Magic at War

‘Warship Weeks’ were national campaigns to raise money to buy extra ships for the British Royal Navy. Other government-sponsored fundraising campaigns included 'Wings for Victory' weeks to buy bombers, 'Spitfire Week', 'War Weapons Week' and a 'Tanks for Attack' week. Similar campaigns were ran by other nations. The aim of ‘Warship Week’ was for individual cities, or collections of towns and villages, to raise money to pay for battleships, cruisers or destroyers. Once enough money had been raised to build the ship, the local community would adopt it.  Warship Week poster (Source: The National Museum of the Royal Navy, © Trustees of the NMRN) Women’s institutes, churches and schools would provide additional comforts for the crews of the ship they had adopted. This was usually in the form of woollen socks, gloves and balaclavas. Children would often write letters and send cards to the crew. When possible, officers and men from the adopted ship would visit ...

With war looming, one of the most popular books was Adolf Hitler’s auto-biographical manifesto,  Mein Kampf  (1925). Readers across the Channel and across the Atlantic wanted to understand what made the madman in Germany tick.  English translations of   Mein Kampf   were available, but they had been mired in complications and controversy since the early 1930s. One translation, known as the Stackpole edition, came out in America in February 1939.  It was translated, anonymously, by journalist and part-time magician, June Burrows Mussey (1910-1985). American publisher Stackpole Sons, promised to handover profits from sales of the book to refugee charities. But, a copyright claim by a rival American publisher, which ended up in the United States Supreme Court, stopping publication of this edition after only four months. Mussey’s translation sold 12,000 copies in its short run.   Mussey (who performed as Henry Hay) went on to serve in an air intellige...