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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lettow, post: 843816, member: 6986&quot;]AMC came first.&nbsp; The US learned a valuable lesson in WWI where occupation currency was not used in the post-war occupation of Germany.&nbsp; The development of AMC started in mid-1942 as the preparations for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, were underway.&nbsp; The only occupation currency issued in NA by the Allies were the Military Authority of Tripolitania notes used in Italian Libya as it was the only occupied territory.&nbsp; Liberated Algeria was under the control of the Free French and there were sufficient stocks of Bank of Algeria notes on hand that occupation currency was not used there.&nbsp; The US yellow seal notes and British Military Authority notes debuted here also.</p><p><br /></p><p>AMC was first issued with the lire notes for the invasion of Sicily in 1943.&nbsp; There is a cloak and dagger story about how the notes were finished by the printer in Massachusetts except for the name of the country and denomination.&nbsp; These were added at the last minute in order to maintain operational security.</p><p><br /></p><p>The development of MPC can be traced to attempts to control currency exchange in Europe in mid 1945.&nbsp; The US tried implementing currency control books and a coupon system.&nbsp; Neither of these were very effective.&nbsp; In Japan in early 1946, Series A AMC yen -- which originally had been issued in Korea where it was differentiated from the Series B yen issued in Japan itself -- was introduced for use only in the US military facilities.&nbsp; (It had already been withdrawn from Korea.)&nbsp; A yen could be converted into B yen to use on the economy but Byen could not be converted back to A yen.&nbsp; This worked so well that the Army and the treasury implemented it in both theaters as MPC.</p><p><br /></p><p>The use of A yen as the experimental MPC series is the only connection between the two.&nbsp; But it is important to remember that the A yen was only used for this purpose because the notes were available having been withdrawn from use in Korea.&nbsp; The notes themselves served a different purpose in Korea (occupation currency) than they did in Japan (paying US troops and limiting the blackmarket exchange).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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