Hollywood Bookstore Clerk Marries German Beauty

I bought this 1947 newspaper photo on eBay. It came with a charming caption:

He's a Clerk, Not a Millionaire

Hollywood, California.

Peter Salm, engaged to marry German beauty, Gisela Vandenschen, identified himself May 8 as a Hollywood bookstore clerk and not the Millionaire New York newsman claimed he was. When Miss Vandenschen arrived in New York and told reporters she was on her way to marry Peter Salm of California, newsmen confused Salm with the son of the late Ludwig Salm and the former Millicent Rogers, Standard Oil heiress. Lamented Salm: "I hope we'll still be happy."

The bride-to-be was identified in the photo caption only as a "beauty," but I found out what she did for a living in a short blurb in the Philadelphia Inquirer, May 14, 1947. She was an artist, but maybe back then everyone already knew who she was—she was apparently famous enough to make the papers:

And it turns out that Salm went to school in the area where I grew up—outside of Doylestown, PA. I found him mentioned in Men of the Soil, a 1942 year book of The National Farm School (now Delaware Valley College): "Pete also did a neat job as top literary man on the Gleaner [the student newspaper]. After one of Salm's thrillers appeared, many a spine had to be defrosted with a blow torch."

Salm was born in German in 1919, his family fled to Italy in 1933 when Hitler came to power, and he moved to the US in 1938. He was at the Farm School for two years. I found his Army enlistment record. He joined the Army in 1942. Since he was fluent in German I expect that he probably served as an interpreter. According to this website he was in counterintelligence, After the war the GI Bill paid for him to go to UCLA. Here's his obituary in the New York Times. He became a college professor of German and literature later in life.

Salm's obit says he was married to June Macy in 1958. I wonder what happened to Vandenschen. I guess she and Salm got divorced, or maybe she died? Maybe Vandenschen and Salm never actually got married? Maybe she returned to Germany, which would explain why I can't find anything about her in English.

WWII Army Special Services Librarians

"Want a good book?" Army Librarian section books for soldiers. Left to Right: Sgt. Seymore Grobzob, Virginia Hallowell, Elizabeth City (from Elizabeth City, NC), and Sgt. Caffey. US Army Forces, Western Pacific (AFWESPAC). Manilla, Philippines. August 19, 1946.

I asked the US National Archives if they had any photo of WWII GIs with books, and they sent me some shots of WWII Army Special Services Librarians in the Pacific. Sadly, there is little information to be found about the Special Services Librarians. They were part of the Women's Army Corps.

WWII Special Services Librarian patch. The 9 books represent the 9 branches of the Army. (found on eBay)

6000 New Books arrive from the States for Army Librarians. Left to right: Annie Laurie Etchison, Chief Librarian, AFWESPAC (from Cleveland, OH); Lt. Col. Justin Doyle, Director "A & R", AFWESPAC; Virginia Hallowel. August 19, 1946.

Left to right: Mr. Albaz (Manila) and Annie Laurie Etchison. August 19, 1946.

Further Reading:

Librarian.net has a great post "We remember: Army special services librarians".

I discovered Books and Libraries in American Society during World War II by Patti Clayton Becker (Routledge). Unfortunately it is a rather expensive monograph, and it's a print-on-demand book (printed books are not kept in stock). I actually did order a copy, but over a month went by without receiving the book, so I canceled my order.

Photos of WWII GIs Reading

 

I found couple nice photos of GIs reading in the National Archives collection. It looks like the guy above is reading a Pocket Book paperback. Here's the original caption: Enlisted men at the transmitter pool of the signal section of the US Seventh Army in Germany, relax by reading and playing cards in the enlisted men's quarters. January 3, 1946. (I cropped out the guys playing cards)

Original caption: These men of the 3rd Constabulary Regiment are shown as they make use of a few of theor off-duty moments in the mobile library which is being used at their station until the new library is ready for use. The 3rd Constabulary Regiment is located in Wetzlar, Germany, where they are in training for occupational duties. April 24, 1946.

London Bookstore During the Blitz, 1940

Photographer George Rodger took this shot of a W H Smith & Son bookstore in London, 1940. I found the image in Magnum's collection.

From UK National Archives.

In September 1940 the German Luftwaffe launched a campaign of terror bombings on cities in Southern England. The British government put regulations in place that required citizens to cover up their windows at night. All outdoor lighting was extinguished as well. The blackout made getting around in public difficult (and often dangerous) after sundown, so it was easier to simply stay home and read. The blackout restrictions did not end until Germany's defeat in the spring of 1945.

The sign in the photograph's foreground tells customers that newspapers and magazines are available only to subscribers. This was due to the strict paper rationing during the war years. The military had tremendous needs for paper, so publishers had to carefully conserve their paper allotment.

Shire Publications has a lot of nice small histories about The Blitz and the British homefront. Check out Wartime Britain by Mike Brown, The Blitz and The 1940s Home by Peter Doyle.

RAF pilot reading a book during haircut

Here’s a photo of RAF pilot Francis Mellersh getting a haircut and reading Greenmantle by John Buchan. Fairlop Airfield Base, Essex, England, 1942.

This image got alot of buzz early this year when it was posted on reddit. There was an article about this photograph on The Daily Beast.

Actress Merle Oberon Posing for The Victory Book Campaign, 1943

Merle Oberon Victory Book Campaign publicity photo, 1943.

Last week on eBay I bought this 8 x 10 publicity photo. The caption on the back of the photo says, “Merle Oberon, starring in Columbia’s ‘Attack by Night,’ collects books for the 1943 Victory Book Campaign. The photographer was credited as Tad Gillum, May 1943.

It was an official photo from the movie studio, so I guess Columbia wanted to promote itself as well as the book donation program. I tried looking up the name of the film, but couldn't find it listed anywhere online. Maybe the title changed before it was released.

A friend recently sent me a book that was published by Reader's Digest in the 1960s, Humor in Uniform: Jests, Jokes and Witty Anecdotes from the War Years. It includes this bit: “Merle Oberon, the actress, visiting the wounded in London, asked one soldier, ‘Did you kill a Nazi?’ The soldier said he had. ‘With which hand?’ Miss Oberon asked. She decorated his right hand with a kiss. Then she asked the next patient, ‘Did you kill a Nazi?’ ‘I sure did!’ came the answer. ‘I bit ’im to death!’ —Walter Winchell

Photo of a GI reading a book

I found this photo of a Gi reading a book on this Dutch WWII reenactment website. Their webpage is a nice little history of the book publishing programs for GIs.

I'd love to know where they got the photo, but their site doesn’t have an email address anywhere! I've checked with the National Archives and Library of Congress, but they don’t seem to have any similar photos (at least not any that are easy to find). If they do have some, the photos are probably shelved under a broad term like “GIs relaxing”.

London Bookstore and Library Bombed in the Blitz

In researching books in Britain during World War II, the two photographs below kept turning up. They appear on numerous bookish blogs, but none of these sites included text to put the scenes in context. I found them on stock photo sites and have included the captions here.

On Corbis I found this top image of the library at the 17th-century Holland House. On the night of September 27, 1940 the building was hit by German bombs. This place was private property, so I don’t know why these men would be browsing the shelves the day after the attack. I suspect that the scene may have been staged and printed in the newspapers to boost morale (to showcase British perseverance in the face of the German Blitz).

Version 1. Holland House, Kensington, London, 1940. Available from Corbis.

The photograph is part of the collection held by English Heritage, which provides the following caption:

Holland House, Kensington, London. An interior view of the bombed library at Holland House with readers apparently choosing books regardless of the damage. Photographed in 1940. The House was heavily bombed during World War II and remained derelict until 1952 when parts of the remains were preserved.

Interestingly, I noticed that there are actually two versions of this photo. The photographer took the shot from two slightly different angles, and there is an obvious difference in the blown-out white center space.

London bookshop after German bombing, 1940. Available from AP Images.

The next photo I kept seeing is a British kid reading amidst the ruins of a bookstore. AP Images includes a caption that was written during the war:

Reading history and seeing it, too an amusing sidelight of the latest chapter in London’s history is this lad who, according to the British caption, sits mid the ruins of a London bookshop following an air raid on October 8, 1940 in London, reading the History of London.