LAWRENCE EARL - the Anglo-Canadian Writer who began life as a Saint John Jew - Part 2

by Ronald J. Jack

In 1950 Patrick Leo Maguire, an Irish radio personality, wrote a hit folk song under the pseudonym Sylvester Gaffney. Entitled THE BATTLE OF BALTINGLASS, the single was released on a 45 RPM disc and it was in part the inspiration for the Lawrence Earl book ofhe same title. The song lyrics read like a pop-culture scrapbook from the Cold War, and aremore zany than the Lawrence Earl prose which won the 1953 Leacock Medal for Humour. 

THE BATTLE OF BALTINGLASS                 

by Sylvester Gaffney, Dublin 1950

(Air: The South Down Militia)

O, the G.P.O. in Dublin will go down in history,

'Twas there the glorious fight was made that set our country free,
But from Aughrim down to Boland's Mills there's nothing could surpass,
The siege of the sub Post Office in the Town of Baltinglass,

CHORUS:

There were Bren-guns and Sten-guns and whippet tanks galore,

The battle raging up and down from pub to general store:

Between the Vintner and the Cook the pot was quite upset,

And the Minister swore this Irish stew was the worst he ever 'et.

The job of sub-postmaster or mistress, as might be,

Is not exactly one that leads to wealth and luxury:

But Korea was a picnic and Tobruk was just a pup

To the row the day the linesmen came to take the cable up.

Now all the countryside joined in, the lowly and the great;

There were elephant-guns from Poona, and pikes from '98.

But the Cossacks came from Dublin, and the Irish Navy too,

And poor cook, she burnt her fingers on this wretched Irish stew.

There were gremlins from the Kremlin, and little men from Mars

Complete with flying saucers and hats festooned with stars.

There were rocket-firing, jet propelled, atomic flying boats,

And Commandos from the G.P.O. in their oul' tarpaulin coats.

The linesmen made a dash to open up the cable trench

They opened up the sewer instead, Lord save us! what a stench

A gentleman in jodhpurs swore, "By Jove, they're using gas"

"The next will be an atom bomb on peaceful Baltinglass."

Now the case has gone to U.N.O. and we're waiting for the day,

When Truman, Attlee and McBride will come along and say

"Get back behind your parallel, drop atom bombs and gas,

"And respect the bound'ries and the laws of Sov'reign Baltinglass.

LAWRENCE EARL  -  Part 2 - SHAMROCKS

Sixty years ago a book reviewer chose to list the names of Canadian authors who spent “most of their time in the United States” but he also noted that “New Brunswick author Lawrence Earl and the young Montreal writer Mordecai Richler are finding their destinies in old London”. The differences among our writers were often more than geographic. Earl and Richler for example, were both Canadian born Jews, but while Richler expertly tilled the rich ethnic soil of Jewish religion, traditions and culture which rooted him and produced some of the truly great Canadian novels of his century, Earl chose the adventure genre and ignored the streets and characters of his youth.  In Saint John he learned the camera arts, but memories of his native city never inspired the writing man.  The result?  Lawrence Earl is frequently mis-identified by those who consult his early non-fiction, and the novels he produced for Canadian readers are seldom encountered.

After the success of YANGTSE INCIDENT Lawrence Earl immediately sought another book project.  He was in luck! JOHN BULL magazine assigned him to cover a fascinating story in Ireland that had already been immortalized by a folk song recorded in Dublin. It was called THE BATTLE OF BALTINGLASS.  Sensing that he was mining valuable ore, Earl signed another contract with his publisher George Harrap.  Baltinglass was, in 1950, a village of some 800 souls, located quite near Dublin.  Its tiny sub-post office doubled as an agency for paying government fees and telephone bills. The job was a valuable sinecure. When the position was re-allocated the resulting furor came close to igniting open sectarian violence.   In his book of the same title Lawrence Earl stuck to his preferred style of peppering prose with carefully fabricated dialogue.  In the Preface he wrote “Because it is not fiction I lacked the happy licence of the novelist who arranges his facts to suit the plot, who can plumb the minds of his characters, enter locked doors, and eavesdrop on deep secrets.” 

Without a doubt, "Baltinglass" is Earl's finest book.  Although I sought in vain any trace evidence of the author's New Brunswick education or influences in the novel, I must note that the principle action of the story takes place on Mill Street and Main Street in the village of Baltinglass. It is merely a coincidence that there was a Mill Street - Main Street junction in Saint John, N.B. where  Earl grew up.  There is no way of knowing if Mr. Earl smiled when he stood on the corner of Mill and Main in distant Ireland, but I would like to believe he had a 'moment'.

In creative style as in the use of elastic veracity, Lawrence Earl’s non-fiction was very much in step with fellow Canadian author Farley Mowat, and indeed both writers were in the 1950s relying on ARGOSY and other popular “Men’s magazines” of the era, to establish an American reader base.

Lawrence Earl's third book, CROCODILE FEVER,

was condensed for the Sept. 1954 ARGOSY magazine.

A very serviceable description of events in Baltinglass is provided in a review published in Australia in 1952 (below).  I like the reviewer’s conclusion that – “Mr. Earl’s book is as Irish as shamrocks, and a manual for agitators.” Harrap sold the Canadian rights to publisher Clarke Irwin who marketed the book as a work of humour. As a result in 1953 Lawrence Earl was awarded the coveted Leacock Medal.  His third work of non-fiction, CROCODILE FEVER: A True Story of Adventure, appeared in 1954. It described the career of a successful croc-hunter. In the U.S. it was  published as RIVER OF EYES (a better title)  and condensed for ARGOSY magazine.  

CROCODILE FEVER was published in the U.S. as  RIVER OF EYES.

At the risk of being caught at large in the cape and mask of a pedantic outlaw, I have to point out that by assuming a purely Anglo-Canadian identity, and eschewing opportunities to draw from his family heritage, Lawrence Earl avoided a contribution to the important body of Jewish Canadian writing we now study in our schools. He was a part of that community and yet apart. If I didn't care about New Brunswick history I would not quibble about gaps in its literature. It is not so bad that some Canadian writers get Earl facts wrong -  for example R.B. Fleming in his recent biography of Peter Gzowski,  labelled YANGSTE INCIDENT "his novel". Worse are the writers who frequently refer to Earl as "a British journalist" or some variant phrase, but it is entirely Earl's doing. He was creator of his own identity.  (NOTE: If Earl did write any memoir piece for the Saint John newspaper, I would like to learn of it.)

Though he was still living and working in London, Earl’s first novel THE FROZEN JUNGLE, [1956] was written for the Canadian market. His subject, the dramatic tale of survival after a plane crash in Labrador, made total sense for the time period. In fact the tale was literally ripped from the pages of the newspapers. Ottawa and Washington were pouring millions of dollars and many thousands of workers into the North, rushing completion of the chain of distant early warning radars known as the DEW LINE. During a twelve-month period, eighteen of 81 civilian aircraft working under contract to military project sites crashed in the North.  

Just as his early non-fiction had been promoted in JOHN BULL magazine, Earl’s first novel was serialized in Canada. It appeared over four weeks in 1956, supported by a dozen drawings prepared by a WEEKEND magazine illustrator.  WEEKEND was published in Montreal, and was descended from the STANDARD Photo News, where Earl got his start as a young newsman. (see Part 1)  It is claimed that in the mid-1950s he took up writing books full time, but in fact he was still doing freelance journalism and editing, while his photographs were still being purchased by magazines.

THE FROZEN JUNGLE, a tale of lust and survival

set in Labrador, was published by Harrap in 1956.

By the 1960s the Earl's were dividing their time between London and Toronto, but they lived almost five decades as Londoners. Mr. Earl completed two more Canadian novels, the last a thriller published in 1969.  In old age he finally moved back to New Brunswick, accompanied by his journalist wife Jane Armstrong.  They took up residence at Driftwood Cottage, the Wiezel's old summer home at Grand Bay  on the St. John River, where he could relax with his Glenfiddich and his collection of fishing tackle.  In 1999 Lawrence Earl received an honorary doctorate from U.N.B. which acknowledged a lifetime in letters.   He died in 2005 at the age of 89  and his burial was in Shaarei Zedek, the Jewish section of Fernhill Cemetery in Saint John. 

Lawrence Earl - the Canadian who wrote YANGTSE INCIDENT

Lawrence Earl - the Canadian who 

wrote YANGTSE INCIDENT

by Ronald J. Jack

PART ONE -  AMETHYST

Brian Crozier was a neophyte book reviewer in 1951  when he began a review with this - “I cannot tell you anything about Lawrence Earl, who is, to all appearances, an unknown, a newcomer to publication; but I suspect him of being a journalist of rare talent.”  Crozier, who later became an historian, biographer and also a C.I.A. agent of influence, had the instincts of a sleuth, and was understandably puzzled that the publisher of such a well-told tale, YANGTSE INCIDENT: The Story of H.M.S. Amethyst, had not thought to include an author photo or profile.  The only clue given was in the book dedication -  “To  H.F.W.” , a special someone who meant a great deal to “Lawrence Earl” but who must forever remain in the shadows.

For years I had YANGTSE INCIDENT in my library, consulting it only at those moments when I was pursuing some subject or other involving the Royal Navy’s China Station, or perhaps some naval aspect of the Chinese Civil War.  My copy had a life of its own, having once been the property of John Riseley-Pritchard, a sometime Formula One driver, sport pilot, partner in VIDAL SASSOON, and a convicted pedophile. I received it in 1987 as a token “Best Article” prize, in lieu of a writing fee.

Though I live in Vancouver my "hometown" was Saint John, New Brunswick, and I have researched and written much on its history. Each year I get the Alumni newspaper of Saint John High School via Canada Post and,  morbid cuss that I am, I tend to focus on the necrology.  In May 2006 appeared an obituary notice for "Lawrence Earl", a chap who started in journalism in 1931 as editor of The Red and Gray newspaper, then moved to Montreal and began a career with some of the highest circulation newsweeklies of the mid-20^th century.  The Obit was just the sort of bridge-piece I needed to connect two fugitive pieces of memory that had never been known to associate.

Lawrence Earl was actually born Lawrence Earl Wiezel in 1915, in Saint John. His family was of Hungarian Jewish extraction, and for decades operated a successful footwear business in the city. During the Great Depression their busy firm, WIEZEL BROS. BOOTS AND SHOES was located in the city centre and the Wiezel family lived in an apartment over the store. In 1931 his father purchased a modern home, the same year Lawrence (“Lollie” to his family) started in Grade 12. It is clear that while completing high school young Lawrence struggled with personal identity, just as millions of Canadian teenagers have done and still do.  He made the bold move, no doubt painful to his parents, of Anglicizing his name. He dropped the Jewish surname “Wiezel” and became simply “Lawrence Earl” cub reporter.  His dream was to be a photojournalist with the influential magazines he enjoyed reading, such as the American juggernauts LIFE and LOOK.  To that end he diligently practiced his craft  and sought employment rather than going on to university.  I think his father may have bankrolled his first professional camera, which cost $400 in 1940 dollars. He once shared his working rules with an audience in Montreal – “Know your camera, keep your eyes open and use your imagination”.  Good advice, and it soon propelled him top prominence at THE MONTREAL STANDARD where he was a staff photographer on the weekly news magazine during World War Two.

This is where my mind needed a fresh prompt, because I was after all, aware of Lawrence Earl’s wartime photography. I had collected a dozen examples of it when writing Saint John military history in the early 1980s, but I never made the connection to the “British” author of YANGTSE INCIDENT.   In early 1942 Lawrence Earl was sent to Saint John to shoot a feature on the port defences – the coastal batteries and the vessel examination system.  His impressive photo-essay, “Small Ships and Great Guns are the Watchdogs Over Our Busy Harbours” was the most complete coverage the fortress garrison had under wartime conditions of media censorship.  Earl’s enthusiasm for the city of his birth is revealed in the effort he made to do a very solid job of reporting, without revealing a scrap of information to the enemy.  He actually participated in the official disinformation process, photographing a naval officer and a chalkboard map which was an entirely bogus depiction of what the environs of Saint John actually looked like. Very amusing. 

Lawrence Earl became a Canadian War Correspondent rather late.  In 1944 THE MONTREAL STANDARD dispatched him to London in time to help cover the great push from Normandy to the Rhine, and he captured some dramatic moments with his lens. It is said that one of his photos of Juliana, Holland’s Queen in wartime exile, graced the cover of TIME magazine, but if so Earl wasn’t credited by name.  (She appeared on three covers, none attributed to Earl. The image attributed to the ACME photo agency may be his.) What really mattered were the professional contacts he made in London, because he and wife Jane Armstrong enjoyed the city and its culture, and both sought work that would keep them in England.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine, December 1946.

Twenty Lawrence Earl photos of Dike repair in Holland.

Earl did camera work for several British illustrated magazines after the war, and had his work published in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (December 1946) but the money was slow and the couple returned briefly to Canada in 1947.  His big break came in August 1949 with a job offer from JOHN BULL, Britain’s equivalent to the SATURDAY EVENING POST.  When the ship’s company of H.M.S. AMETHYST returned in 1949 Earl was on hand to greet them and to interview as many crewmen who would talk, including the seniors officers.  Before long, and with his employer’s permission he began work on a book and had a contract with George G. Harrap and Company.  The publishers were known for generous license, allowing staff writers to spin off books from their assignments, and also frequently bought serial rights.  Several famous British authors got their start creating books from magazine material.  JOHN BULL, which published on Wednesdays, ran portions of YANGTSE INCIDENT as a six-part serial late in 1950.

In terms of media interest, the story got as close to saturation as was possible in 1949. Supported by editorial leads and newsreels in the cinemas, the dramatic subject of AMETHYST was reminiscent of the “U.S.S. Panay Incident” of 1937, but Earl needed a writing plan.  He chose a narrative form that relied on recreated dialogue throughout, all of it bolted into place with quotation marks. It is a device eschewed by professional historians who must be able to hang their hat on every piece of evidence they employ, but common to newspaper prose in which heavy paraphrasing is accepted as a literal record. Today YANGTSE INCIDENT might be classed “Creative Non-fiction”, and is the only type of popular history or biography that actually sells to general publishers.   Sometimes it works, but often it falls flat, as in the following snippets which betray Lawrence Earl’s total lack of knowledge of the Chinese, who are rendered as caricatures in the book:

“Obviously somebody has made mistake,” the Chinese Naval Chief of Staff said querulously. “I’ll ask the people in this hut if they’ve heard anything about your ship.”  There was a wood-and-mud hut on the bank of the creek. Candlelight showed through the cracks. The Chinese officer knocked at the door and spoke in nasal sing-song to a fisherman who came to answer. 
…  Just at midnight [Lt. Commander] Kerans saw what looked like the quick flash of an electric torch not far ahead. Then he heard an outlandish jumble of sound.  As he came closer to the sound he realized that it was a large group of Chinese civilians, chattering in their sing-song tongue.

His 199 page book confines itself to the dramatic period, April – July 1949, when British warships were bottled up on the Yangtse River, above Shanghai, by the advancing Chinese Communist forces.  Royal Navy casualties were heavy. The vessel was then patched up in Shanghai, which had not yet fallen to the Reds. After the breakout, an adoring British public celebrated AMETHYST and her crew and Earl got to work.  All potted profiles of Lawrence Earl you encounter with a Google search state rather baldly that his book “was made into a movie”.  This is not correct.  Certainly the titles were identical and the Earl book made a ready reference for the filmmakers as it is tightly chronological, but the script was an original work of novelist Eric Ambler, who had written an earlier successful war film, THE CRUEL SEA.  Ambler was given free access to official Admiralty records and the full assistance of Lieutenant-Commander John S. Kerans, who had commanded AMETHYST and was seconded to the production company. He wrote a detailed report on the making of the film. 

 H.M.S. AMETHYST - The Official Pictorial Record was the first book, published in 1949.

It has 43 photos, two maps,  and a a complete crew list. No doubt Lawrence Earl found it a

handy reference.  His goal was 

The Director, Michael Anderson, delivered a film composed of 455 scenes, and shot entirely in England in 1956. Kerans, in discussing script development, recalled that the original treatment “bore little or no resemblance to any known facts”. He would only allow that the shooting script was based “in part, on a book written in 1950” and leaves us the firm impression that Earl had no role in the film production. Because the film was low-budget, with no hope of recreating the tumultuous welcome AMETHYST received at Hong Kong, the Director did copy Lawrence Earl's dramatic story ending, the reading of Commander Kerans' triumphant signal: "HAVE REJOINED THE FLEET.  AM SOUTH OF WOOSUNG. NO DAMAGE OR CASUALTIES.  GOD SAVE THE KING."

The premiere showing of YANGSTE INCIDENT was held at the Plaza Theatre in London.  The 1957 event was recorded by a British Pathe news cameraman  and can be viewed on Youtube.  [Watch Film]

What Lawrence Earl did do was write a radio play, based on his book YANGTSE INCIDENT, which was broadcast in England in 1960.

Many book reviewers and readers  have mis-perceived the identity of Lawrence Earl, and made assumptions.  I will explore this in Part 2 of my article. The persistent errors are due to Earl’s rigid adherence to an Anglo-Canadian identity, a persona that informs his writing style.  His adopted name was his permanent identity and he had it legally registered before his death.  His original Wikipedia page did not even mention that he was Jewish Canadian.  That has since been corrected.  Returning then, to the author’s dedication in YANGSTE INCIDENT, we read “To H.F.W.”   This was of course his father Herman F. Wiezel.  Mr. Earl would go on to dedicate his second book to his mother - “For Anna”.   The subject of his choosing to pass as an Anglo-Canadian was possibly a sensitive one at home, more so when he was starting out, but his family was always supportive and proud of him.  A lucrative literary career was launched and there was never any thought given of returning to the port of Saint John.  

Next:  LAWRENCE EARL - SHAMROCKS

Ballantine's ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF WORLD WAR 2 - (The Genesis and Afterlife of a 1970s Publishing Phenomenon)

Ian Ballantine (1916 - 1995) was a publishing genius.  A New Yorker, he completed his education in London in 1940 and returned home to lead the PENGUIN invasion of the American domestic book market.   The 24 year old 'whiz-kid' so impressed U.S. military publishers that they signed contracts  granting PENGUIN BOOKS the exclusive right to distribute millions of copies of War Service publications to military bases and deployed personnel.   Mr. Ballantine toiled on the American Home-front, for the duration.

Ian Ballantine was the boffin who managed the founding of BANTAM paperbacks  and a personal imprint, BALLANTINE BOOKS, the pair of which innovated the mass distribution of the low priced reading material that readers of my generation thrived on.   (Ballantine was also godfather to more Science Fiction writing careers than could be lauded in one telling.)  During the 1960s, a decade of mass anti-war sentiment, Ian Ballantine was undaunted.  He felt that there was a generational counterpart to the Hippies, a youth demographic (niche readers) who still wanted to learn about World War 2.  His formative period in London had armed him with superb industry contacts, and he proceeded to negotiate a joint venture with Purnell and Sons, experienced publisher of mass-market military history.  All editorial and design responsibility was handled by the British, who marketed the series throughout the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The Ballantine's in New York, got a ready-made product to sell to the larger  North American market.  (The full story is actually far most complex.)

Thus was born BALLANTINE'S  ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF WORLD WAR 2, a profusely illustrated series of books researched and written to (in most cases) academic standards, but made accessible to the general reader.  Printed on good paper, in larger format than industry standard, the series was introduced  in 1968 at only $1 per copy, which was well under the average price of mass market non-fiction paperbacks at that time.  As the series evolved and was renamed (in 1973)   BALLANTINE'S ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE VIOLENT CENTURY, the cover price climbed to $1.50  and the last few titles were published at $2.  Still a bargain price, given what the competition was charging. More to the point, the series was written by a Who's Who of working military historians, and in many cases veterans of W.W. 2 who leavened their writing of history with personal experience.  In January of 1973 the Ballantine's, (Ian and Betty), sold their business to Random House, in order to concentrate on a new Science Fiction imprint, among other projects. Since the Editorial Team for the  WORLD WAR 2 - VIOLENT CENTURY publishing project was based in England, customers detected no change in the product. 

Clearly, there was a public backlash underway against the wretched war in Vietnam, and suddenly the public was rejecting "war movies and war books". By 1975 sales of the ILLUSTRATED HISTORY were in decline, and it is probably no coincidence that Random House pulled the plug at about the same time that the White House was evacuating the U.S. expeditionary force  from Saigon. There were no print runs of the Illustrated History titles after November 1978.  Random House itself was swallowed by another conglomerate in 1978.

I made no particular attempt to assemble the complete set, but somehow over a lifetime of reading, the shelves just filled.  Millions of copies are in circulation, although the scarcer titles had only one printing and can be hard to find. PATTON is said to have gone through five printings. Serious readers can now access more information about the history of warfare than any human mind can grasp, but for short form treatment of specific subjects, nothing bests the Ballantine list. If you are interested, I can guide you through the collection  - four volumes at a time, as my time allows.  

REICHSTAG FIRE - Ashes of Democracy - R. John Pritchard,   

SERIES - POLITICS IN ACTION  No. 3, Published in New York, February 1972, 160 pages.

REICHSTAG FIRE - Ashes of Democracy is a good read. Pritchard was very thorough and he offers us a highly convincing account of the   desperate arsons perpetrated by Dutch political activist Marinus Van der Lubbe.   While both the Nazi's and the Communists (COMINTERN)  used the 1933 Reichstag Fire for political gain,  each accusing the other, the truth was stranger than propaganda.  Van der Lubbe's serial arsons throughout the city were thoroughly investigated by the (pre-Nazi) civil police, and he was fairly tried. Dr. Pritchard also covers the post-war craziness of Cold War politics in which the Communist Left made continuous attempts to blame the fire on the defeated Nazi leadership... a conspiracy theory equal to any tinfoil-hat plot one might also name.  This volume might equally be shelved in the  "True Crime" corner of any bookstore, as it describes political violence and sabotage rather than warfare.

After completing this book for the Ballantine's 'Black Band' series, John Pritchard completed his Doctorate at the London School of Economics and after post-graduate work in international law he dedicated many years to researching and publishing the findings of the major International War Crimes tribunals. He is today a ranking expert on War Crime Investigation.

PANZER DIVISION - The Mailed Fist - Major Kenneth J. Macksey, M.C.

SERIES - WEAPONS BOOK, No. 2, Published in New York, September 1968, 160 pages.

The Weapons Series  or 'Blue Bands" were the most popular of the BALLANTINE'S illustrated titles, and were widely read here in Canada. Major K.J. Macksey was a recently retired officer who had enjoyed success with THE SHADOW OF VIMY RIDGE (1965) and then began to produce a book per year. He wrote three for Ian Ballantine, including this one, PANZER DIVISION. The book reads well, although sometimes pithy in style, as in his description of the Panzer divisions deployed to Russia in 1941 - "The men were in fine fettle, fully confident in their battle-craft, their equipment, their leaders and their cause." The book  employs twenty small maps, without which we might get lost as the great tank armies strike and counter-strike. Major Macksey was a military scholar and his potted Bibliography includes German  language sources as well as archives held by the British M.O.D. and the R.A.C. Tank Museum.

Major K.J. Macksey died in 2005 after producing more than fifty books, including a few "alternate history" works of a purely speculative nature. He was a veteran of World War 2 and earned his Military Cross in 1944 while a Lieutenant in the Normandy Invasion.



Additional evidence of Ian Ballantine's marketing savvy - my copy of PANZER DIVISION  has the colour folder of the MILITARY BOOK CLUB bound in.  How many of us were seduced into membership in the M.B.C. back in the 1970s?








HITLER  by Alan Wykes.
SERIES -  WAR LEADERS,  No. 3, Published in New York, March 1971. 160 pages.

"HITLER" is a wholly unsatisfying book and you should not bother with it.  There are several very good biographies of Adolph Hitler readily available. (I recommend, for a start, Ian Kershaw, Werner Maser, Lothar Machtan, Robert Payne and John Toland.)  There are also far better illustrated works available detailing Hitler's life and career.

Alan Wykes was a veteran of W.W. 2, (a lorry driver in the R.A.S.C.) and a sometime military historian, who wrote two regimental histories, but he was not an accomplished biographer. He was though, a high-speed professional writer who could churn out copy to a publisher deadline, which is why Purnell and Ballantine hired him to produce several titles in their WAR LEADERS category.  In his introduction, Series Editor-in-Chief, Barrie Pitt seemed at bit embarrassed. He begins: "Not every reader will accept Alan Wykes' explanation of Hitler's behaviour as Party Leader and Dictator - which is that he had been infected in early manhood by syphilis and in later life succumbed to its tertiary effects: irrationality, irresponsibility, and gross intemperance of speech and action."  Wykes of course, consulted no eye-witnesses, primary sources or German archives.  In fact he brazenly references several of the previously published titles in the Ballantine's Illustrated History series!

Mr. Wykes died in 1993 after producing 38 books of his own and ghosting for a few faltering writers.  His whacky idea about Hitler and syphilis probably derives from a profile he published in 1965 on "a specialist in venereal diseases and sexology".  

NAZI REGALIA  photographed by Jack Pia,
SERIES - FULL COLOUR, No. 1,   Published in New York, May 1971,  160 pages.

If I told you that Alan Wykes also wrote the introduction to NAZI REGALIA,  you might think that I pre-judged the work.  In fact I bought this book over forty years ago when I was in junior high school and incapable of judging anything.  The book cost me  $3 dollars in 1973, and that represented more than two hours of after school wages, cleaning windows at  car wash.  At the time it seemed a thrill to possess high quality colour photos of Nazi regalia, but in hindsight it was a wasted purchase.  There are websites now which have more comprehensive collections, and rarer material.

Jack Pia was simply a contract photographer in London who took a set of photographs for a publisher, but because of this book and its companion volume,  S.S. REGALIA, his name will forever be associated with Nazi artifacts and ephemera.  It all started in 1975 when Susan Sontag, who was both an up-and-comer critic of cultural trends and a serious historian of photography,  drew attention to the books Pia did for the Ballantine's Illustrated History series. Sontag considered any interest in Fascist uniforms and insignia to be nothing more than a sexual fetish.

Recall that George Lucas, (a crypto-fascist??) was working on both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones projects at that time.  I suspect Lucas and his films' production designers had many copies of the twoJack Pia books at hand.

Sontag wrote, "Though S.S. Regalia is a respectable British‑made compilation (with a three‑page historical preface and notes in the back), one knows that its appeal is not scholarly but sexual. The cover already makes that clear. Across the large black swastika of an SS armband is a diagonal yellow stripe which reads "Over 100 Brilliant Four‑Color Photographs Only $2.95," exactly as a sticker with the price on it used to be affixed—part tease, part deference to censorship—on the cover of pornographic magazines, over the model's genitalia."       

I suspect that Mr. Pia squirmed when he read Sontag's prose, and may never have taken another assignment involving military collectibles.   Unless you are a series "completist", there is no reason to purchase this book.

So there is a start... two worthy titles from Ian Ballantine's WW2 list, and two that are not worthy of your time.  Even if I do not care for a particular book I will still provide a photo of the author and additional biographical information.  Most of the Ballantine authors produced further works of military history.

Effective publication dates of series: May, 1968  - August 1975
Reprints of select titles until November 1978.

A final note: If you find this book guide helpful, spread the word to Military History enthusiasts, because I am not sure I have the energy to profile all 151 titles in this monumental series. (Plus the Chinese, British and Spanish editions in my private library.) Reader response will count.