Three Illustrations by Cartoonist Perring Smith of the 1689th Engineering Combat Battalion for Thanksgiving 1945

Japan, 1945. 8 x 10 ½ inch double-sided mimeographed sheet with damage to margins and tape at corners; very good plus. With one 3 ¾ x 3 ¼ inch photograph of an illustration; Fine. Overall excellent.. Three illustrations—two of which are for a Thanksgiving menu—by cartoonist Perring Smith of the 1689th Engineering Combat Battalion, stationed in occupied Japan. One side of the Thanksgiving menu has caricatures of several men in the unit and the menu for Thanksgiving dinner at “Stew’s Hash House”, and the other shows a woman in a kimono and geta in front of a pagoda, carrying serving trays with drinks and a roast turkey. The other illustration is a cartoon dog mascot for the battalion, who carries besides his gun a shovel, pickaxe, and metal detector. Though not strictly trench art, these items will be of interest to historians of art produced by deployed soldiers, particularly in the Second World War.