David Balme HMS Bulldog WW2 Veteran LTD TO 50 Hand Signed FDC

STB031 This is stunning Buckingham collectors official limited Royal Navy Submarine Museum first day cover hand signed by historic war raid veteran David Balme where the signature rests perfectly accompanying the special hand commemorative franks.  This comes with full lifetime COA as the signing has been officially certified by the publishers with full hallmarking and authenticity of the series numbered 5 of only 50 (please see image 2) in absolute brand new mint condition. You wont source better.

The bravery of Sub Lt David Balme in the chilly waters of the North Atlantic off Greenland in May 1941 ensured the most prized piece of equipment in the German war machine fell into Allied hands: the Enigma coder.  led a boarding party on to crippled U110 when the submarine was brought to the surface by depth charges after the boat attacked a convoy.

Balme, whod been in the Navy for seven years, could not believe the Germans would have just abandoned this submarine and was convinced U110 was either booby-trapped, or armed crewman were still on board, lying in wait.

Balmes party spent six hours salvaging what they could from U110, all the time compressed air hissed from broken pipes and the boat shook under the distant detonations of depth charges being dropped as the convoy escorts harried other suspected German submarines.

Bulldog tried to tow the crippled U110 to Iceland, but she foundered the following day. The destroyer continued on to Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, the RNs main base in both world wars, where the typewriter was handed over to an intelligence officer. We have waited the whole war for one of these, he gratefully thanked Balme and his shipmates.

The salvage operation codenamed Primrose was, the Admiralty ordered, to be treated with the greatest secrecy and as few people allowed to know as possible.

And so when George VI presented David Balme with the DSC for his part in the mission later in 1941, the monarch apologised that for security reasons the award could not be higher. But he did tell the junior officer it was perhaps the most important single event in the whole war at sea.