To me personally this is one of the finds of the year. This 8-page folded leaflet printed as advertising for a military supplies store at Columbus, Georgia, contains the Paratroopers prayer (satiric version of Our Father), a letter to a friend from a paratrooper, a letter from a paratrooper to his parents (both also satiric), the Paratrooper’s Song, another song ‘We are the paratroopers’, a song ‘Detail Joe’ and the most famous song ‘Blood on the Risers’. I have made a reproduction of it, more or less on scale to fit a sheet of A4 paper. Download your copy here.
In this book we follow the 504th PIR of the 82nd Airborne from Spanish Morocco to the Ardennes. This parachute regiment participated in many of the combat jumps in WW2, and the author took part in all of them. He survived three years of almost continuous combat action, always at the spearhead of the allied advance. The origin of the nickname ‘Devils in Baggy Pants’ is explained on the cover sheet. It was found in the diary of a German officer who opposed the 504th on the Anzio beachhead. Most of this book is dedicated to Sicily and the Italian theatre (Salerno, Anzio), which is interesting because not so many good books have been written about this part of the war as Normandy, Holland or the Ardennes. While describing the horrible battles at Anzio and the Bulge, the author beautifully lets his characters – who were his actual buddies – develop throughout the book. For the reader this makes it more personal when these men eventually start getting killed, their luck running out. Ross Carter was luckier and lived to write this book shortly after the war, but soon died of cancer in 1947 at age 28. His brother Boyd published the book in 1951.
Today I was able to inspect the first Denix M1 carbines at the Wavre militaria show. I just checked the Denix site, and they don’t even list it yet. They are not as pictured before, so not the early type, but the later type with bayonet lug, adjustable rear sight…
As a collector of escape compasses and escape maps, I was aware that Clayton Hutton was the inventor of many escape aids, but detailed and reliable historical information had always been hard to obtain. From what I had been able to find out online, I write two articles for this web site on escape maps and escape compasses. Now, about five years later, I find out that Hutton himself wrote a book about it. It contains a wealth of new information to enrich my articles (still to do). Hutton writes with typical British phlegm, which makes for enjoyable reading. I stumbled upon this book on eBay. A beautiful green leather bound book, first (and only?) edition, for just £7!
