Banner image: At the North African harbor, warships and transports take up their position in the vast invasion armada in Sicily, a 5-inch cannon in the foreground. (July 1943; U.S. Navy photograph, Courtesy Library of Congress)

Did you know it was the Allied forces – not the homeland – that created and distributed postage stamps for Italy as it went from belligerent to being occupied partway through World War II? Furthermore, one of the important American military leaders assigned to this task also was likely involved in some underhanded activities involving those stamps?

This article will disseminate knowledge of numerous documents, hitherto unpublished, on the stamps issued in 1943, during that occupation. 

Secrets for decades, the historian can bring to light the tale of these stamps. Although a good deal is already known about the Allied stamps, here I will focus on the unknown and, some of them, dark aspects, particularly on the stamps of sunny Naples.

On the night of July 9-10, 1943, Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Italy, began in Sicily, which was fully occupied on August 17, 1943. The Allies crossed the Strait of Messina on September 3 to conquer mainland Italy and on the same day, Cassibile’s Armistice was signed. The Italian government passed from enemy to co-belligerent, but only with a small territory in the south, four  provinces, so-called King’s Italy, a “new” monarchy under the same sovereign, Victor Emmanuel III. The time of wartime leader Benito Mussolini, assassinated 20 months later, was at the beginning of its end (Figure 1).

Figure 1. A cover addressed to Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, with the most common Italian stamps for several regimes, 1929-1946. 

On October 1, the Allied armies arrived at Naples and a third of the country was in their hands in a few weeks. But it took much longer to conquer the rest, until the German surrender and VE-Day, April 29 and May 8, 1945.

Most of the documents about the Allied-produced occupation-era stamps are preserved in the glazed building of the National Archives and Records Administration, at College Park, Maryland (hereinafter, NARA), but also in some European archives. 

Figure 2. Three of the stamps created by the Allies for civilian use in Sicily. Shown are, from low to high value, Scott IN1, IN3, and IN6. 

The postal organization: Offices and officers

Before deciding the first European territories would be invaded, there was concern from the Allied armies about the normal resumption of postal activities, to make a positive impression on the civilian population. In July 1942, various reports made the postal opening of the occupied territories subject to censorship. 

By the same token, to the existence of stamps, a document, dated July 14, 1942, from the Administration of Territories (Europe) Committee stated, “A rudimentary postal system over a limited area could be established by road [utilizing] bus or trucks [and] using the existing post offices and personnel. This, however, will require stocks of stamps and essential post office equipment, [such] as post-markings machinery.”

On May 1, 1943, the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory (AMGOT) was created in Algiers, which already set the target of “Horrified,” the codename for Sicily. It appointed British Gen. Harold Alexander as governor of the island. The real commander, however, was another British general, Francis James Ronell, as chief civil affairs officer, whose duties included the new Italian postal system. On July 21, 1943, AMGOT was renamed AMG.

On November 2, the Allied Control Commission (ACC) was created and began operating on November 10, 1943, initially chaired by American Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower as its president. From a joint declaration from President Franklin Roosevelt and Great Britain’s Winston Churchill on September, 24, 1944, the middle “C” disappeared, and the new name was Allied Commission (AC), which had sub-commissions, the number of which increased to 22, until its dissolution in 1947.

The Communications and Finance Sub-Commission dealt with postage stamps. But the command structure for managing the stamps looks more a spider’s web than a typical military tree. The bureaucracy was tremendous, with messages crossed between various offices of several sub-commissions. Overall, that’s always good news for historians, because it’s easier find documents in the archives.

Figure 3. A cable from Dwight Eisenhower dated March 24, 1943, that reports the first shipping of Allied-produced stamps to Sicily. (Courtesy NARA). 

The ACC Communications (to April 1944, Telecommunications and Post) Sub-Commission was made up of between 15 and 20 people, with the rank, at least, of lieutenant. The person in charge was the director, who was at first U.S. Navy Capt. Ellery Wheeler Stone, a pre-war top ITT executive from Oakland, California. 

The direct responsibility for the stamps was the chief postal officer, who was always a British officer. First and until February 1944, Lt. Col. Alfred Prodgers held the role, and later Lt. Col. Stanley Herbert Head. There were some overlapping activities with AMG, of course, but ACC dealt with stamps and currency.

Figure 4. The SS James W. Fannin, on January 24, 1944, at Hampton Roads, Virginia, when it was loaded with AMG stamps bound for Italy. (Courtesy the Mariner’s Museum, Newport News, Virginia)

The Finance Sub-Commission had a very complex structure. In spite of several senior generals and colonels, British Col. H.G. Crawshaw was actually responsible for the stamps.

Physically, the stamps were “owned” by the Allied Military Financial Agency (AMFA), created in May 1943 within Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory, and later a key body inside the Allied Commission. From January 1944 it was called AFA. The headquarters of AMFA/AFA was in Palermo and, from December 18, 1943, in Naples.

Stepwise, the territory of Italy was restored to the Italian antifascist government between 1943 and 1954.

However, the Allied occupants reserved most of the important decisions. Consequently, although this article is only on the Allied management control of the Italian stamps of 1943, it must be remarked that, directly or indirectly, the stamps of all non-fascist Italy were under Allied control between July 10, 1943, and January 31, 1947, in addition to the stamps of Venezia-Giulia (1945-1947) and Trieste Zone A (1947-1954).

Stamps for Sicily

In the first months of 1943, the type of stamps and currency to be used in the occupation was decided. An early allied document dated May 28, 1943, and now preserved in NARA, makes this very clear: “Steps are therefore being taken to prepare a fresh issue of AMGOT postage stamps which will alone represent legal postage fees in Horrified.”

The U.S. and U.K. agreed that both currency and stamps would be printed at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) in Washington, D.C.

Figure 5. A report on Capitoline Wolf stamps dated April 5, 1944. (Courtesy NARA)

The printing order was given July 1, 1943, by the War Department. On July 11, Eisenhower reported, “the cost incident thereto will be borne initially by the U.S. Army,” although “the British Army will be liable to the U.S. Army for its share of the cost.” As this document is preserved among Roosevelt's records, it is certain that the decision had the approval of the commander-in-chief, a great philatelist.

On July 17 of the same month, the BEP began printing the stamps. These were valid for any occupied territory, with the notation “Allied Military Postage.” From that moment on, the word “Italy” and the face value in centesimi (cents) and lira/lire were added.

Figure 6. The two issues of she-wolf stamps.

Although the intention was that those stamps would be used throughout Italy, they were only for Sicily. Later, the BEP also made stamps for the Allied occupations of France, Germany and Austria. Therefore, the expression “AMG-stamps,” usually applied in Italy to Sicilian stamps, also defines other issues in various countries.

The BEP produced nine stamps (Scott, Italy 1N1-1N9). Just hours after the first ones were made (Figure 2), they headed toward Italy.

As a cable from Eisenhower shows, on the night of July 21, 1943, an American Airlines C-54 aircraft loaded with 49 boxes of currency and eight boxes of stamps (each holding 600,000 30-cent stamps each), departed from Washington and arrived on July 23 in Tunis (Figure 3).

Figure 7. The three stamps overprinted by Col. Hume in values (from left) of 20, 30, and 50 cents (Scott IN10, IN11, IN13). 

After passing through Agrigento, the stamps and currency were secured on August 3, 1943, at the Banco di Sicilia in Palermo, on Via Roma 183, near the main post office on the same street. Both buildings serve the same function today. The heads of the bank were unaware of the contents of the boxes and an account was opened in the bank in the name of the Allied Military Financial Agency.

Table 1: Allied-produced WWII Italian Stamps. To download a PDF, click here.

On July 30, another private airplane took off from Washington for Tunisia and Palermo with 40 boxes of stamps (24 million) of all denominations. However, only one of the 48 total boxes was used at the beginning. With 600,000 15-cent stamps, the postal service began on August 24 in Italy, only in Palermo and only with postcards. The order was given by Lt. Col. Charles Poletti, former governor of New York and chief of Sicilian civil affairs.

On August 27, 1943, two ships, the SS John B. Hood and another (codename NY-168, perhaps the SS Anson Jones) left Cape Henry, Hampton Roads, Virginia, in a convoy, along with dozens of Liberty ships. It carried 47 boxes with just more than 25 million stamps. After a stop in Bizerte, Tunisia, all the stamps arrived in Sicily, although not all were delivered to the post offices. In mid-September the postal service spread throughout the island, not only in its capital.

Figure 8. Brig. Gen. Edgar Erskine Hume, from an official publication on ACC.

A few months later, on February 3, 1944, the ship SS James W. Fannin left the same Virginia port with 93 boxes and more than 53 million stamps, all of them from a second BEP printing, with other different tones. The ship had been loaded with the stamps on January 24 and we are lucky that a photograph of the ship next to a pier is preserved dated that day (Figure 4).

The Fannin stopped in Augusta (Sicily), but did not leave one single stamp. The philatelic cargo was unloaded in late February 1944 in Naples, the new headquarters of the financial agency. The stamps were secured in the armored boxes of the main office of Banca d’Italia.

The stamp transfer system was very simple. La Poste Italiane asked for the stamps and the Allies delivered them, at first from the stock of Palermo and later from that of Naples (March 26 and July 25). All the money from the sale of the Sicilian stamps went to Italy, which never had to return it to the Allies.

Figure 9. On January 3, 1944, Giuseppe de Benedictis (center), vice director of the Naples Post Office, with two employees, examines fascist stamps and cards, as well as two of Naples’ Allied stamps, but not the 35-cent stamp, which was already sold out.

The main liaison with the Italians was Lt. Guido Angelo Alasia, the person with the most postal experience in the Communications Sub-Commission. Alasia, a California postal clerk before the war, was assigned to Palermo until the Allies conquered Rome and he commanded the postal system of the capital. With the rank of colonel, he became the USPS District Manager in San Francisco in the 1970s.

Certainly, the Allied arrival on June 5, 1944, in Rome and, a few hours later, the D-Day landing in Normandy, changed the course of the war. Head, on June 17, decided not to make any more stamps, since the IPZS, the official Italian printing house, was available and the stock of stamps which had been found in Rome was sufficient.

Figure 10. A letter dated February 9, 1944, from Col. Henderson cites concerns about overprinted stamps in Naples.  (Courtesy NARA)

Thus, on July 31, 1944, the Sicilian stamps were withdrawn by order of Head, who gave a deadline of September 30, 1944. The Italian authorities managed the task very well and the stamps were no longer used. The remnants were burned on February 28, 1945, in an open field in Palermo.

Moreover, all the stamps that remained in the Banca d’Italia in Naples were carried to Rome and burned on April 24 and July 24, 1945.

In short, just more than 107 million stamps were made in Washington, about 26 million were used and more than 81 million destroyed. The second printing of four values (60-centesimi, 2-, 5-, and 10-lire) was completely destroyed. In the table (see box on previous page for access), details of the stamps are shown, with information from dozens of documents, but which coincide with each other in the Allied and Italian accounting. 

Figure 11. Brig. Gen. Hume’s answer on Naples stamps, dated February 19, 1944 (Courtesy of NARA).  At one point Hume notes that the Naples post office was due to receive AMG postage stamps, “but no such stamps were forthcoming” … “the overprinting was authorized as a substitute.”

Mailing with wolves

Stamps under Allied control were mass-produced by the Italian government, with the image of the mythical Lupa Capitolina, the Capitoline Wolf (Scott 439-440). A small unpublished document that is preserved in NARA explains the whole process (Figure 5).

The document specifies that the printing order for 20 million stamps was verbally delivered on October 30, 1943. From other documents, it is known that after being authorized by the Allies, the order was issued by the Italian Under Secretary of State for Post and Telegraphs Mario Fano, who was, from 1943 to 1946, the liaison of the Allies for all postal matters. Nevertheless, many Allied documents named him minister of communications as he was genuinely the decision-maker.

The she-wolf stamps were made at the Litografia Richter e C., which was the most prestigious printer in Naples and at the time the only one in south Italy capable of producing quality stamps. Richter, from its premises in Via Frà Gregorio Carafa, was famous in Europe for having printed over many decades magnificent tourist posters and stickers for hotel luggage.

Gum was not available and the first issue of stamps was delivered without it. The paper had a honeycomb as a watermark, previously used by Richter on some local revenue stamps.

The stamps began to be printed, as the document specifies, on November 29 and ended on December 28, the date on which they began to circulate massively; the stamps were not circulated in Naples where they were made, but in the areas of southern Italy.

Giuseppe de Benedictis, vice director of the Naples Post Office (and author of the report discussed in this article), was responsible for the distribution of she-wolf and other stamps.

A second issue of she-wolf stamps, with gum and without a watermark, was printed (Figure 6). Some catalogs state that this issue was made in mid-May; others say that it was at the end of March.

Figure 12. A final allegation about Hume is expressed in a letter March 7, 1944 from Brig. Gen. Lush.   (Courtesy NARA)

A document dated April 5, 1944, shows it could not have been in May and the possibility that they were printed in March is very low. It’s not ruled out that the printing was made in January or February, because several documents dated during these months state the phrase “20 millions of stamps printed.” But it’s an aspect open to discussion. As the report shows, the total number of stamps issued was almost 27 million. On the other hand, 40 million of 1-lira and 10 million of 5-lire stamps were not printed, although planned. 

The stamps of Naples

In mid-December 1943, a new issue of Allied stamps would come to join the existing ones. These are three Italian stamps (Figure 7) with the overprinted words “Governo Militare Alleato,” meaning “Allied Military Government” (Scott 1N10, IN111, 1N13). The documents preserved in NARA show that the issue had many dark aspects, even some clandestine. I will try to prove that it was an illegal issue, perhaps the only one in the history of the United States.

The creation of these stamps was the personal decision of Col. Edgar Erskine Hume (Figure 8), Regional Civil Affairs Office (RCAO), in Region III (Campania) whose capital was, and is, Naples.

Hume was born on December 26, 1889, in Frankfort, Kentucky. He studied medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, as well as in Germany, Italy, and Spain. As a first lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps from September 16, 1916, he was assigned to Italy and other European countries during and after World War I.

As colonel, from January 1943, he was assigned to Eisenhower’s staff in North Africa. In July and August of 1943 he was chief of public health for Sicily. Later, he was named to Region III of the Regional Civil Affairs Office of Region III until January 1944. That same month, he was promoted to brigadier general.

When the Allies conquered Rome in June 1944, Hume became the provisional governor. Later, he held several relevant positions in northern Italy, Austria, Korea, and Washington, D.C. Throughout his life, he wrote dozens of books and articles on military medicine.

Three weeks after he retired from the Army, Hume died on January 24, 1952, at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Hume was a great stamp collector and records show he was an off-and-on member of the American Philatelic Society. Despite the war, he did not give up his hobby. On the contrary, I have seen several first day covers from Sicily sent by Hume and addressed to himself in September 1943. Furthermore, during and after the war, he purchased valuable specimens of stamps from Italy, the Vatican, and San Marino and drawings made by artist Corrado Mezzana, perhaps the most important in Italian philatelic history. Part of Mezzana’s collection was sold by Hume’s family in London, Stuttgart, and Milan, from May 2019 to March 2020.

The darkest issue

Between September 27 and 30, 1943, the Neapolitans expelled the Nazis from their city, in the heroic quattro giornate di Napoli. The Allies entered the city on October 1. One of the first was Hume.

Documents prove that while coinciding with the reopening of the Naples central post office, Hume was designing his plan to create his own stamps. In late November, at an important meeting with Prodgers, chief postal officer, Hume proposed the issue.

Hume said, “many post offices had been looted and the ordinary stamps stolen, thus making them available for use by thieves or those who later obtained them. Thus, stamps might have been purchased illegally for a fraction of their value, and even the small purchase price thus obtained would not have reached the Italian Post Office. Moreover, these stamps were available to the Germans who might have made misuse of them to our detriment.”

The question is whether Hume was telling the truth. The categorical answer is no. To begin with, it is not easy to guess how the Germans could have sold stamps in the city of Naples, occupied by thousands of Allied soldiers. Were the same people who had given their lives going to expel the Nazis dealing with stamps? Of utmost importance, no reports from the intelligence, postal, financial, or other services indicate that there were significant thefts of stamps.

In the first days of December 1943, Hume ordered the overprinting to Richter (Figure 9), which was already making those of the she-wolf. The task was quick, because not many stamps were made and only of three values in volumes of 360,000 (20-cent), 70,000 (35-cent) and 700,000 (50-cent). Hume established new postage rates, theoretically as complementary postage on postal cards.

The release of the stamps was set for December 10, 1943. On December 8, the Star and Stripes newspaper falsely announced, “The stamps will be issued by the Badoglio government and overprinted with the words ‘Governo Militare Alleato, Allied Military Government.’ ” Badoglio, the Italian prime minister, had no jurisdiction over Naples at that time, but only the King’s Italy. Hume was still hiding reality.

The stamps were rarely used for the postage of correspondence, which was only local in Naples and, from December 13, in Salerno. Quickly, some people bought large amounts to resell them.

The Allied authorities were initially unaware of the problem. There were few stamps, relative to the tens of millions they handled in Sicily, and they may not have cared about it.

On January 1, 1944, Hume was replaced in the Region III RCAO position by Lt. Col. Karl (also Carl) A. Kraege, of Madison, Wisconsin. It’s unlikely there was a connection between Hume’s replacement and his problems with the stamps, but as of that moment, the documents demonstrate the growing concern of the authorities with this matter, speaking clearly of “violation of tenets of AMG.”

A letter dated February 4, 1944 (Figure 10), says in part, “Italian stamps have been locally overprinted … for use within Naples. This action has not been taken elsewhere and has resulted in the creation of philatelic curiosities and a stamp “Black Market” with discredit to the Allied administration, and will cause considerable confusion in the establishment of inter-provincial and foreign mail services.”

Intelligence reports brought increasingly unpleasant surprises and, on February 10, it was decided to open a formal investigation, asking Hume for explanations.

Hume received a questionnaire of seven short and sharp questions, more in an inquisitive tone than in a court, which concluded with a “Who authorized such measures?” Hume’s response on February 19 had few truths and some half-truths starring in a fictional narrative (Figure 11).

Figure 13. A document from November 16, 1945 noting Brig. Gen. Hume’s new “postage stamps cases.” (Courtesy NARA) 

Probably the most notorious fable was his argument that the Naples issue had been made because the stamps from Sicily did not arrive. Hume stated: “The overprinting was carried out because HQ, Allied Military Government did not comply with our request for a supply of the Allied Military Government stamps that had been printed in Washington, and which are still used in Sicily.”

Allied authorities soon denied that claim, noting that they had not located any requests from Hume. I have not found a similar document, so, unless I’m very much mistaken, Hume hid the truth from his comrades-in-arms. 
In the following days there was an intense correspondence between the Allied authorities on this matter, with numerous reply drafts.

In addition, the regulations on stamp issuances were modified so that the situation would not repeat itself. An ACC Executive Memorandum of March 1 expressly prohibited the printing or overprinting of stamps locally and a provision on March 4 radically modified the postal services of Region III. In addition, the attempts of the postal, financial, and intelligence services to find 345 stamps (or, at least, one!) to send to the Universal Postal Union in Bern were unsuccessful, so only those from Sicily and the she-wolf were consigned. Consequently, the Naples issue also did not comply with international law.

The reply to Hume on March 7 by Gen. Maurice Stanley Lush is cold-blooded. “I am unable to agree with you over the correctness of the policy which was followed in the restoration of postal services in that Region. Postal services are clearly ones which require a unified policy within any territory served or shortly to be served by one postal directorate, and local authorities of special kinds of stamps and of different rates of postal charges must inevitable cause, and in fact are now causing confusion when the time comes to widen the scope of the service.”

And, after accusing Hume of creating a “Black Market” with the 35-cent stamps, later sold for 50 lire (that is, 150 times their value in 90 days!), he concluded in a report (Figure 12), “It was, of course, quite out of order for you to authorize a postage rate different from that previously in force without reference to higher authority.”

The matter was settled. In an ironic twist of fate, months later, Hume and Lush would meet in Florence and in other artistic cities in Italy. Both are considered to be primarily responsible for saving architectural heritage. Their deeds were taken to the cinema in George Clooney’s film, The Monuments Men (2014), with some poetic licenses.

But Florence, the outstanding city of Arno river, had other attractions for Hume.

New accusations against Hume

Indeed, on August 23, 1944, Hume, without any postal or financial authority, withdrew from the Florence post office more than half-a-million lire of pro-Nazi Italian Social Republic (RSI) stamps. Contrasting these data with those of other sources, I think it totaled about 900,000 stamps, the entire RSI stock of the Tuscan capital. After numerous requests from the Italian authorities, the stamps were recovered and delivered to the Allied authorities.

Also in Florence, from October 1944 to May 1945, Hume advised an association that proposed to issue stamps with an AMG surcharge to finance the reconstruction of the Santa Trìnità Bridge, which had been destroyed by the Nazis. In January 1945, Mario Fano was totally opposed to the issue and the Allied authorities did not authorize it “to avoid the creation of philatelic curiosities.” The unauthorized stamps were not known until November 2019 when nine sheets were put up for sale by Hume’s family in Stuttgart, along with the Mezzana’s art specimens previously noted. These sheets were unsold, perhaps due to their bid starting at 41,000 euros ($45,000).

In addition, Hume took 2,900 fascist stamps from the Verona post office on April 28, 1945, the same day that, 200 kilometers away, Mussolini was shot and killed.

The stamps, all overprinted, had a meager face value of 7,219 lire, but some of them were very rare, such as a 50-lire stamp (Scott RSI 5A), of which Hume took 100. For more than a year the Italian authorities were claiming them and at the end of August 1946 the AC decided to open a strong investigation (Figure 13). 
Hume, from Austria, complained defiantly that he was troubled with that matter so long afterward and stated that the stamps were “captured enemy material, forwarded as an exhibit.”

Hume’s response was considered satisfactory by the Allied command and accounts were settled with the Italian post office, but the truth is that Hume did not say anything about the final destination of the stamps, which, at least for the author of this article, remains unknown.

Conclusion

Despite these questionable behaviors, the documents show no action by the civil or military authorities against Gen. Edgar Erskine Hume, who continued to progress with his military career until the last days of his life.
Concerning the city of Naples, it was the only territory in southern Italy that remained in Allied hands after the war and was restored to the Italians on January 1, 1946 (the port, later that year). Earlier, on May 25, 1944, the city council of Naples named Hume, Poletti, and five other Allied soldiers (not Kraege) as cittadini onorari (honorary citizens).

Actually, the most onorari were the cittadini (some of them named here, but the majority anonymous) who risked their lives to deliver stamps to the Italian people, which they used to write to their loved ones in a time of war, in which any news was worth its weight in gold. This modest article is a remembrance of and tribute to these heroes.

Resources

Most of the documents used to build the arguments of this article are preserved in NARA Record Group 331, Allied Control Commission Italy Series, 1943-1947. The collection is comprised of 15 million pages and is kept in 10,432 boxes, a length equivalent to 15 NFL stadiums.

For postal history researchers, the most interesting are under Indicator 10000 (HQ), Subindicator 147 (Communications). In Archivio Centrale dello Stato, at Rome, copies of 7,283 microfilm reels are preserved. Twenty percent of ACC/AC documents can be found on the website of these Italian archives, although not some of the most important on the subject of this article.

In the National Archives of the United Kingdom, at Kew, there are also some documents on this matter, but not many, because when the Allied Commission was dissolved, the originals of the documents landed at the Potomac shores, not the Thames. Also interesting is the documentation of the Italian military archives, Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, AUSSME, at Rome, particularly for the research on the collaboration between the Allies and the partisans in the military mail of northern Italy.

Acknowledgments

This article would not have been possible without the help of numerous people in the United States, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In addition to those noted in the resources, I want to make a special thank you to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum (Hyde Park, New York), the Library of Virginia (Richmond, Virginia), the Hampton Roads Naval Museum (Norfolk, Virginia), the Mariners’ Museum and Park (Newport News, Virginia), the Banca d’Italia (Naples and Rome, Italy), and the Fondo Antiguo Section of IES Fray Luis de León (Salamanca, Spain). Last but not least, I want to express my gratitude to Marta Zurdo Serrano, who has corrected the text.

For further learning

Recommendations from the APRL research staff:

Benini, P. “Occupation Italiennes de 1940- 1943,” Les Feuilles Marcophile, Volume 247.

Gabbini, Emanuele M. Le Occupazioni Alleate in Italia: Catalogo Di Storia Postale (The Allied Occupations in Italy: Catalogue of Postal History) (Rome: Raybaudi Editore, 1991). [G6711 .O15 G112o CLOSED STACKS 1] 

Giannetto, Cesco. Allied Military Postage Italy (Milan: Studio Filatelico V.I.P.A., 1973). [G6711 .C873 G433ap] 

Kugel, Al. “Italian World War II Military & Civil Occupation Mail 1939-1943” (Hinsdale, IL: Alfred F. Kugel, 2002. [G6711 .M644 K95itww 2002 EXHIBIT] 

Ruddell, Paul A. “Italy – Occupation Stamps,” Hobbies (October 1943). 

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