A Rare 1943 US Edtion of the French 1939 Michelin Guide, with all 1107 pages and maps intact, reproduced by Military Intelligence Division of the War Department in Washington D.C., the light beige paper binding with English and French text to the front cover.

Footnote:- In the spring 1944, while the formidable fleet which would land in Normandy was being organised in England, the Allied Forces feared that their progression would be delayed in French cities where all signage had been taken down or destroyed.
After painstaking research and with the go-ahead of the Michelin Paris management, it was decided that the 1939 edition of the Guide, which was the last on record, would be reprinted. The complete edition, with its hundreds of detailed, up-to-date city maps, was printed in Washington DC, and distributed amongst the officers who would find it invaluable when they landed with their troops on D-Day. They went on to liberate Bayeux, Cherbourg, Caen, St. Malo and France itself.
Most of these D-Day landing guides were lost or destroyed in the bombings, others were taken back to the USA by soldiers returning home; there are very few known originals left in Europe.

Provenance:- the vendor inherited the guide from his grandmother who worked for the War department and, as a fluent French speaker, was posted to Paris after its liberation.