[Army Base Photo Keepsake]: Fortress for Freedom by GILLETTE, Rufus D. and Frank Dries, photographs by - 1945

[No place]: (The American Red Cross), 1945. Softcover. Very Good. First edition. 24mo, measuring approximately 4¼" x 5¼". [20]pp. Illustrated with 18 halftone photographs, taken by Lieutenant Rufus D. Gillette and Frank Dries, A.R.C. Stapled printed wrappers. Vertical crease throughout, lower wrap with closed tears at the head and foot of the crease, wrappers lightly foxed, very good.

An ephemeral base keepsake, published by the American Red Cross and printed in London, for the American 388th Bomb Group, based in Knettishall, Suffolk from June, 1943 to the end of the war. The cover is illustrated with their insignia and motto. Inside are 18 briefly-captioned half-tone photographs of base life, including lounges and clubs, the cinema, the countryside around the base, and wonderful photographs of soldiers in the library, and soldiers playing baseball: "A slice of America on Britain's green fields." The photographers were a Lieutenant and a member of the American Red Cross.

The simple format and pleasant but generic introduction suggests that the American Red Cross created keepsakes for many bases, a service to soldiers and their families. It still remains a charming, personalized, and rather close-up view of base life for an American bomber group in England in World War II, where (under a photograph of a B-17 Flying Fortress) "to keep her flying over Nazi-land is our sole job." We have been unable to locate another copy.