From: ????????????????????????
Subject: Messerschaums

In the last Pipes Digest, someone noted that the clerk at a local Tinder
Box offered to sell him a "messerschaum."  I'm astounded that any
pipe afficianado would turn one down !

Maybe kids today are too young to remember back to those frightening days
of 1940, when the dreaded Messerschaums ruled the skies over Britain. A
failing of our educational system, no doubt...

For those unfamiliar, the Messerschaum was Germany's premier fighting pipe
in the early years of WWII.  Its light construction and excellent cooling
properties enabled it to smoke high-octane Turkish tobaccos, which
generally burned too hot for the more conventional English briars.  The
result was a fast-smoking pipe, highly maneuverable, but dangerously easy
to light.  Despite the latter failing, it was clearly superior to the older
British fighting pipes.

The only possible English counter was to increase the Latakia content
of their tobaccos, and to smoke these high-test mixtures in the aptly-named
Spitfire which, while nearly the equal of the German pipe, was extremely
uncomfortable to smoke; pilots had to have periodic time off to recover
from 3rd degree tongue burns.  Doggedly, though, the Royal Aromatics Force
fought off the Pipewaffe, until America's entry into the war added
thousands of modern pipes to the British arsenal.  The Germans were finally
beaten when the bombing of the Rumanian tobacco fields near Ploesti
deprived them of their powerful fuel, forcing them to use lower grades
of homegrown, poorly aged and blended.o

Truly, though, that  dark time, when Britain alone stood in the face of
the Nazi blitz, was British smokers' Finest Hour.


8-) 8-) 8-)


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Bill Thacker			att!cbema!wbt	     ??????????????????



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