Finding Aid
World War II collection. – 1939-2005; predominant 1939-1945. – 1 m of textual records and graphic material. -- 1 sound recording.
Box 1
F.1 L.G. Bell, 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Engineers. "A Scheme to Save Hundreds of the Lives of Civilians Entombed in Shelters Beneath the Civic Centres of Midland Cities". Ts., 7 pages; also typed letter signed, 30 December 1940. See also Box 6, F.1.
F.2 " Five rivers. First Commando Brigade. Germany, 1945". Mimeo ts., 28 pages with maps and aerial photographs. Incomplete as the table of contents lists 67 pages. The five rivers are: Elbe, Aller, Weser, Maas, Rhine.
F.3 Hudson Fysh (Qantas Airways). "In Papua with 'the Bully Beef Bombers'. Being notes on a trip to Port Moresby". Sydney. 1 January 1943. Mimeo ts., 8 pages.
F.4 "The History of 46 (RM) Commando". Mimeo ts., 28 pages.
F.5 Speech given at the Nuremburg Trial. N.d. Title page missing. Mimeo ts. (brittle), 117 pages. A photocopy has been made for preservation purposes.
F.6 Prisoner of War forms and reports. Completed by captured Italian officers and their British interrogators, February 1941-July 1943. 84 forms. Handwritten transcripts of some of the forms were made by archival staff.
F.7 "Migration: New Factors for Overseas Settlement, Empire Defence and Air Port Development". Report to the Royal Empire Society on Migration, December 1943/1944. Col. F.H. Smith, Chairman. Ts., 15 pages, including maps and blueprints.
F.8 21 Army Group. "Report on German Atrocities". December 1944. Mimeo ts., 76 pages. Note: Report concentrates on the Breendonk Concentration Camp in Belgium. "Personal copy for A. Christiansen"
F.9 S.E. Watrous. Information on Malta during the war: includes correspondence, battle orders, aerial photographs, invitations, manuscript notes on "German Prisoners of War" about their transport from Malta to the Middle East, ts. on the "Sea Battle of Malta, 1942", BBC broadcast script on Malta, 27 October 1942, untitled typescript with titled sections, begins "Brigade Concert Party", ts. "The Stricklands and Independent Government vs. Dobbie". Also issues of The Times of Malta.
F.10 "The Battle of Odderoya on 9th April, 1940", ts. carbon, diagrams, also includes an incomplete ts. carbon on the Olso Fiord.
Box 2
F.1 Air Commodore R.A. Chisholm, 4 letters to, 1943-1946
F.1a Charlie D., postcard to Bob and family; illustration of a Northern Canadian scene from "The Canadian Army Overseas". F.2 Mr. Drane, letter of condolence on the death of his son Peter, 15 January 1945, from W/Cdr J. Clift. RAF
F.3 Victor Gordon-Lennox, personal British and American identification cards with photographs, 1940-1944. Gordon-Lennox, although British, was a war correspondent for the Chicago Daily News.
F.4 Lord Noel-Buxton, correspondence, 1935-1945. Most of the letters are incoming from: Gilbert Murray, Samuel Hoare (Home Secretary), Lord Halifax, Archbishop of York, Lord Samuel, Lord Harmsworth, G.M. Trevelayn, Lord Vansittart, Lord Cecil, Archbishop of Chichester, Jan Smuts of South Africa, the Duke of Devonshire, Anthony Eden, Clement Atlee, and many others. Outgoing: letter to to von Ribbentrop, 1935; letter to Lord Halifax, 1940; and a letter to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 1944. Also a typed copied of a letter from Neville Chamberlain to Lord Arnold, January 1940, typed copy of a letter from David Lloyd George, 1941, and a 3-page ts. carbon "Conversations on Current Questions of International Politics (1-3.VI.39)". Also two printed National Peace Council leaflets and a printed document about "Financial Assistance to Czecho-Slovakia".
F.5 Paymaster Commander Dennis H. Pasmore, Royal Navy,1939-1946. Messages, certificates, official correspondence, lists of paymaster captains and paymaster commanders.
F.5a Pte. Robert Roe, card and letter to Rev. Cummings and family, Salford, Ont., send from Belgium 1944.
F.6-9 Fl. Lieut. W. John Scafe:
F.6 Letters to his parents (mostly addressed to his mother), 1940
F.7 Letters to his parents (mostly addressed to his mother), 1941
F.8 Letters to his parents (mostly addressed to his mother), 1942; also letter to his father, Col. W.J. Scafe, re his son being missing with a list of his personal effects; letters of 1943 concluding that Scafe must be dead, losing his life in a reconnaissance flight over Bremen; negative of Scafe with his plane.
F.6-9 Letters of condolence, one reply, b&w photograph of Scafe's sportscar; pencil drawings of Scafe in his sportscar and an aeroplane.
F.10 Capt. R.G. Thelwell, R.N.R., 1940-1943. Messages, official correspondence, certificates, orders.
F.11 Three envelopes of photographs:
Air planes: numbered A1-A20; mainly British, also two German (A3-A4)
Air Force men and women: A21-A45
Miscellaneous: not numbered. Includes: b&w: one of an officer, signed, possibly Howard Foster; one of a downed Nazi plane; page torn from a scrapbook of ships and aeroplanes, and other photographs, mainly of airplanes.
F.13 Aerial Photographs of Sword Beach landings, 4 b&w
Box 3
F.1 Sgt. G. Corbin, R.M., No. 2 section notebook containing lists of gun crews, battalion codes, gunnery data, targets, etc., diagrams, lists of ammunition held at Jungle Site, 1942
F.2 Col. John Dacre, Royal Artillery. A scrapbook compiled while Dacre was serving as liaison on the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Illustrious, 1944-1946; includes captioned photographs taken at home before he left and upon his return, in Ceylon, Australia, Penag, Bankok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Malaya. There are photographs of military personnel, ships, airplanes (Avengers), bombing, kamakaze attacks, and one of Lord Louis Mountbatten. Also an aerial photograph of the Suez Canal at Port Said. Also, news clippings, messages, telegrams, menus, programmes, material related to the Camberley Staff College in 1946 and 1947. At some point Dacre left Illustrious; he was on H.M.T. Dilwara in September 1946. His wife joined him in Singapore in 1946. (Oversize, at end of box)
F.3 First officer’s book. R.M.S. Mauretania, 1939-1945
F.4 Maw's Home Guard Unit. 1940-1944. Photograph album, 12 pages, taken by S. Maw and Sons, New Barnet, Herts.
F.5 Signal Officer’s book 136 – progress book, A. James
Box 4
Maps
Group 1. Luftwaffe target maps of Britain. 17 sets with aerial photographs
Group 2. Defence Overprint, 2 maps
Group 3. D-Day, top secret, 5 maps
Group 8. War Office maps of Europe, 41 maps
Box 5
Group 4. Coastal silhouette. France. Cherbourg Peninsula. October 1943.
Group 5. RAF aviation maps of Britain, 7 maps
Group 6. British maps of Britain, 8 maps
Group 7. German maps of Britain and Europe. 3 maps.
Note: Some maps are oversize, e.g. a prisoner of war map, and are located below the boxes.
Box 6
F.1 A.R.P. file 88/13. Re Lieutenant Bell’s rescue party scheme; includes correspondence. See also Box 1, F.1
F.2 A.R.P. Newark. 22 telegrams, 1939-1940
F.3 BBC monitoring reports, 1942, 1944 – 6 reports
F.4 Civil Defence. Correspondence re the North Eastern Regional Office of Civil Defence – Sir George Gater and Lord Harlech, 1940.
F.5 Great Britain. Armed Forces. Formation badges. Ts carbon., 5 pages; there are no illustrations
F.6 Great Britain. Home Office. Philip Allen. Various files re Greek merchant seamen, the apprehension of deserters, murder of a British subject by an American on a Norwegian ship in Anglo-Egyptian territorial waters off Sudan, permission for a British subject to join the American Army; assault by an Italian prisoner of war in Warwickshire; U.S. forces in Britain, 1942.
F.7 Society of British Aircraft Constructors. Printed press summaries, August 1943.
F.8 Marjory Munro, Oil Springs, Ont., War Scraps of Second World War, 1941-1942. Includes news clippings, handwritten news bulletins, victory bond pamphlets, Rembrance Day, 1941.
Items removed from a scrapbook previously located in error with the World War I collection. Unknown Irish source. Note: Some of these items are outside the World War II date range. F.9-16
F.9
Nouvelles de France, No. 102, 9 December 1942; mimeograph written in French, published St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin
Bulletin Francais Heddomadaire, No. 7, 2 March 1945; mimeograph written in French, published 20 Upper Fitzwilliam Street Dublin.
B&w photograph of nun with dog
New Year card, with inscription, 1876.
F.10-2 News clippings, 1939-1945, from a variety of English newspapers, also Irish Times
F.13 News clippings, 1948-1949
F.14 News clippings, 1954, Irish Independent
F.15 News clippings, 1958, 1963, Irish Times
F.16 Various photographs of art, landscape.
General Vicomte Gort, V.C., commandant en chef des armées Britanniques en France, colour portrait, supplement au numéro du L’Illustration du 17 février 1940. Oversize: in Map Cabinet 37.
F.17 A memoir (accession 04-2005) by McMaster graduate James S. Cross, "From the Palliser Triangle to Confederation Square" (computer print, 89 pages); memoir by G.H. Edwards re his naval life.
Box 7
"The War Speeches of Winston S. Churchill", 1940-1945, as selected by the editors of Life Magazine, one 33 1/3 vinyl disk.
Printed Materials. A collection of leaflets, notices, tear-sheets, circular letters, art work reproductions and other documents from Canada, Britain, United States and Australia.
F.1 Canada: War Savings Certificates, Stamps, Victory Bonds notices; in English and French. See also oversize below.
F.2 Canada: Messages from King George V, Halifax, 15 June 1939; Prime Minister Mackenzie King, June 1941; and F.I. Patenaude, Louis Saint-Laurent and E.A. MacNutt, Comite provincial de l'Emprunt de la Victorie 1941, Quebec.
F.3 Canada: Red Cross notices
F.4 Canada: War messages and notices paid for by businesses, often urging Canadians to support the war financially: Ault & Wiborg Co. of Canada Ltd. Emblems of Freedom (3 illustrated in colour for Australia, United States, and China), Canadian National Railways (illustrated in colour),Shawinigan Water and Power Co., La Banque Royale du Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, l'Assurance-vie, John D. McAra printing, Bank of Toronto, Rapid Grip and Batten Ltd., Hull Steel Foundries Ltd., Henry Birks & Sons Ltd., Soo Falls Brewing Co., Pulp and Paper Industry of Canada, Player's Navy Cut Cigarettes. See also oversize below.
F.5 Canada: various including notices in English and French issued by William P. Mulock, Postmaster General; Department of Munitions and Supply for Canada; Department of Trade and Commerce; and Salvation Army.
F.6 Britain: Eight notices by Fougasse (Cyril Kenneth Bird). Each notice has the caption "Careless Talk Costs Lives" on the bottom, however they differ with regard to the caption above and the coloured illustrations. Each measures 21.5 cm x 31 cm, and has a red border. See also a full-size poster reproduction of one of these notices ("you never know who's listening!"[B65]) in the World War II poster collection.
F.7 Britain: printed notices most with little or no illustrations. Some were issued by H.M. Stationery Office, for A.R.P., Victory Bonds, and others. Also a warning notice for the Underground, an offprint from The Yorkshire Herald, messages Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Lord Halifax, and a reproduction in colour of a painting by Clarence F. Underwood of a soldier and a nurse.
F.7a Britain: Sheet printed on both sides of national flags and war materiel (planes, ships, etc.) for cut out to fasten on lapel pins.
F.8 Australia: War Saving Certificates notices, War Loan Bonds, Austerity Loans and Bonds, Liberty Loans; most are printed notices without illustration.
F.9 United States: tear-sheets, postcard, notices from the Salvation Army, United War Work Campaign, War Saving Stamps, Fight for Freedom, Inc.; two publications by The British War Relief Society of New York.
Oversize: Canada: notices in English and French from Southam Press, Canadian Pacific-Canadian National, August Variety Stores, Bell Telephone Co., Sun Life of Canada, as well as War Savings Certificates, a recruitment card ("La patrie a besoin de vous tout de suite!) notices, and tear-sheets. Also colour reproductions of two paintings, one of Major Paul Triquet, V.C. and the other of a woman from the Canadian Women's Army Corps, both by by Adam Sherriff Scott; series of three "Hier Audjourd'hui" notices using images of paintings by Adam Sheriff Scott combined with World War II images. (Map Cabinet 37).
F.10-11 United States: printed materials -- gasoline coupons, fuel oil coupons, ration cards, purchase certificates, two pamphlets, "Rationing in World War II", 1946 and "Nutrition Guide for the Home Front", 1942 (Accession 18-2008). Also boxed patriotic stationery and envelopes. Four issues of Facts vs. Fiction.
F.12 Canada: printed materials -- ration books, gasoline licence and ration coupon books (Accession 18-2008)
F.13 Hamilton Ontario Normal School Honour Roll: Contains names of the fallen in both World Wars (Accession 59-2008).
F.14 Two appeals for funds in London, Ont. One is from the Canadian Red Cross, London Branch, 10 November 1939 and the other is from the Canadian Legion War Services, Inc., February 1940 (Accession 17-2009)
Box 8
Photograph Album of British "A" Vehicles, produced by the Chief Inspector of Fighting Vehicles, 10 September 1943. Noted on the cover is a downgrade from "secret " to "restricted" in 1955. Contains b&w glossy photographs of armoured cars, carriers, and other vehicles with the specifications.
Box 9 (1940-1944)
F.1 Canadian Officers' Training Centre, Brockville, Ontario. Mimeographs of rules and regulations, Standard Syllabus for Infantry, organizational charts, characteristics of armoured formations, and notes taken by unidentified trainee.
F.2 Canadian School of Infantry, Vernon, British Columbia. Mimeographs of training manual including a caricature of a Japanese soldier and brief notes by an unidentified trainee.
F.3 Capt. A.J. Davies, Service Increment Officer, 10 Canadian Field Ambulance, 2 Canadian Infantry Division (later of the Medical Wing). Correspondence to and from Davies, financial statements, receipts and vouchers, Canadian Reinforcements Units telephone directory, and locations list.
F.4 Leaflet concerning communications with prisoners of war.
F.5 Hamilton Military Hospital, R.C.A.M.G., photograph
Not Boxed:
The Middlesex Regiment, 7th Battalion, with headquarters in Ealing, acted as the Home Guard during World War II. The Regiment dates its history from 1755, when the 57th Foot was raised by Colonel John Arabin. It gained its nickname the “Die-Hards” in the 1811 Battle of Albuhera.
Oversize:
(A) Home Guard. “S” section. Middlesex Regiment. 1940-1944. Scrapbook contains photographs, menus, greeting cards, and correspondence.
Oversize:
(B) A bound volume contains the battalion orders from 29 July 1940 to 8 June 1944. Pasted in the front of the volume is a pamphlet, “History and Traditions of the Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge’s Own)” which outlines the history of the regiment from 1755 until 1918. There is also a printed invitation to a Home Guard dinner on 30 November 1944 issued to Major Williams. On the verso is a clipping with a photograph of Headquarters Company taken in November 1944. Pasted at the end of the volume is a pamphlet, “‘T’ Sector, London District Home Guard”. Accession 08-2001 but most likely part of the original collection.
Photograph (oversize, framed): Canadian School of Army Administration, Kemptville, Ontario, January 1944. Location: Map Cabinet 37.
Recruitment: Pilot with thumbs up, cardboard, with support on back for display. Colour, signed by "Jack Keay [19]/41". Also on this item is "RCA [Victor] His Master's Voice" with logo. In two parts: head and torso, 73 cm tall; legs, 96 cm tall. Map Cabinet 37.
