1943 General George S. Patton & the Balkans...
NEW YORK POST, Dec. 18, 1943
- General George S. Patton in Europe
- Radio disinformation towards Germans
The front page has a nice headline: "PATTON TO INVADE BALKANS" with lead-in: "Ankara Radio Says:" and reporting on page 2. (see images)
Complete with 40 pages, tabloid size, light toning and a little wear at the margins, mainly along the spine, generally good.
Background: This headline stems from a frontline news dispatch published on December 18, 1943, citing radio broadcasts out of Ankara, Turkey, which reported that General George S. Patton was preparing to lead an invasion force into the Balkans. The piece is historically notable because it represents an intentional piece of Allied strategic disinformation; following the slap incidents in August 1943 that saw Patton temporarily relieved of field command, Allied intelligence exploited his fierce reputation among the Axis forces by intentionally leaking false intelligence that he was staging troops in the Mediterranean to strike the "soft underbelly of Europe" in the Balkans, effectively keeping key German divisions pinned down away from both the Eastern Front and the upcoming Normandy staging grounds. In terms of rarity, original December 18, 1943 newspaper issues carrying this exact Ankara radio wire report—typically buried on front-page wire syndications from local daily newspapers like the Adrian Daily Telegram or The Charleston Gazette—are exceptionally scarce artifacts today, primarily preserved only on library microfilm or within specialized World War II domestic press archives.