NEWS FROM ENGLAND FOR THE CHANNEL ISLANDS – No. 2, September 30, 1940 – Distributed by the R.A.F. – Provenance – Robert Hastings; The Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes

Date: 30 September 1940
Issue: No. 2
Publisher/Distributor: Distributed by the R.A.F.
Place: For the Channel Islands
Size: 21.1 x 26.4 cm
Provenance: Robert Hastings; The Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes

Original RAF-dropped propaganda news-sheet produced for the German-occupied Channel Islands during the first months of occupation. Titled News from England, this second issue is dated 30 September 1940 and was distributed by the R.A.F. to provide islanders with uncensored news from Britain at a time when ordinary communication with the mainland had been severed.

The front page carries the headline “German Front Line Battered”, with reports of RAF attacks, the bombing of Berlin, naval operations, escape from Guernsey, and a cartoon presenting the American view of Hitler. The reverse includes the striking headline “St. Paul’s Saved from Destruction”, together with reports on King George VI’s speech, British war production, civilian bombing, U-boats, and German propaganda claims.

The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles occupied by German forces during the Second World War. Leaflets and news-sheets such as this were produced as instruments of morale, resistance and psychological warfare, reassuring islanders that Britain had neither forgotten them nor accepted German occupation as permanent.

Institutional examples of this exact issue are recorded at Jersey Heritage and in the Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection at Kenyon College. The Kenyon record identifies No. 2 as “News from England, marked ‘No. 2 September 30, 1940 For the Channel Islands Distributed by the R.A.F.’” and notes that these newspapers were distributed by the RAF to the German-occupied Channel Islands.

This copy has distinguished provenance: Robert Hastings, Churchill scholar and collector; subsequently The Churchill Collection of Steve Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine. Forbes assembled one of the most significant modern private Churchill collections, and this provenance adds weight to the item as a wartime British propaganda survival associated with morale, enemy occupation, and the information war.

Condition: Good only. Marks and age toning, splits to fold lines, old repairs, small amount of loss and general fragility.

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