Your Papers, Please

(Ihre Papiere, Bitte)

By John P. Conway

One facet of aviation collecting that has fascinated many are the special items created to assist downed airmen in survival, escape, and evasion when forced down behind enemy lines. The artifacts associated with this endeavor were very carefully planned and crafted by both the United States and Britain during the second war – and are now coveted by collectors.

The British were the absolute masters of this game. The special office of MI9 was assigned the task of creating the aids used by Special operatives, POWs, internees, and downed airmen. The U.S. War Department had the Mis-X sector for the same purpose.

Items created for the purpose of E&E (escape and evasion) cover a wide variety of types and purposes. The basics were of course, a compass and map. The methods of concealment for these items ranged in complexity from specially created playing cards or game boards to insertion in orifices of the body…

To make the unusual look usual or invisible was the first task; to make it functional and effective was the next. Among the most notable items were concealed weapons and radio receivers or transmitters; among the simplest were the photos supplied in the escape kits of allied airmen.

Escape kit photos were widely distributed among fighter and bomber units in the European theatre. They are quite easy to overlook as you peer through the items one might find in a veteran's gathering of "treasures". They have no obvious military implications as the Airmen were photographed in civilian attire. The purpose of these photos was to provide assistance to anyone attempting to create identity papers for a "client" in need of passage through Nazi occupied Europe. Their necessity was brought to light by testimonies of those few who managed to evade capture and work their way back to base with the aide of "sympathizers" in the occupied countries.

The process was a fairly simple one, but in that simplicity was a pitfall that only the most astute of observers would notice. Apparently the unit or base photography department was assigned the task of shooting a series of portrait style photos of flying personnel in the unit.

The situation obviously required that the airmen be dressed in appropriate civilian attire, which must have been procured by a personal equipment officer and maybe even borrowed from a local English benefactor.

Each Airman was dressed in a combination of dress shirt, necktie and sport coat. Typically 3 poses were chosen: Front view, profile left and profile right. This would provide some options, should multiple papers become necessary, as well as to compensate for a facial injury received in the harrowing event of crash landing, or ejecting from the aircraft.

The typical escape kit compliment consisted of nine photos, three each of the three different poses, which were sealed in a cellophane packet to protect them from moisture or leakage from other contents in the kit. The pitfall of the process is a story in it's own.

In the book The Interrogator noted aviation author Raymond Toliver tells the remarkable story of German Luftwaffe master interrogator Hans Scharff. Scharff was most successful in his interrogation of allied POWS by rather unconventional means.

The escape kit photos were actually one of many clues he used to attain information about captured airmen. It seems that members of each unit were photographed wearing the same shirt and necktie. It wasn't long before his methods were refined to the point that Scharff could identify a captured airman's unit simply by the necktie he wore in his photo.

Needless to say, this bit of information, compounded with other details gleaned from Scharff's remarkable information gathering aptitude, rendered the airman somewhat disarmed. This often resulted in a much less structured atmosphere between the interrogator and the interrogatee. Scharff encouraged this atmosphere to further enforce the feeling that the captors already knew so much it was frivolous to hold back anything.

Many of the POWs who were guests of Scharff, to this day, wonder if they revealed anything they shouldn't have.

Although rarely found in the market, escape photos are often overlooked by collectors who don't totally understand them. The veterans who did are usually very reluctant to let them go.

This nice group of paper items from a P-47 pilot was featured in a past Manion’s auction:

Above: Complete set of 9 escape kit photos, with the original celluloid packet, as issued to a 9th Air Force P-47 Pilot.

Above: Portrait photo of same pilot taken in 1953

John P. Conway has been working for Manion’s International Auction House for nearly three decades. He is considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities in the arena of military aviation collectibles, and is co-author of: American Flight Jackets, Airmen & Aircraft: A History of U.S. Flyers' Jackets from World War I to Desert Storm. He also maintains the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association Museum website – Legacy of Valor: Vietnam Helicopter Images and Artifacts.