Miami Valley Coin Club

World War II Emergency Issues

Early in the 2^nd World War, the United States produced two different kinds of emergency currency paper money. One issue was for Hawaii and the South Pacific; the other was for Africa and Southern Europe. Today collectors refer to these notes as “Hawaii” and “North Africa”. Because the government was concerned that large amounts of U.S. money would possibly fall into enemy hands and be used against our country, these two kinds of currency were issued for U.S. troops to use in those specific areas of the world.

The 1935A series “North Africa” notes were issued to troops headed for Africa. Instead of the usual blue seal, these notes had a yellow seal. If they fell into enemy hands they could be demonetized and made worthless. These notes were issued in denominations of $1, $5, and $10. All were Silver Certificates, series 1934A.

For the “Hawaii” notes, an overprint of H-A-W-A-I-I was placed twice on the face of each note and once on the back. The Treasury seal was brown instead of the normal blue. These notes were in denominations of $1, $5, $10, and $20. The $1 notes were 1935A Silver Certificates; the other denominations were 1934A Federal Reserve Notes.

In Hawaii, the government required that all U.S. currency be replaced with notes bearing the HAWAII overstamp. This left a major problem: what to do with all the currency exchanged for the overprint version. Rather than ship all that money back to the mainland, it was decided to burn it. At first it was burned in a local crematorium, but that was taking too long. So the government used the bigger furnaces of the Aiea sugar mill to finish the job.