What do you think about this bill? I bought it at an auction a few years ago and it was supposed to have the names/location of battles on it. It came in a box lot so I didn't buy it just because of this assuption, but I'm curious if that is the case. Also, if it's supposed to have locations of battles on it, why is Panama City, FLA on it? And if the writing isn't the names of battles, what are they? Thanks for the help!!!
I would think that someone may have carried this with them and wrote down places that they had been shipped around while in the service. The back also says gulfport mississippi. both panama city fla and gulfport miss., have military bases and i believe they are primarily navy and marine. others that i know of are the infamous pearl harbor and okinawa. another interesting fact is that on march 26 1945 the japanese had ended resistance in Iwo Jima. Awesome note that has tons of historical value.
Just looked closer. can you read the full name on the top on the front it says "harold (unreadable)-ford U.S.N.A. (maybe harford?) usna is the United States Naval Academy.
I agree that these are places he was at. PCZ is Panama Canal Zone. I think you will find that the letters are USNR United States Naval Reserve.
This is a Philippines occupation note, very common at the war's end. Coincidentally, I picked up something similar in a group lot on auction recently. This one is a 10 peso note, signed by "Frankie" in Manila. The note on the back tells the story: "This is the money the Japs use in the Philippine. Now don't (sic) worth a penny. We are using it to build fire and for toilet paper. See how rich we are here. ha ha. I have lots of them."
It does not look like real money to me, English writing for Japanese, Peso (Tagalog) and the American dollar symbol in the middle. It could be a novelty dollar that a sailor carried with him during WW2.
They do look like play money, but they're the real deal. You'll find them listed in the World Paper Money catalog, P-109 and P-108. They retail for about 25¢ each. The Philippines were American territory prior to the Japanese occupation, so the currency looked similar to U.S. money and that's what the Japanese were imitating. The Philippines still use the peso. I think you're right -- the one peso note was a souvenir that a sailor brought home. He probably wrote down all the places he was stationed, not necessarily battle sites.
