerienne passive, Berne, 1936. 4pp.  NO copies located in WorldCat.

Programme d’instruction 1938 pour les organisms de defense aerienne industrielle. (Defense aerienne Industrielle, D.A.I.) 1938. 6pp.  NO copies located in WorldCat.

Programme d’instruction 1939 pour les organisms locaux de D.A.P. 1939. 8pp (2 copies). NO copies located in WorldCat.

Defense aerienne, Dernieres experiences de guerre. Confederation Suisse. (April, 1940.) (“A conserber soigneusement!”). This pamphlet has sections on incendiaries, dangers of explosions, gas attacks, and “blessures de la peau par des toxiques persistants” (“skin wounds by persistent toxins”).  WorldCat locates 1 copy (Basel).

“Instructions a la population civile concernant les sabotages et les parachutists”, 23 May 1940. 2pp.   NO copies located in WorldCat.  (This one seems particularly interesting...)

 

Rare Combat Unit History: 413th Fighter Group

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. $250  Only one copy located (US Air Force Academy) in WorldCat. 

• "Constituted as 413th Fighter Group on 5 Oct 1944 and activated on 15 Oct. Trained for very-long-range operations with P-47'sMoved to the Asiatic- Pacific Theater, Apr-Jun 1945. Assigned to Twentieth AF; reassigned to the Eighth early in Aug 1945. Flew a few strafing missions from Saipan to the Truk Islands in May before beginning operations from Le Shima in Jun. Engaged in dive-bombing and strafing attacks on factories, radar stations, airfields, small ships, and other targets in Japan. Made several attacks on shipping and airfields in China during Jul. Flew its only escort mission on 8 Aug 1945 when it covered B29's during a raid against Yawata, Japan. Served as a part of the air defense and occupation force for the Ryukyu Islands after the war. Inactivated on Okinawa on 15 Oct 1946. Principal aircraft was the P-47.

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. $250  Only one copy located (US Air Force Academy) in WorldCat. 

• "Constituted as 413th Fighter Group on 5 Oct 1944 and activated on 15 Oct. Trained for very-long-range operations with P-47'sMoved to the Asiatic- Pacific Theater, Apr-Jun 1945. Assigned to Twentieth AF; reassigned to the Eighth early in Aug 1945. Flew a few strafing missions from Saipan to the Truk Islands in May before beginning operations from Le Shima in Jun. Engaged in dive-bombing and strafing attacks on factories, radar stations, airfields, small ships, and other targets in Japan. Made several attacks on shipping and airfields in China during Jul. Flew its only escort mission on 8 Aug 1945 when it covered B29's during a raid against Yawata, Japan. Served as a part of the air defense and occupation force for the Ryukyu Islands after the war. Inactivated on Okinawa on 15 Oct 1946. Principal aircraft was the P-47.

An Early Document on Mutually Assured Destruction and Atomic Energy (Summer 1946)

[Atomic Bomb Control and Atomic Energy]  Haskins, Caryl P. Two drafts of “Atomic Energy and United States Foreign Policy”, published July 1946 in Foreign Affairs. Two versions, one 37pp and the other, presumably an earlier version, 28pp (pp 1-28, incomplete). Both are original carbons on tissue paper. The two documents: $500   

• Dr. Caryl Haskins (1908-2001, Ph.D. Yale ’30 (E.E. at 22), Ph.D. Harvard 1935; LL.D. Carnegie Institute Technology 1955) was a close and long-time friend of the great Vannevar Bush with whom he throughout World War II at the OSRD,  as well as executive assistant to Bush at NSRD 1941-1945.   He was research associate at MIT 1935-1945;  he was on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Army and Navy, 1947-8; Research Consultant to the Secretary of the Army, 1950; Executive Research Consultant to the Secretary of State 1950-1972  Haskins was on the board of Scientific advisors to President’s Truman and Eisenhower, and succeeded Bush as president of the Carnegie Institution (1956-1973). 

What I find remarkable about this paper is its prescience regarding MAD, the need for international regulation and control, and the absolute belief that the U.S. could not rely on its monopoly of weapons and intelligence even in the short run. He reasons some ways in which to deal with sharing information, restricting the growth of a weapons culture, and the use of atomic energy.

Haskins sees the delivery of atomic bombs by “long range rockets”, and that the temptation for developing an atomic arsenal would curtail expenses for military development by possibly as much as 100-1. (He mentions at one point that 10,000 atomic bombs could be used to secure world domination, at a cost of only $10 billion (or 10 Iowa-class battleships)—making this highly appealing. (He was not referring to the U.S. in this.)  He goes on to say that without guidance in atomic energy and control of atomic weapons that an exchange of two (or multiple) countries with such weapons “would be largely destructive of civilization as we know it”.

Haskins also makes the case for the U.S. not to be isolationist in these regards, “and not count on the security of a monopoly of knowledge”.

Haskins was certainly sounding a very considered, scientific, reasoned alarm about what may turn out to be a devastating near-future with uncontrolled atomic weapons. (This was written in 1946, three years before the Soviets exploded their first bomb. In 1946, Lee Groves thought it would take 20 years for the Soviets to develop a bomb; James Byrnes gave them 7-10 years; and Bush-Conant 3-5 years. Some scientists put it sooner than that. My impression is that Haskins was on the side of the bomb coming to the USSR much sooner rather than later, hence this urgent article in Foreign Affairs.

Here’s an interesting notice on this article by Haskins:

• “We therefore cannot count on maintaining our security through a monopoly of fundamental knowledge in the atomic field […]. Further, our monopoly of technical information and facilities is limited and is diminishing. At present we do have a monopoly of stockpiles of raw materials and finished atomic bombs, and we are equipped with gigantic plants for producing these materials. Within something like ten years, however, our monopoly in technology may have disappeared completely, whatever the policy we now adopt with respect to international action.”-- This could almost pass as modern commentary for the U.S., but it was written 71 years ago (July 1946) by Caryl P. Haskins, then deputy executive officer of the National Defense Research Committee, who conveyed a heightened level of concern that the U.S. would lose its monopoly in nuclear science and technology for military applications. This created a direct threat to the U.S. and the world as the Soviet Union leveraged nuclear energy in its pursuit of military primacy over America and geopolitical dominance in Europe and Asia. The genie was out of the bottle and nuclear science was in the public domain. Consequently, America had a peer competitor militarily and its national security was at risk. David Gentile, Forbes, Sept 19, 2017

 

A Really, Really Good Radio Show (1938-1941)

 

America's Town Meeting of the Air. 1938-1941. 58 issues. 11x8.5". Each issue 3 leaves, or 6pp, offset printed, stapled in upper left corner.  Provenance:  Pamphlet Collection of the Library of Congress.   $1500

• This is an incomplete run, though I can find no other evidence of any substantial number of these publications are held in any institution, though there is an entry in WorldCat for the NYPL having a collection of “miscellaneous pamphlets”. The 102 WorldCat/OCLC listings are almost entirely for individual pamphlets. VG condition.

It turns out that I own a good stack of guideline publications for what was America's first news talk show: "America's Town Meeting of the Air", produced by the Town Hall Advisory board between 1935 and 1955. ("The NBC Radio Network program America's Town Meeting of the Air was an early form of electronic "townhall" democracy--perhaps the very first such electronic forum. In May of 1935 the program began what would become a 21-year run. In later years the program would be broadcast on the ABC network."--Social Security Administration, https://www.ssa.gov/history/1935radiodebate.html) The format of the broadcasts pitted two prominent experts in a debate of some aspect of public policy. The program was unique for its time in that it also featured questions from both the live audience and from the listening audience around the country. It was a weekly show, and in general--at least for the 90 examples I have for the 1938-1941 period)--each broadcast came with a three-sheet guideline. The first sheet was a general statement of the show's interest--for example, "What Shall We Do With the Joads?", for March 7, 1940 (the Joads being the family in the Steinbeck mega-epic The Grapes of Wrath). These intro pages are usually very concise, very well written, logical, and provocative.

The second sheet is really what surprised me so--a bibliography and suggested reading for the discussion.  That means that before the radio program was broadcast the producers provided listeners a handy sheet with material to read so that they could better follow the discussion--this seems truly exceptional by today's sub-standards of a great chunk of radio political discussion, where volume/noise dictates correctness over recognized references. I wondered before looking at the list if The Grapes of Wrath would be there, because, well, it wasn't necessarily a popular read everywhere in spite of the book's critical reception. It was there, along with (shockingly) Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor's (her husband) An American Exodus;  Carey McWilliams' Factories in the Field the Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California; and You Have Seen Their Faces, by Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-White (described as "the Southern sharecropper in photographs and prose").  Actually all of the books and articles are given a similarly very-short description like this, in spite of their Great Classic status of today--the photographs by Bourke-White and Lange and McWilliams and their accompanying texts are really nothing short of masterpieces, difficult and challenging exposes of a national tragedy --and here they are, suggested reading for listeners of a radio talk show.

Eyewitness Accounts of The Soviet Union Stripping North Korea of Infrastructure, 1945/6

Report No. 1. (Confidential) Eye Witness Reports from North of the 38th Parallel (Russian Occupation Zone) in Korea. 13x8", 5 leaves, offset printed. Offset printed. WorldCat/OCLC locates 0 copies. $450

Condition: old vertical fold at the bottom quarter. Stamped “declassified” by the exchange and gift division, Library of Congress, with their surplus/duplicate stamp on the rear page.

There are various reports with the "eyewitness" names left out, replaced by subscript lines. The materials removed are categorized so: coal, food, machinery, Manchuria, heavy industries, manufacturing machinery, steel mills, textile mills, electric smelting mill, railways, and so on.

This document seems to offer proofs of large-scale stripping of North Korean facilities back to the Soviet Union--at just the time when it was said that there perhaps wasn't good evidence for this. (See: The North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950 By Charles K. Armstrong, page 150, available online).