L’Amérique en Guerre. No. 75. 30 November 1943 – Allied Air-Dropped Propaganda Newspaper for Occupied France – Provenance: Robert Hastings; The Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes.

Date: 30 November 1943
Issue: No. 75
Language: French
Format: Four-page newspaper-style airborne propaganda leaflet
Size: 21.0 x 27.3 cm
Provenance: Robert Hastings; The Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes

Original French-language Allied propaganda newspaper, L’Amérique en Guerre, No. 75, dated 30 November 1943, produced for clandestine circulation in occupied France. The paper was designed to resemble a newspaper and was air-dropped over French territory by American aircraft, then distributed locally by resistance networks where possible. The Seine-et-Marne archives describe L’Amérique en Guerre as a four-page French-language newspaper-style tract dropped over France by the United States Army Air Force.

This issue is headed “L’accord est complet à Moscou pour la guerre et pour la paix”, referring to the Moscow Conference and the growing strategic unity between the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union. The front page is illustrated with portraits of Vyacheslav Molotov, Anthony Eden and Cordell Hull, accompanied by the Soviet, British and American flags. The paper reports on Allied diplomacy, the war in Italy, anti-Nazi commentary, American military operations, the Roosevelt–Churchill–Stalin meeting, and radio instructions encouraging French readers to listen to American broadcasts.

The publication is a strong example of the Allied information war in occupied Europe: it sought to counter German censorship, sustain morale, promote confidence in Allied victory, and present America as an active military and political partner in the liberation of Europe.

This copy has distinguished provenance. It was formerly in the collection of Robert Hastings, Churchill scholar and collector, and subsequently formed part of The Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine. Forbes assembled one of the most substantial private Churchill collections of recent decades. Although this issue is primarily American rather than Churchill-centred, its presence within the Hastings and Forbes collections reflects its importance as original wartime propaganda connected with Allied strategy, occupied France, and the broader political world in which Churchill operated.

Institutional examples of No. 75 have been traced at the Musée de la Résistance de Bondues, which identifies it as a clandestine newspaper brought to the French by American aircraft, and at Jersey Heritage, which records L’Amérique en Guerre, No. 75, distributed by the United States Air Force.

Condition: Near fine. Light age toning and fold creases only. A very well-preserved example of a fragile airborne propaganda newspaper printed for wartime circulation.

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