[ 1st American Squadron, Home Guard (London). ] The first thirteen issues (all printed?) of the mimeographed squadron magazine 'Yankee Yahoo incorporating The Pirbright Lament', with hand-coloured illustrations and separate typed article 'Home Gods'.

For more information on the squadron see Charles Dickon's 'Americans at War in Foreign Forces: A History, 1914-1945' (2014). After some difficulties over its status and that of its members, and with the disapproval of American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, the unit was formed in London in June 1940, with Brigadier-General Wade Hampton Hayes (1879-1956) as commanding officer. After some string-pulling by Charles Sweeny, the Thompson Company in America contributed 100 Tommy Guns and 100,000 rounds of ammunition, and members contributed their cars, painted in camouflage at their own expense. Dickon is at pains to stress that the squadron was 'not a thing just of vanity and good intentions by wealthy Americans', but rather a 'well-organized participant in training exercises for Home Guard units'. In January 1941 Churchill, as part of his effort to influence American public opinion, gave the squadron a special review in St James's Park, and in the months that followed the new American Ambassador John G. Winant proved far more sympathetic than his predecessor. Membership appears to have waned as America's involvement in the war drew men to active units. 312pp., 4to. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, in good stout red leather binding, with red cloth boards, raised bands, and tooling on spine. An excessively scarce item: the only copy traced on OCLC WorldCat and COPAC is at the Imperial War Museum. As stated in No. 13, the first number appeared 'as a wall magazine' on 30 August 1940, and very few copies appear to have been printed, and the need for secrecy was stressed in a note in block capitals in No. 2: 'IMPORTANT | Yankee Yahoo should be regarded as a private document. it should not be left lying around for anyone to pick up nor should it be passed on to non-members. | Information of a confidential nature may appear in our pages from time to time, and so Yankee Yahoo should be treated with as much care as you should devote to your rifle and equipment.' A similar notice in No. 6 adds, 'nor should it be passed to non-members'. Editor Charles G. Tubbs's own set, as the following typewritten note, heading an eight-page article (unattributed but by Tubbs) titled 'Home Gods', placed at the beginning of the volume, indicates: 'This article was circulated before the first issue of "Yankee Yahoo." The foolscap sheets on which it was printed could not be bound with the magazine but the text has been transcribed below. - C. G. T.' Stamped in gilt on the front board is 'C. F.', probably indicating descent through the Forster family (the Tubbs's only daughter Venetia Jane, having married John Norman Forster in 1959). The volume comprises: the thirteen parts of the magazine, bound up together with a separate title page ('Yankee Yahoo | Journal of the | 1st American Squadron | Home Guard | London | 1941-43'), a list of 22 'Articles by Charles G. Tubbs', and the eight-page article 'Home Gods' (see above). At foot of final page, from issue 3: 'Printed and published at the Headquarters of the 1st American Squadron (Home Guard), 58 Buckingham Gate, S.W.' Attractively designed, with simple but effective illustrations throughout. From the fourth issue to the thirteenth covers feature cartoons, two of them attributed (to 'T. E. D. [i.e. T. E. Downes]' and 'A Martin'). Although articles are ascribed to other individuals (Raymond Onion, Lieut. C. E. Frank, Lieut. Pawson) Tubbs was clearly editor and prime mover. His background was in advertising and publicity (in 1933 he had written a letter on the subject to The Times of London), and he states in No. 8: 'My business in life is propaganda'. In addition he had a strong connection with the New York National Guard: in the nineteen-twenties and thirties he had been editor of 'The Seventh Regiment Gazette; an illustrated magazine devoted to the interests of the Seventh regiment and the National Guard'. (Also in No. 8 he describes himself in 'Yankee Yahoo' as a Seventh Regiment man and second, as a Company K man of that Regiment'.) He was also active in support of wartime Britain as joint-president of the American Outpost in Britain, which published 'a monthly news letter for the United States and a weekly review of American opinion for Great Britain'. In a piece in No. 11 entitled 'My Camp' Tubbs states: 'I live to fight Germans and Japs, and the Italians if I happen to think of them. Nobody pays me to fight these chaps so I do it for philanthropic reasons and earn a living in occasional spare time. | I fight the Germans every Tuesday and Thursday from 5.30 to 7 p.m. and every Saturday from noon until God knows when. I do this by going to 58 Buckingham Gate.'Subjects include 'Road Block', 'Street Fighting', men in camouflage and a march past a Chelsea Pensioner. Ten of these cartoons are hand-coloured, as are some titles. No. 13 features a fifteen page satirical 'pantomime in four overt acts and ten disgraceful scenes', titled 'The Buck in Ham Gate', with an illustration of the 'Grand Finale' on the cover. The author is given as 'Frank Tireur' - presumably a dig at former American ambassador Joseph Kennedy, who had voiced disapproval at the formation of the squadron, considering that, in the event of German invasion, its existence could lead to all US citizens living in London being shot as Francs-tireurs. Nos. 7 to 13 contain 'It happened this way', an 'account of the origin and development of the 1st American Squadron, Home Guard' by 'Sergeant T. E. Downes' (with a couple of additions by Tubbs), amounting to 39pp. The last instalment of 'It happened this way' contains an account of what is described as 'our most exciting, thrilling and unfortunately publicised exercise against a Brigade of Guards unit', 'somewhere in Surrey' in July 1941. The incident caused some embarrassment to the British, being widely reported in America, probably through Tubbs's efforts, and with the Tuscaloosa News, for example, carrying a piece with the headline 'Americans Win In Play War | U.S. Citizens 'Take' General Headquarters At British Airdrome'. No. 6 is a 'Special Pirbright Edition' (following the squadron's 'third period of training' at Pirbright Camp in Surrey) and No. 12 is a 'Thanksgiving Number'. Topical pieces include '"Our General"'(a six-page 'report of the dinner given by the Squadron to Lieut-General Sir Bertram Sergison-Brooke [...] in the Officers' Mess of the Queen's Westminsters, on Thursday, June 18 [1941]'), a seven-page 'Thanksgiving Dinner Report' (reporting speeches by Hayes and Brigade of Guards officers Colonel Swinton, Sir Henry MacGeagh, Colonel Sir Geoffrey Cox); 'This Game Socker' (a report of a football match between the squadron and 'some Scots Engineers'), 'On Parade' and regular 'Troop Talk'. There are two full -page 'Potted Personalities' - biographical articles, with portraits, on Roy Almond Sills, Samuel Richard Abrams [formerly Samuel Meyer Abramowitz, naturalized 1953], as well as an obituary in the last number of Corporal Leon Barrett Jones, whose death date helps date it. Humour features heavily, with regular 'Squadron Squibs' ('No prizes for guessing the identity of the N.C.O. who, in the contour part of the map reading examination, joined all the pin-points together in alphabetical order.'). Also a dialogue between 'The Two Tireless Troopers (Two Guys Who Wanna Know Why)' and a mock-romantic piece titled 'Liberty or Love' ('A pulsating melodramatic short story of passion, patriotism, perdition, mystery, machination and make-believe. by Abee Seedee'), and 'Importance of Corporals'. There are also a number of practical articles, such as 'Murder Incorporated' by Capt. Ted Leather, R.C.A. (explaining, with illustrations, various ways to kill Germans), 'All-in Fighting' (also illustrated), 'If Jerry Comes To Town' (about house-to-house fighting: 'If Jerry comes to town there will have to be some house-cleaning and no doubt we shall be numbered among the house-cleaners.'), a ten-page article on 'Tanks' (with illustrations for identification), 'Know these Planes' (also with illustrations), 'Home Guard and the Law', 'Range Discipline', 'Security', 'Camouflage', 'Landscape Sketching', 'Your Rifle'.