On This Day in Typewriter History: Remembrance Day and Typewriters

Remembrance Day

A Canadian soldier uses a Corona 3 portable typewriter

on its tripod during artillery drills in World War I

PART 172

An event such as Remembrance Day – observed each year with a minute’s silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month – affords those who pause to reflect on the human cost of war the chance to ponder many war-related things. Among them are rarely war correspondents or, for that matter, their tools of trade: typewriters.

Typewriters, however, played integral parts in most if not all theatres of 20th century wars, and the picture gallery below, a random selection, gives some indication of their many and varied uses in wartime – embracing both vital necessities such as communications during these periods of conflict and their aftermath: in rehabilitation and recovery.

But first Remembrance Day, also called Poppy Day and Armistice Day, and in the US Veteran’s Day. It is a memorial day in Australia, marking the anniversary of the World War I Armistice, which came into effect at 11am on November 11, 1918. The Armistice was signed in Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front. The anniversary is observed in Britain, New Zealand, Canada, India, South Africa, France and Belgium. This year Germany’s national day of mourning, Volkstrauertag, also falls on this day, as does Israel’s Ramleh ceremony. In Poland it is Independence Day.

LEST WE FORGET?
HOW SOON WE FORGET!

In June 1940, German officers were typing in the woods outside Compiègne in France, where the Armistice had been signed less than 22 years earlier.

American war correspondent William L. Shirer covers the German Blitzkrieg in Compiègne from behind German lines.
DEVASTATION

A soldier types a report amid the ruins of Belgrade in July 1941.

Typewriters were very much in demand in World War II, so even those seriously damaged in London’s bombings in January 1941 needed to be inspected for possible reconditioning, or parts.

In 1940 British workers were forced out of their offices and into laneways because of bomb damage.

A shop window in Kingsway, London, is almost completely boarded during the bombing of London in 1942, but it is “business as usual” for typewriters.
HAVE TYPEWRITER, CAN SERVE

In 1941, a well-armed Russian Army typist works in a makeshift office on the northern front.

A German soldier typing in the Ukraine in August 1941.

A war correspondent finds cold comfort working on the Soviet-Finnish front in January 1940.

In March 1941, British authorities sold off the assets, including these typewriters, of the Italian tourism office in Regent Street, London.

In 1940-41, gas masks were required for policemen at Oxford Central Police Station and teleprinter telephone operators in Scotland.

The US Office of War Information had the need to use a Japanese typewriter in February 1943.

Time war correspondent Melville Jacoby types by candlelight in blacked-out Australia.
SURVIVAL, REHABILITATION, RECOVERY

In August 1917, a group of soldiers who had lost their sight on the Western Front were taught to type at West House in Brighton, England.

In May 1950 a man who had lost his left arm and his right hand in World War II learns to type at a rehabilitation camp in Eversburg in Germany. This will make him a better candidate for resettlement by the International Refugee Organisation.

In 1941, a survivor of the SS Zam Zam uses a typewriter aboard the German prison ship Dresden.

In 1943 a “public writer” types documents on the Rue Legrand in Paris.

French patriots in Laval throng headquarters set up in the city hall to register as volunteers and members of the resistance after American forces liberated the ancient French town on August 6, 1944.

In 1947, refugees in post-war Vienna apply to leave war-devastated Europe.

US veterans return from service to take courses at the University of Iowa and adjust to civilian life, Iowa City, April 1947.

Romanian-born Nobel laureate, author Elie Wiesel, survived the Holocaust to write of his experiences. He is seen here in 1960,

In August 2009, 70 years after the bunker was first used, shorthand-typist Myra Collyer returned to her typewriter in the British Cabinet's War Room bunker, where she worked during World War II.