War Money

 Among my grandfather's patches and other war related items was a heaping handful of coins mostly from France and Italy during World War II and the above three bills, fronts on the left and backs on the right. 

The 100 cento lire bill didn't intrigue me much until I turned it over and looked at the back to see the words "Allied Military Currency". That caused me to do a little digging. Evidently, after we landed on the coast of Sicily on the lead up to Operation Avalanche my grandfather was in, this bill was put into circulation and was equal to one American dollar. It was interchangeable with normal Italian currency. A total of 917.7 million of the Am-lire as it was called, weighing 758 tons were printed during the war effort. The first flight 9 days after the invasion of Sicily carried 7 tons of that total. As one might expect, all this printed money led to massive inflation issues in Italy during the war years. The back is pretty interesting as it lists freedom of speech, religion, want and fear on the back. I guess one would call that a propaganda campaign these days.

The second bill down I have heard about and seen pictures of but have never held one in my hand. It was printed by the Japanese after the invasion of the Philippines and was often referred to as "Mickey Mouse" money though from hindsight, it was no difference than what the Americans did after landing in Italy other than the side one is viewing it from. The big difference is in the Philippines, one could be executed for holding the native currency where as with the lire money above, it was interchangeable.  Evidently the money was labeled as mickey mouse money because it was fake in the eyes of the natives. Like the American issued lire in Italy, the Japanese pesos also caused hyper inflation and was very quickly worthless.

Finally, the last bill is still a mystery to me. It is a 5 Franc bill made during 1943, apparently by the French I'm guessing, i.e. native currency. Both the Americans and Germans made their own currency upon their respective invasions of France and it doesn't look like either of them. There are plenty of pictures of this bill online but I have yet to find a description of its making and the history behind it. I know there had been a free part of southern France up until Operation Torch, the invasion of Africa. But that had been taken over by the Germans in retribution for Africa. So as far as I can recall, Germany controlled all of France during 1943 up until D-Day in 1944 and had their own currency. Evidently the French were still able to make their own currency during that time period. The only other thing of note is a translation of the backside of the note. It reads, "The counterfeiter will be punished with forced labor for life."