"Pool" Armed Services Edition Book

"The Glorious Pool" by Thorne Smith.
These Armed Services Editions were part of a concept initiated by a publicist and undertaken by several book publishers in conjunction with the Army and Navy in 1942. This book give away was the largest in world history. It’s slogan was, “Books are weapons in the war of ideas.” Before the project ended in 1947 approximately 1200 titles were selected, printed and distributed to troops stationed throughout the world. These books were shared and traded until they fell apart. Sometimes only pages remained to be shared. The project boosted morale and made readers out of non-readers. Due to heavy usage the quality of the books found today is generally poor. Most popular among soldiers were any Western (especially Max Brand and Zane Grey). For years these books were over-looked as collectibles. That is another reason why so few have survived.