BLITZ

[Anti-Aircraft Defence, World War II.] Instructional material from the Searchlight Wing, School of A. A. Defence, Shrivendon, Swindon [Royal Artillery]; with manuscript reports; from the papers of Sgt. J. L. B. Royall.

Author: 
Anti-Aircraft Defence, World War II [Searchlight Wing, School of A. A. Defence, Shrivenham, Swindon; Sgt. J. L. B. Royall; Royal Artillery, British Army]
Publication details: 
Five of the sixteen items dated between 17 March 1941 and .6 October 1943 (the rest contemporaneous). Searchlight Wing, School of Anti-Aircraft Defence, Shrivenham, Swindon. Also Longcot, Lyford, Lyndhurst and Romsey.
£350.00

The topic of this material is wartime training (in part during the Blitz) of sergeants for ‘Search Light Control’ or SLC (nicknamed ‘Elsie’). A larger archive of similar material from the papers of Sgt. J. L. B. Royall on the same theme is offered separately. Sixteen items, a few of which are discoloured and creased, but the collection being in good overall condition. The first three items are in manuscript (i.e. Royall’s autograph).

[Squadron Leader Nigel Rose, Spitfire pilot during the Battle of Britain.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Nigel') to Martin Corden, expressing amazement at the 'cult' of the Spitfire, and discussing the sale of Bentley Priory.

Author: 
Squadron Leader Nigel Rose (1918-2017), Spitfire Pilot with No. 602 (City of Glasgow) Royal Air Force Squadron during the Second World War Battle of Britain [Bentley Priory, Stanmore]
Publication details: 
22 October 2007. With label carrying his Essex address.
£250.00

2pp, folio. In envelope with stamp and postmark, addressed to Corden's Mill Hill address. Letter folded twice, and letter and envelope in good condition. He begins by thanking him for sending 'the inscribed copy of Ken Delve's Story of the Spitfire - a truly excellent book just jam-packed with detail, - he must have done a prodigious amount of research to put it all together'. He is 'bowled over by the extent of [Corden's] munificence'.

[ Nursing on the Home Front in the Second World War. ] Typescript 'War Diaries of Nurse K. M. Phipps | (including letters and letter extracts and notes describing wartime England.)'

Author: 
Nurse K. M. Phipps [ Kay Phipps; Second World War; nursing; Red Cross; Emergency Medical Service ]
Publication details: 
London (Westminster Hospital and University College Hospital), Beechwood, Bradford (Yorkshire) and Devon. Diary dating from between 22 August 1939 and 2 August 1943. Transcription made by author in the early nineteen-seventies (1970, 1973).
£400.00

159pp., 8vo. In good condition, with light signs of age and wear, in a card folder with 'Best Copies | A | Nurse Phipps | War Diaries | (1939-45)' in autograph on front. Each page of the typescript is on one side of a separate leaf.

[ W. J. Macqueen-Pope, theatre manager and historian. ] Typescript of an unpublished account of the work of British millers and bakers during the war: 'No Medals for This (The Story of Bread in the Blitz)'. With two related Typed Letters Signed

Author: 
W. Macqueen-Pope [ Walter James Macqueen-Pope ] (1888-1960), theatre manager and historian [ Sydney Walton, publicist ]
Publication details: 
[ London, 1941. ]
£450.00

148pp., 4to. Bound with pink ribbon into grey card wraps with typed label on cover. In fair condition, on aged paper, in worn and aged binding. Pencil note on title page states '40000 words'. An interesting piece of social history during wartime. In a foreword Macqueen-Pope thanks a number of individuals for their assistance, adding that 'the leading characters in this real life story must perforce remain anonymous'.

[Second World War ephemera.] Printed card of 'Instructions', headed 'Women's Voluntary Services for Civil Defence. Knitted Patchwork Covers for Evacuated Children.'

Author: 
[Women's Voluntary Services for Civil Defence, London; Second World War evacuees; evacuation; evacuated children]
Publication details: 
[Women's Voluntary Services for Civil Defence, London. 1939.]
£30.00

Printed on one side of a piece of 15cm square card. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. Four numbered instructions, preceded by: 'There would be a great need for extra bed coverings for children should evacuation ever take place. Suitable covers can be made by sewing together squares knitted up from scraps of wool. They will always be useful even if, as we all hope, they are not needed for their original purpose.' This initiative can be dated from a reference in 'Home & Country' magazine, 1939. Scarce: no copy traced in the Imperial War Museum or elsewhere.

[Printed booklet with introduction by Winston Churchill; a bookplate by Gooden loosely inserted.] The Trumpeter of Saint George. An Engraving by Stephen Gooden A.R.A. with verses by G. Rostrevor Hamilton.

Author: 
Stephen Gooden; G. Rostrevor Hamilton [Winston Churchill]
Publication details: 
London: George G. Harrap & Company Limited in association with the Royal Society of Saint George. 1941. [Printed by Harrison & Sons, Ltd, Printers to His Majesty The King, 44-47 St. Martin's Lane, London, WC2.]
£135.00

16pp., 8vo. Stapled, unpaginated pamphlet with five blank versos. In good condition, on lightly aged and worn paper. Typed label laid down at head of reverse of first leaf: 'Issued by the Royal Society of St. George in W.W.W. London had been severely burned by incendiaries, the Guildhall and eight Wren churches destroyed. | Original contribution by Winston Churchill.' Circular reproduction of black and white engraving, somewhat in the style of a seventeenth-century emblem book, showing the trumpeter riding a carved lion on a globe overlooking a landscape.

Manuscript Second World War 'Air-Raid Log [Air-Raid Warnings]' in Liverpool, begun in September 1939, while in the Lower Sixth of Liverpool Boys' School, by the future naval historian Captain Anthony Birch Sainsbury.

Author: 
Captain Anthony Birch Sainsbury (1925-2010), MA, VRD and Bar, RNR, naval historian, vice-president of both the Navy Records Society and the Society for Nautical Research [Liverpool Boys' School]
Publication details: 
Liverpool. September 1939 to June 1941.
£280.00

61pp., 4to. In ruled notebook with green cloth covers. In good condition, lightly-aged. Sainsbury has written 'AIR-RAID WARNINGS' on the front cover. The first page is titled 'AIR-RAID LOG. | 3/9/39 - IR', with 'Anthony B Sainsbury | Lower VI | LBS' in the bottom right-hand corner.

[Typescript; autobiographical novel; Unpublished] Personnel

Author: 
"Owen Edwards" [pseud. for Edward Owen Marsh, linguist, author, schoolmaster - translator of Anouilh, Cocteau, Gogol, etc.]
Publication details: 
'Property of: Owen Edwards, 112 Fitzjohns Avenue, London, NW3' [Written before 1956 when Marsh moved from 112 Fitzjohns Avenue to Tanza Road
£750.00

Typescript, 242pp., 4to, brown paper wraps, damage to top of spine but no loss, label on front with author ("Owen Edwards") and title. A semi-autobiographical novel based on Marsh's experiences during the Second World War in the London Ambulance Service. Initially a "Notice" "The characters in this book are fictitious. Some of the incidents are naturally based on real happenings during the war but they are none of them wholly accurate[...]". The novel starts with the hero, Lang, joining the Service.

[Mimeographed pamphlet.] 500 Hours In The Blitz. [On reverse:] Wartime Doggerel for the Dog Tired.

Author: 
George E. O. Knight (b.1885) [The Blitz, 1940-1941; London; Thomas Edward Neil Driberg] (1905-1976), Baron Bradwell, journalist and Labour MP]
Publication details: 
London: "Earways", Flat 782, 67/9, Chancery Lane, W.C.2. 1941.
£120.00

12pp., 4to. On the rectos of 12 leaves, stitched with red thread into yellow wrappers with crude design of airplanes in action. From the papers of the Labour MP Tom Driberg, and with 'Mr Driberg' in pencil at head of front wrap. In a preface dated 21 August 1941 Knight refers to 'twelve fateful and ferocious months', and criticises 'a deplorable lack of vision and imagination everywhere.

Long telegram to the British Legation in Reykjavik [from the Home Office in Whitehall] instructing them on position to take with the press depending on the result of the impending 'GERMAN AIROFFENSIVE CONTRABRITAIN' [i.e. the Blitz].

Author: 
[The British Legation, Reykjavik, Iceland; Icelandic; The Blitz, 1940; Rev. Dr John Charles Fulton Hood (1884-1964), editor of 'The Midnight Sun' newspaper]
Publication details: 
On 'Landssimi Islands' telegram form. From London to 'PRODROME REYKJAVIK' on 19 August 1940.
£320.00

From the papers of Rev. J. C. Fulton Hood who, having been Chief Chaplain British Forces in Norway in 1940, worked in Iceland between 1940 and 1941. A pencil note on the telegram (see below) refers to 'The Midnight Sun', the troops’ newspaper in Norway and Iceland which Hood founded and edited. He was made a Knight of the Icelandic Order of the Falcon in 1949. The telegram is in good condition, on lightly-aged paper, and bears an oval blue 'LANDSSIMINN' stamp. It is headed 'PRESSE PRODROME REYKJAVIK' ('Prodrome, Reykjavik' being the British Icelandic Legation's telegraph address).

Autograph Manuscript Notes for 'Deputy Controller's Course', in official Royal Air Force notebook. With two mimeographed typed documents relating to the Course, including one with introduction by Wing Commander Bradford.

Author: 
A. H. Anderson, L.A.C.; Wing Commander J. R. Bradford, Fighter Command, Controllers' Training Unit [Royal Air Force; Deputy Controllers' Course; Second World War]
[RAF] Autograph Manuscript Notes for 'Deputy Controller's Course
Publication details: 
Notebook dated by Anderson on cover 'Woodlands, Clamp Hill, Stanmore. 27 October 1941.' One of the mimeographed documents dated from Woodlands, 26 June 1941.
£250.00
[RAF] Autograph Manuscript Notes for 'Deputy Controller's Course

4to 'Royal Air Force. Notebook for use in Schools', with Anderson's notes in pencil on all but 11 of its 96 pp. Text clear and complete, written in a neat, tight hand, with diagrams and tables. Fair, on aged paper, with slightly dog-eared corners, in worn and creased wraps. Ownership inscription on front cover of 'A. H. Anderson L.A.C. | Deputy Controller's Course | Woodlands. 27.10.'41'. Providing important first-hand insights into the procedure of the RAF during World War II. Subjects include 'Fighter Command Organisation', 'I.F.F. (Identification friend or foe)', 'P.P.L.

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