World War 1 & 2
WW 213
WW 2131918-19 Handwritten Diary of Fred Fred J Mizeur who was with the Chemical Warfare Service with the American Expeditionary Force in France. It begins with his training in Akron, the voyage over and life in France. Some chilling insights of unusual evidence into French forms of capital punishment in Brittany and his observations on French culture. He described life in a hospital designated for victims of chemical warfare and shell shock. He describes their condition in detail following battles in the Chateau-Thierry sector. When the camp of 70,000 American moves he is shipped in a box car with 42 other soldiers, he complains of starvation rations. The diary spans March 5 – August 25, 1918. He then stops and picks it up again from October 22, 1918 still in France until he boards the battleship New Hampshire for home and discharge on June 30, 1919. 115 full pages of very legible text. A rare find.m
Price: $900.00
WW 198A 20 page manuscript written in the first person about the famous French-German aerial combat of June 9, 1940, one day before French authorities declared Paris an open city. The author is unknown but I believe he was one of the pilots in the action as it is written in the first person, and this may have been a draft of an official report of the action. Attached to the report is an official document listing the names and number of kills of French World War 1 pilots scoring more than 10 kills. The June 9th battle was perhaps the most famous air battle of the Battle of France, with France’s top air ace during the Battle of France, Lieutenant Camille Plubeau (1911-1998) shot down over Rethel. He survived the war, downing 14 German aircraft. M
Price: $490.00
Note: WW 198At the time of the Battle of France the French Armée de l'Air had 1,562 aircraft, and RAF Fighter Command committed 680 machines, while RAF Bomber Command could contribute some 392 aircraft to operations. Some of the Allied types were approaching obsolescence, such as the Fairey Battle. In the fighter force, only the British Hawker Hurricane and the French Dewoitine D.520 could contend with the German Messerschmitt Bf 109, the D.520 having better maneuverability although being slightly slower. On 10 May 1940, though, only 36 D.520 fighters had been dispatched, all to one squadron. In fighter aircraft, the Allies had the numerical advantage; 836 German Bf 109s against 81 Belgian, 261 British and 764 French fighters of various types. The French and British also had larger aircraft reserves. In early June 1940, the French aviation industry had reached a considerable output, with an estimated reserve of nearly 2,000 aircraft.
A chronic lack of spare parts crippled this fleet. Only 29 percent (599) of the aircraft were serviceable, of which 170 were bombers. Low serviceability meant the Germans had a clear numerical superiority in medium bomber aircraft, with six times as many as the French. Despite its disadvantages the Armée de l'Air performed far better than expected, destroying 916 enemy aircraft in air-to-air combat during the Battle of France, for a kill ratio of 2.35:1, with almost a third of those kills accomplished by French pilots flying the US built Curtiss Hawk 75 which accounted for 12.6 percent of the French single-seat fighter force.
Collection of 830 World War 2 Italian POW letters from Italy (10), Egypt (96), Kenya (57), UK (114), India (97), South Africa (29), USA (94), Germany (248), Morocco (13), Tanganyika/Rhodesia (5), Algeria (44), Australia (22), Eritrea (1). Almost all are real letters and not simply notices of capture. Also included is a POW pay book belonging to Sebastiano Tineo, showing debits and credits to his account while a POW. m
Price: $9990.00