Month: June 2019

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Wurttemberg 1945, An ex Vichy General goes from jail to commanding Americans in their zone of Germany

French General Jean de Lattre served in the Vichy France Army. When the Americans landed in French Morocco  Vichy forces resisted only briefly and the Germans decided to disarm the Vichy Army. The General was captured and held prisoner. To get from that to commanding American army units and managing the occupation of Stuttgart was a strange journey. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Here we have a French style stamp, denominated in Marks, but with the old style coat of arms of the Dutchy of Wurttemberg. After the War, Wurttemberg was to be in the American section of occupied Germany. In March 1945 however Hitler had ordered an end to resistance in the west in the hope that less of Germany would fall to the Russians, and the next thing you know, the French Army is in Stuttgart. After their quick defeat early in the war, it must have been satisfying for the French.

Todays stamp is issue OS6, a 20 Pfennig stamp issued by the French Occupation of Germany in 1945. It was a five stamp issue showing the coats of arms of areas of Germany under French occupation. They are in the style of French issues showing the coats of arms of French regions. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

Jean de Lattre was a junior General in the French Army when war broke out with Germany. He was given command of a division that held together during the short campaign. This was relative outperformance and de Lattre was offered a position in the now German ally Vichy French Army. His work mainly involved setting up troop training centers. When the Vichy resistance to American landings in Morocco was only token, the Germans decided to disband the Vichy army. De Lattre was arrested but after being released managed to escape to London. From there he went to Algiers and convinced Free French General De Gaulle to trust him with a command. The Free French Forces were mainly North African colonials and required much training.

A Free French force under de Lattre landed in southern France after D Day and met little resistance as it marched north along the Rhone River Valley. When it got to Strasberg resistance stiffened up. The Germans counterattacked  with some strength from Colmar. With the French units mostly colonial and the nearby American units mainly then separate black manned units the Germans were again closing in on Strassberg. To keep hold of it, several American units were shifted into the French region and very unusually put under the command of French General de Lattre. By February 1945 the Germans had been beaten back. With the end of German resistance soon after, the French could then march into Wurttemberg occupying Stuttgart in April 1945. The Allies had agreed to how Germany was to be divided and by July 1945 Americans replaced French in Wurttemberg.

General de Lattre in 1946

General de Lattre was later sent to Vietnam to lead the fight to maintain French presence there. He scored a few victories but lost his son in one of the battles and soon like at Strassberg, he was requesting American help to hold on. This time American help was supplies but no troops. De Lattre was soon recalled to France as he was dying of cancer. At his funeral, the French President named him a Marshal of France.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast short occupations. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

 

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British Antarctic Territory 1963, With no more Shackleton, we better make bases permanent

The British claimed and occupied the South Atlantic Falkland Islands in 1833. From there it was natural that Britain would lead the exploration of Antarctica and still today man the permanent year round stations that make scientific study possible if still not entirely safe. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This is the first stamp issue of the Territory and they chose to show the icebreaker ship. A fitting way to show how dependent the stations were then on these ships that supplied them and rescued them when things got rough. What a welcome sight their arrival must have been.

Todays stamp is issue A1, a half penny stamp issued by the British Antarctic Territory on February 1st, 1963. It was a fifteen stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 90 cents used.

In 1908 the British King issued his claim  on territory in the not human occupied continent of Antarctica. It was a time of many Antarctic Expeditions that sought to map the continent and race for the South Pole. One was the Imperial trans Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17 lead by Sir Ernest Shackleton. Their icebreaker, HMS Endurance was itself broken up by the strong ice and the crew was marooned on an ice floe. They hoped that the ice flow would take them to an island where provisions were stored. When it didn’t, they loaded the lifeboats and made a perilous journey in rough seas to Elephant Island where food was stored but there still wasn’t a manned base. Remember wind was high, water was rough and the temperature never went above freezing. Shackleton then decided to take a few of his best sailors in one of the lifeboats and make the 700 mile journey to South Georgia Island that was manned and therefore a rescue could be organized. He miraculously made it and convinced the Chilean Navy to lend a tugboat to go back to Elephant Island and save the rest of his crew. They did!

Launching the three man lifeboat for the 700 mile journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia for rescue in 1916.

In 1922 with a new ship, HMS Quest, Shackleton was back in South Georgia about to start a new expedition with many of the same crew. He died there of a heart attack and his wife wired that he should be buried their in the desolate place near the rough seas he loved. In 2010, descendants of Frank Wild had his remains reinterred on South Georgia Island on the right side of Shackleton, as he had been his right hand man.

The territory is now two year round bases and a summer manned science stations and heritage center. The Hailey base concentrates on the Earth’s atmosphere and was the first to discover the ozone hole. The building is built on stilts with skis so it can be moved to stay ahead of snowfall and cracking ice. The Rothera station is the administrative center and concentrates on marine biology. It now has an airstrip with regular flights from the Falklands on a Dash 7 aircraft. The heritage center, Port Lockroy open during summers welcomes tourists and has the worlds most southerly post office. It gets 10,000 visitors a year who stay shipboard.

The ship on the stamp is the MV Kista Dan. It was built as an icebreaker in Denmark in 1952 and was used in Antarctica from 1953-58. The sip later passed through different hands and was broken up in Turkey in 1998. The current British icebreaker HMS Protector, entered service in 2011.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Sir Ernest Shackleton. It is said that other explorers were better at science but when things got rough, it was better to be with Shackleton. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Hawaii 1886. King David Kalakaua lives high on sugar and opium

In the 19th century, Hawaii was a Kingdom independent from the USA but with many American planters and contract workers until the high living Royals became too much of an expensive liability. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

It is interesting to see a nineteenth century King presented not in the ageless profile European style, but rather looking straight at you in the manner of an American President. This fitted the American printing of the stamps, but perhaps takes away some of the mystery that belongs with royalty. Well Hawaii was a small place, and the native Hawaiians were but a small minority. The other Polynesians were not interested in King David’s ideas of a Pacific island federation under him uniting the race. Therefore King David is left with his American friends and their style.

Todays stamp is issue A17, a two cent stamp issued by the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1886. The portraits of Royal stamps were reprinted over many years as it was the desire of the Postmaster to maintain stocks of the whole set. After the Royals were bloodlessly deposed, there were overstamps of the issue for the provisional government. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1 used.

In an interesting twist, Hawaiian Kings were elected instead of passing father to son. Only native Hawaiians, 20 percent of the population could vote. Once elected, they serve for life. King David lost badly in his first election for King but then served as Royal Chamberlin. Upon his election rival”s later death, a chief’s council named David Kalakaua King bypassing the election. There were then riots in Honolulu and David had to put off his Coronation. There was always the issue or relations with the USA and the potential for annexation. Americans outnumbered Hawaiians on the islands and were the bulk of the economy. A deal was worked out with Hawaii that allowed Hawaii sugar to be imported to the USA without tariff. Relying on cheap imported contract labor, one can see what a sacrifice this was to higher cost American sugar producers, but the USA was very interested in a naval base at Pearl Harbor.

The deal with the USA increased exports 7 fold and brought  in lots of revenue. King David and several of his male American advisors set off on a world tour that lasted years. To native Hawaiians, it was marketed as making friendship treaties to prevent American annexation. To the planters, it was marketed as a search for more contract laborers to import to Hawaii. Others thought he was just enjoying the high living or even that he was trying to sell the islands to the highest bidder. Combined with his belated expensive two week Coronation 10 years into his rule, and another 2 week festival for his 50th birthday, there was much evidence of excessive high living.

The last straw came in 1889 when the King was caught taking a $75,000 bribe from a Chinese Tong to license the importation of opium into the islands. While the King was off on another tour leaving just a Regent in the Palace, the American planters decided to act. The Hawaiian Army was no more after having mutinied and the Regent was forced to sign a Bayonet constitution, limiting their power or ending their gravy train depending on your point of view. King David died in the USA before returning and the Regent became Queen Liliuokalani, the last Queen. For the most part she was confined to Palace until the inevitable USA annexation in 1899.

Well my drink is empty and I may have another before the luau. King David had brought that custom back after it had been banned at the suggestion of Christian missionaries. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

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Philippines 1943, The Second Republic’s official business is to cross out

Well they didn’t cross out Jose Rizal, but Japanese characters on his face are not promising to his future. The Philippine government of the second republic crossed out the USA but couldn’t help showing who was now buttering their bread. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Here we have a prewar stamp from 1941 when the Philippines was under Commonwealth status, a planned 10 year. 1936-46, path to independence. Showing on the stamp is Jose Rizal, a Philippine author and anti Spanish colonial figure, who the Spanish shot. The K P stands for Kagamitong Pampamahaloon, official business in Tagalog, the Philippine native language Japan was emphasizing. Asia for Asians being a propaganda goal of their conquests. One aspect of the 2nd Republic is not shown on this stamp. There was a lot of inflation and the Japanese printed Peso notes in very high denominations, so called Mickey Mouse money. Yet here is a stamp in it’s low original denomination. Official business after all.

Todays stamp is issue NO1, a 2 Centavo stamp issued by the Second Republic of The Philippines in 1943. The 2nd republic version of this stamp was a 4 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused. The 2nd Republic must have printed a lot of these for such interesting overprints to have no effect on the stamps value.

The Philippines fell to Japan in 1942. The administration of President Quezon fled to the USA where Quezon later died. Though there was an active resistance to Japan, there was also a group of prominent politicians willing to work with Japan. These figures include members of the Aquino and Laurel political dynasties. In 1943, a second Philippine Republic was declared. The First Republic was in power briefly between the periods of Spanish and American colonial status around 1900. The new government had many challenges. Most importantly was a shortage of rice in the cities. The first goal of rice production was to feed the Japanese occupiers and further collaboration was not complete in rural areas. The Japanese tried to help by importing a new strain of rice from Taiwan they had luck with and grew faster. The weather however was not favoring the Japanese with too much rain and a large typhoon hitting Manila in 1943. The 2nd Republic emphasized the Tagalog language, introducing a stripped down 1000 word version that could be quickly learned in a country with low literacy. Spanish and English not being Asian.

After the Americans landed in late 1944, the Second Republic declared war on the USA, but soon the government was evacuated to Tokyo and it was their turn in exile. American General MacArthur had Laurel and Aquino arrested in Japan and intended the Philippines to try them for treason. Instead they were amnestied. Laurel ran for President again in 1949 and lost, he believed by corruption. An Aquino was later shot attempting to stir up opposition to later President Marcos. His daughter in law and grandson were later Presidents. Laurel is now considered a legitimate President, Japan aside, Republic status sounded pretty good after so long as a colony.

Jose Rizal was a Filipino of Chinese ancestry, the Spanish had forced the taking of Spanish names. He was not Catholic and wrote several books mocking the Spanish priests that tried to impose their religion on Filipinos who were less Spanish. He was trained in ophthalmology in Germany and practiced in Hong Kong, taking an Irish common law wife. He refused to marry in the Church and had many affairs. As the troubles in the Philippines started, he went into internal exile. He later accepted a job in Cuba but was forced back to the Philippines to face treason charges. He felt himself innocent as he had not took up arms against the Spanish, but was convicted and shot at age 35.

Well my drink in empty and I will pour another to toast the postal overstamp. It is such fun figuring what they meant all these years later. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Burundi 1964, The Pope canonizes victims of a precolonial King and gets a stamp with another one

A precolonial King in Buganda killed some Baptized Africans in 1884. In the 1960s, the Church wanted to be seen as inclusive and not racist so assured that the long ago crime will be remembered. In response the Pope is shown on equal footing with another precolonial King of a total cesspool of a country. Perhaps not so well thought out. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The arrogance of King for not much longer Mwambutsa IV of Burundi must have known no bounds. There was not actually a meeting of the two, but a real picture of someone meeting the Pope usually shows some defferance. It is interesting to think that the Burundi King  thought the story of an old crime by another King was one he wanted to emphasize. It may come down to the old folkway that a King has special powers granted him by God. Mwambutsa did not, he was overthrown two years later.

Todays stamp is issue A11, a 14 Franc stamp issued by the Kingdom of Burundi on November12th, 1964. It was a 6 stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the Canonization of 22 victims who died for their faith in Buganda in 1884. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

Buganda, modern day Uganda, stayed under local rule longer than most. That does not mean that there were not attempts by white missionaries to convert the locals to Christianity. A Catholic group of such “White Fathers” got to work in Buganda in 1878. This did not please the King, none of the 60s sources list which King, who ordered the killing of any local black who was baptized. The death toll according to white father records was 22. The deaths are reported to have sped up rather than slowed down the progress of Christianity in Buganda. It did not seem to hurt the King of Buganda, as he still had some ceremonial powers in Uganda at the time of this stamp. See https://the-philatelist.com/2018/12/05/uganda-1942-a-british-bridge-in-self-governed-buganda/  ,Canonization of course requires later miracles attributed to the future saints. 2 Catholic nuns, the “White Sisters” reported in 1941 that intervention from the Buganda victims had given them a miracle in ending their heart problems. The canonization happened in 1964 and the Church hoped it would signal their inclusiveness. It also seemed to a have a big dose of good old fashioned white man’s burden.

King Mwambutsa was a child King with a regency before the arrival of Belgium in the area after World War I. He was left in place by the Belgians and upon independence of Burundi in 1962 he really had his power back. He was a Tutsi in an area with many Hutus though and in the absence of Belgium, he had trouble ruling those who had no allegiance to him. In 1966 there was an attempted coup and the good King departed for Switzerland leaving his son behind as a Regent. A second coup later in 1966 ended that  and a Republic was declared. Burundi has been and still is one of the poorest places on Earth. The King lived out his days in Switzerland. In 2011, his remains were exhumed with the idea of giving him a proper state funeral in Burundi. His family fought this in Swiss court, he had specifically stated that his remains were never to return to Burundi. After a long court case, his remains we reinterred in Switzerland. See https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/08/the-prince-who-was-assasinated-after-fighting-for-independence/ .

Well my drink is empty and I am left pondering the Catholic practice of declaring Saints. A stamp collector is always in favor of remembering worthy humans, but at what point does it start to resemble the supposed granting of special powers as with those silly old African Kings? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Bulgaria 1950, now that he is dead, we can forgive Kolarov his passivity

One can forget what an Internationale movement the early Communists were. There were conventions, factions and debates. Then in the 20s there was Stalin and he regarded all that with suspicion as he was the world leader of the movement, and therefore deserved personal loyalty. Kolorov was able to age out but shows what was happening. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The wave of communist exiles that returned home had been abroad for decades. They were also quite old. and by 1950 such leaders had passed. This allowed Stalin to put in his own people. No reason however not to give Kolarov a nice sendoff. On this issue of two stamps, the lower denomination writes the country name in the local language while this stamp has Bulgaria written in Latin letters. Already in 1950 a nod to the international collector that would soon be so important to Eastern European communist era issues.

Todays stamp is issue A377, a 20 Lev stamp issued by the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria on March 6th, 1950. The two stamp issue had quickly been put together after caretaker Prime Minister Vasil Kolarov had died in January. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 70 cents, whether mint or canceled to order as here.

Vasil Kolarov was born in Bulgaria in 1877 when the area was still part of the Ottoman Empire. He was the son of a shoemaker. In 1897 he joined the Tesniak wing of the local Communist movement. He was then given the opportunity to study law in France and make connection with the various communist movements. At the time it was thought that a communist takeover of the Balkans would involve a federation of Slavic countries that would itself sub serve itself to a communist Russia.

After being defeated in World War I a new King appointed leftist Aleksandar Stamboliski as Prime Minister. He was from the rival leftist Agrarian Party. Bulgaria was much shrunken and was faced with a huge war reparations bill. As Stamboliski worked through it, he angered Bulgarians on the right for kowtowing to the new reality. In 1923, the Right lead a coup that saw the King appoint a new right wing Prime Minister. Stamboliski tried to fight the coup but had no help from the rival Tesniak communists like Kolarov. He was captured, tortured, blinded, had the arm he signed peace treaties with cut off and had his head removed as a trophy. This greatly angered Stalin, who was on good terms with Stamboliski. His anger was mainly directed at those communists of the Internationale that were passive through the struggle as Stamboliski was of the other party. Another issue for Stalin was that he now opposed a wider Balkan Slavic Soviet federation. as he thought it would be too powerful for the Soviets to easily control. Realizing the danger of angering Stalin, the Communists like Kolarov started a separate uprising later in 1923. This was quickly defeated and sent Bulgarian communist leaders into exile where they perhaps wanted to be. The Communist International took care of them.

In 1944, Bulgaria switched sides and welcomed in the Red Army as the Germans retreated. With them came the exiled Bulgarian Communists like Kolorov. He accepted the abdication of Bulgaria’s last King and became a figure head President of the new People’s Republic. These were the old passive guys from 1923 and Stalin was not pleased. They still harbored ideas of a Balkan federation and were too close to Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia. New Prime Minister  Dimitrov was some believed poisoned in Moscow and there was a show trial and execution of the deputy Prime Minister. Kolarov stepped in as caretaker Prime Minister but perhaps lucky for him he died of natural causes a few months later allowing Stalin to put in his people. No longer a threat, Kolarov was given a hero’s funeral and his hometown was even renamed for him. This enthusiasm was short lived, by 1965 the town had reverted to it’s previous name.

Well my drink is empty and I will stay out of Bulgarian politics. I am sure someone would find me too passive. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Italy 1947, moving forward under jet power

There was a lot of fighting in the latter years of the war in Italy, although it involved surprisingly few Italians. As such, the post war Italian future would be decided by the Allies who won the campaign. Thus what Italian authority was still around did much to announce it was still here and there was a future to look forward to, with jets! So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

It is pretty bold to suggest Italian air mail would soon be transported on jet aircraft. Italy flew a jet in 1940, but was unable to get any in service before the end of the war. The Italian jet engine design did not produce enough thrust to be an advancement on piston types and later designs were predicated on Germany supplying engines, which they never did. The prototype had made a flight in 1941 from Milan to Rome with a fuel stop in Pisa. This aircraft indeed carried a bag of mail and was met in Rome with much fanfare. So for Italy, jet airmail was more than a dream, but a reality. The surprising part is that it took six years for there to be a stamp commemorating it. Well, it was a busy time.

Todays stamp is issue C114, an 50 Lira airmail stamp issued by Italy from post war 1945-1947, while the country was transitioning from Kingdom to Republic. It was a 9 stamp issue in various denominations showing clasped hands over an artist conception of the Caproni Campini CC 2 aircraft. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents, whether mint or used.

The Italian government switched sides in World War II in 1943 though most of the country was under German occupation. Most of the organized resistance to the Fascists were Communists. Remember it was them that found Mussolini as he fled. See https://the-philatelist.com/2019/03/29/italy-1941-hitler-interviews-mussolini-about-his-future-role-as-a-colonial-governor/  . That was not the Italian government that America wanted. Alcide De Gasperi was from the Italian minority in the Austrian Tyrol region that passed to Italy after World War I. He spoke German with his family at home his whole life. He was part of a small right of center party closely associated with the Catholic Church. He had broke with Mussolini and was subsequently jailed by him. The Church had seen to his release and made a place for him in Vatican City. King Victor Emmanuel II picked him as Prime Minister at the suggestion of the Americans. Unusually for Italian politics, he was the head of many coalition governments for almost 10 years. De Gasperi sought to minimize punishment for Italy having been Fascist and in turn he worked hard to see  Communists would not seize power in Italy. He also gave Germans from his old region of Tyrol rights in modern Italy. Over time it became increasingly hard to keep the left out of government. By 1953 De Gasperi was resorting to super majorities to blunt left power and the Catholic Church was declaring it a mortal sin to vote Communist. Many thought this undemocratic and De Gasperi was forced to resign.

The Camproni Campini CC2 was the first successful public flight of an airplane powered by a jet engine in 1940. Germany had flown a jet plane the year before but kept it a military secret. The Italian jet sat two. The indigenous Italian jet design is called a motorjet and combined a ducted fan with an afterburner. They could not get enough airflow through the engine and with the afterburner it was both fuelish and suffered from low thrust. They played around with the idea of a separate piston engine to force more airflow into the motorjet but that wasn’t practical. The design was refined later to take a German turbojet as the Reggiane Re 2007 but Germany refused to supply any of their jet engines. Work of course slowed after 1943. One of the prototypes of the CC2 survived the war but disappeared after being shipped to Great Britain for study. Post war, Secondo Campini emigrated to the USA where he worked with Tucker automobiles on a turbine powered car and Northrop where he worked on converting their experimental flying wing bomber to jet power. Northrop much later built the flying wing B2 stealth bomber. The world remembers the German jet and rocket experts post war, but Italy had a few as well.

Well my drink is empty and there would be quite a wait in 1947 for airmail delivered by jet. So perhaps there is time for another drink. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.