World War II - Propaganda French Forgeries

The following might be useful for dealers wanting to know more about this topic.

During World War II the PWE printed a series of French stamps. Although there are eleven forged denominations in all, there are just four actual vignettes; Mercury, Iris, Petain bare-headed and Petain with cap. All but the scarlet 30 centimes Mercury are printed in perforated sheets of 20 (5 x 4); the Mercury is printed in a sheet of 16, with four blocks of four separated by gutters. The genuine stamps are perforated 14:13 1/2, as are the forgeries with the exception of the 30 centimes Mercury, the 1 franc 50 centimes Iris and the 1 franc Petain with cap, which is perforated 15:14. Imperforate sheets exist for all values. Each item is identifiable by a “secret mark” or its perforation. Whereas the secret marks may have been intentionally introduced for an espionage purpose, it is more likely that they are unintentional. These forgeries were initially produced in 1942; some “H-numbers” are known.

A “Most Secret” memo from Dr. Beck (head of PWE’s French desk) to Rex Leeper (head of SOE’s SO1 propaganda unit) reports on black propaganda to France for the week ending 23 May: about 1000 letters per week containing LA France Libre and Weekly Times are being distributed in France. The memo further states that:

We are now adopting the method of using fake business envelopes to avoid the internal censorship. (Specimens attached for information.) Stamps are manufactured by ourselves.

This almost certainly refers to the forgeries of French stamps. The specimen business envelopes are from “Compagnie Generale des Tabacs, Marseille (H.69),” “La Voix de France,” and “La Nationale, Paris (Ixe).” The covers were intended to be inserted into the French mail system, where they would be postmarked by French postal service. It seems that none of these covers survived the war, but this memo provides evidence that the forged stamps were actually used in France. The “Most Secret” memo was discovered in the British National Archives.

In further research in the British National Archives evidence was found that over a thousand propaganda envelopes a week were sent into France, and one of the regular enclosures seems to have been the propaganda leaflet Lettre d’Angleterre. There were requests for additional envelopes (9,000 in three different colours) and even requests for additional stamps:

1.20 franc brown Pétain (2nd type with Képi),70 centimes same type (orange or dark blue – which one has yet to be decided) – engraving of first type – used for values under 40 centimes – has also been ordered.

The postage stamps were forged for the French section of SOI, and their job was propaganda, not agent-running or intelligence-gathering. The letter-writing unit was distributing thousands of envelopes inside Vichy France and Northern France. The letter-writing unit was shut down in 1942; the forged French postage stamps ceased being produced soon afterwards.