Publications of the Army Printing Stationary Services

[Fromelles]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get my hands on copies of the following:

SS 106 - Notes on the Tactical Employment of Machine Guns and Lewis Guns (March 1916)

SS 122 - Some Notes on Lewis Guns and Machine Guns (September 1916)

SS 194 - Instructions for Wearing the Equipment for Carrying Lewis Gun Magazines (October 1916)

SS 123 - Notes on the Use of Carrier Pigeons

I've got scans of a few of the Bombing manuals in return.

SS 398 - The Training and Employment of Bombers (March 1916)

SS 126 - The Training and Employment of Bombers (September 1916)

SS 182 – Instructions on Bombing. Part II - Training and Employment of Bombers (November 1917)

Does anyone know of a site where I might find these online? or is there a, more or less, complete listing of the publications of the Army Printing Stationary Services (APSS), ie:-

CDS (Central Distribution Section)

SS (Stationary Services)

Regards,

Dan

[janecavell]

Hi Dan

I found a link to a 'List of SS Pamphlets' (an RTF file) on the 'Notes' page of the University of Birmingham's Centre for First World War Studies site.

Hope this helps

[Fromelles]

Hi Dan

I found a link to a 'List of SS Pamphlets' (an RTF file) on the 'Notes' page of the University of Birmingham's Centre for First World War Studies site.

Hope this helps

Thanks poppy,

It has quite a few gaps, but is a good start.

I was dragged away and hadn't realised I'd posted this before doing it all again, next time it might pay to look first.

Thanks

Dan

[green_acorn]

Dan,

Have you looked at the naval & Military press site, you may find reprints there of some of the pams.

Hendo

[Fromelles]

Dan,

Have you looked at the naval & Military press site, you may find reprints there of some of the pams.

Hendo

Hendo,

No I haven't mate, but I will do

Thanks

Dan

[Muerrisch]

The IWM did [or do] sell copies ...... I filled my boots about 20 years ago.

[Muerrisch]

another way forward is to join [probably an annual fee] one of the six Legal Deposit Libraries, each of which SHOULD have a complete set, and allow copying thereof.

They are [from memory]

British Library London,

Cambridge,

Oxford,

Edinburgh,

Cardiff,

and, surprise surprise,

Dublin [not Belfast]

If an SS pub. was printed and published outside UK, it might slip the net.

I have, in my time, sent a total of 30 of my own books to the above, at my legally enforcible expense, and received a courteous thank you. Its a hard life being a struggling writer.

Nice garret though, with tea every hour on the hour.

[balbeggie]

It does not cost anything to join the National Libraries just your photocopies expenses and fares to get to them.

[green_acorn]

Fromelles,

Each of the publications you are after is available for purchase from the Imperial War Museum (www.iwm.org.uk) or you can try your luck when you next visit the AWM, unfortunately the AWM does not have these documents cross indexed by the CDS or SS number, so it can be trial and error finding them.

It can be a bit convoluted and frustrating dealing with the IWM from this distance (Australia) as they, being a typical bureaucracy living in the past, insist you use their carbon backed triplicate form, you will need to write to them and ask them to send a number of forms over.

To give you an idea of how petty the IWM can seem to be when we have the AWM putting so much online for free, I asked for a list of CDS and SS publications which I knew they had on their computer system. Instead of emailing it and charging an administrative fee for the time it took the person to type in "CDS" and "SS" in their search tool, they printed the list of and charged for each of the fifty pages and the postage, from memory about GBP 54.

Having said that I personally agree with user pays, the AWM and the National Archives of Australia should also do so (shock horror for all those downloading AIF pers files from the UK ) and the one time I have visited the IWM Reading Room they were exceedingly helpful, even though I turned up without a booking, but I still had to fill in the form and they posted the copy to me.

Anyway here are the reference details and Nov 2008 costs of each of the documents you are after, which will help you fill in the forms when they arrive :

S.S. 106

Notes on the tactical employment of machine guns and Lewis guns -

March, 19 16 (April, 1916 printing).

IWM Classification: 1. 00.749/3(=41)

Keyword: 1. Military engineering and trench warfare

No. of pages = 3 lp.. PRICE = £5

S.S. 122

Some notes on Lewis guns and machine guns - September, 191 6.

IWM Classification: 1. 00.749/3(=41)

See also S.S. 106

No. of pages = 19p.. PRICE = £3

There are various versions of the carrier Pigeon SS document:

S.S. 123

Notes on the use of carrier pigeons in France - August, 191 7.

I WM Classification: 1. 28.7(=4 1)/3

Keyword: 1. Miscellaneous

No. of pages = 12p.. PRICE = £3

S.S. 123

Addendum to S.S.123: notes on the use of carrier pigeons in France -

December, 19 16.

I WM Classification: 1. 28.7(=4 1)/3

Keyword: 1. Miscellaneous

No. of pages = Ip.. PRICE = £1.50

S.S. 123

Notes on the use of carrier pigeons - August, 191 6.

IWM Classification: 1. 28.7(=4 1)/3

Keyword: 1. Miscellaneous

No. of pages = 1311.. PRICE = £3

S.S. 123

Carrier Pigeon Service: notes - January 1917.

IWM Classification: 1. 28.7(4 1)/3

Keyword: 1. Miscellaneous

No. of pages = 4p.. PRICE = £2

S.S. 194

Instructions for wearing the equipment for carrying Lewis gun magazines -

October, 19 17.

IWM Classification: 1. 86.5(41).51 [Lewis113

2. 06(41).6:02/3

Keyword: I. Machine guns

No. of pages = 4p.. PRTCE = £1.50

Cheers,

Hendo

[green_acorn]

GWF Pals,

I am also in the process of creating a table of Central Distribution Section (CDS) and Stationery Service (SS) registered publications using the Birmingham University list as a simple format start point and integrating the much longer list I purchased from the IWM, along with lists from other sources and information gathered from the AWM and NLA. It is taking quite a while as there are over one thousand "SS" documents, not counting different versions of the same number and there are over three hundred CDS documents, most of the gaps that appear in lists such as that from Birmingham Uni appear to be for documents classified "Official Use Only", "Confidential" and "Secret". If anyone could help me with the SS number for the "List of Confidential and Secret publications available to the British Expeditionary forces", I would be grateful, I believe it may be SS390 part 1. I am in the process of purchasing the "Official Use Only" list.

I am creating the list as a research tool for myself, but my intent is to provide the basic list (minus my research needs) to Birmingham Uni as the single best place for universal access, as it is, it will be a little large to post here at the GWF or have published as an article in a magazine.

Cheers,

Hendo

[green_acorn]

another way forward is to join [probably an annual fee] one of the six Legal Deposit Libraries, each of which SHOULD have a complete set, and allow copying thereof.

They are [from memory]

British Library London,

Cambridge,

Oxford,

Edinburgh,

Cardiff,

and, surprise surprise,

Dublin [not Belfast]

If an SS pub. was printed <b>and published </b>outside UK, it might slip the net.

I have, in my time, sent a total of 30 of my own books to the above, at my legally enforcible expense, and received a courteous thank you. Its a hard life being a struggling writer.

Nice garret though, with tea every hour on the hour.

Grumpy,

Technically I would imagine the publisher was the Director of the AP&SS GHQ BEF which would mean they were all published in France, which would explain why I haven't been able to find any of these documents at the British Library online search.

Cheers,

Hendo