A Most Rare Press Photo & Signatures of Churchill & Roosevelt at the 1942 Pacific War Council

Signatures of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, along with a Photograph of the Pacific War Council 1942
 
Signatures of Prime Minister Winston Churchill (United Kingdom) and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (United States) (in black ink, on an off-white paper stock, 91 mm x 141 mm); and Photograph of the Pacific War Council 1942 (black and white, matte finish, obverse illustrating ten members of the council, including: front row, left to right, Prime Minister Winston Churchill (United Kingdom) and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (United States), back row, left to right: Dr. Eelco Van Kleefens (The Netherlands), Sir Owen Dixon OM, GCMG, KC, LLD (Oxon, Harvard, Melbourne) (Australia), Canadian Ambassador to the United States Leighton Goldie McCarthy (Canada), Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (Canada), Edward Frederick Lindley Wood Viscount Lord Halifax KG, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, TD, PC (United Kingdom), Dr. T.V. Soong (China), Manuel L. Quezon (Philippines) and Sir Walter Nash (New Zealand), reverse inscribed in pencil "Pacific War Council / Porch of the President's Office / The White House / June 25, 1942", marked "# 5" in blue china marker and inscribed in pencil "5 prints", 264 mm x 338 mm, creasing evident vertically on the left side and in the lower left corner. Extremely fine.

Footnote: The Pacific War Council was an inter-governmental body established in 1942 and intended to control the Allied war effort in the Pacific and Asian campaigns during the Second World War. Following the establishment of the short-lived American-British-Dutch-Australian military command (ABDACOM) in January 1942, the governments of Australia, the Netherlands and New Zealand began to push Winston Churchill for an inter-governmental war council based in Washington, D.C. The Far Eastern Council was established in London on February 9th, with a corresponding staff council in Washington. However the smaller powers continued to push for a Washington-based body. The Pacific War Council was formed in Washington on April 1, 1942, with a membership consisting of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, his key advisor Harry Hopkins, and representatives from Britain, China, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Canada. Representatives from India and the Philippines were later added. Much of the impetus for the council was lost during the collapse of ABDACOM, in March and April. The council never had any direct operational control and any decisions it made were referred to the U.S.-British Combined Chiefs of Staff, which was also in Washington. Although there were relatively few U.S. forces in the Pacific in mid-1942, the sheer volume of matériel and forces controlled by the United States government soon gave it effective control of strategy in the Pacific War.