Dodecanese.

by NAVAL INTELLIGENCE DIVISION

£200 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE DIVISION. Dodecanese. [OUP] for Naval Intelligence Division. October, 1941. 8vo. Original plum cloth, lettered in gilt; pp. v, 170, sketch maps, plates after photographs, folding panorama; binding a little sunned, three text leaves with short marginal tears, otherwise internally very clean and fresh. First edition. B. R. 500. Geographical Handbook Series. - Probably one of the best-researched books on the eastern Mediterranean archipelago. 'A series of intelligence handbooks produced during the First World War had proved valuable both during the conflict and as subsequent reference sources. Early in the Second World War the Director of Naval Intelligence ordered the preparation of a new and improved series to meet the requirements of the day. The Handbooks were designed to provide, in the words of the Preface, "for the use of Commanding Officers, information in a comprehensive and convenient form about countries which they may be called upon to visit, not only in war but in peace-time; secondly, to maintain the high standard of education in the Navy and, by supplying officers with material for lectures … to ensure for all ranks that visits to a new country shall be both interesting and profitable"' ( Cambridge Archive Editions , who reproduce a few titles of the series, online). The director of this series Kenneth Mason (1887-1976) was a geographer-soldier, mountaineer and the first statutory professor of geography at Oxford University. Inspired by Younghus

• Binding: Hardcover

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