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Short-Snorter Dollar Bill

 

In January of 1943 Major General George S. Patton was tasked with the responsibility of billeting, feeding, and keeping secure the attendees of what is now known as the Casablanca Conference. The purpose of the conference was to decide the global strategy for the Allies. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill were in attendance, but Josef Stalin was unable to attend.
 


Sometime during the ten days of the meeting, General Patton had the opportunity to meet with most of the participants and, in some cases, have them sign a dollar bill creating what was commonly known as a Short-Snorter. A Short-Snorter was a single or series of bank notes upon which friends and acquaintances wrote their names as a remembrance. This tradition was relatively wide spread during the late 1930s with trans-ocean airline pilots, as well as the military, and continued into the World War II period. It was occasionally connected with a drinking game, which the person who had lost or forgotten their Short-Snorter, or who had the least number of names on it, bought the first round of drinks.

Although Patton apparently did not invite the two primary players to sign, those signatures he does represent a number of the important attendees. It was found in his effects after his death and was donated to the Patton Museum in the late 1990s.

Signatures reading from top to bottom:

  1. George C. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff
  2. Henry H. Arnold, LTG in command of the USAAF
  3. Elliott Roosevelt, Lieutenant, US Army, Aide de Camp to FDR
  4. Lord Louis Mountbatten, Head of Combined Operations
  5. Harry Hopkins, Diplomat - advisor to the President
  6. W. Averill Harriman, Diplomat
  7. John G. Dill, Field Marshall, Chief of Imperial British Staff
  8. Michael F. Reilly, Chief of White House Secret Service Contingent
  9. Unknown signature
  10. Unknown signature
  11. Ned Dickson
  12. Omar N. Bradley, Major General - probably signed after the fact in late 1943

Signatures reverse side:

  1. E. F. Van Doren, Captain, Trans-World Airlines
  2. Peter Ross, Grenadier Guards, British Army
  3. Unknown
  4. Wilber Kaslow

Courtesy of the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor Fort Knox, Kentucky

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