Edmund Ironside Norway Narvik Harbour WW2 Benham Rare Hand Signed Military FDC

STB09  This is stunning collectors official limited Battle Of Narvik WW2 first day cover hand signed by Lord Edmund Ironside where the signature rests perfectly accompanying the special hand commemorative franks.  This comes with full lifetime COA as the signing of Edmund Ironside has been officially certified by the publishers with full hallmarking and authenticity of the series further detailed in absolute brand new mint condition. It is pristine and you wont source better.

Edmund Ironside's enthusiasm for "peripheral" operations led him to plans for Allied intervention in Scandinavia; rather than the limited approach of simply mining Norwegian waters to stop Swedish iron-ore shipments to Germany, he argued for landing a strong force in northern Norway and physically occupying the Swedish orefields. If successful, this would allow the resupply of Finland then fighting the Soviet Union, and aligned loosely with the Allied forces as well as interdicting Germany's ore supply, and could potentially force Germany to commit troops on a new and geographically unfavourable front.    Both Ironside and Churchill supported the plan enthusiastically, but it met with opposition from many other officers, including from Gort who saw his forces in France being depleted of resources and from Cyrill Newall, the Chief of the Air Staff. Planning continued through the winter of 19391940, and by March 1940 a force of around three divisions was prepared to sail. On 12 March, however, Finland sued for peace, and the expedition had to be abandoned.

Following the German invasion of Norway in April 1940 as part of Operation Weserübung, the Norwegian campaign of AprilJune 1940 saw significant British forces committed to action for the first time in the Second World War. Flaws in the command system quickly began to show. War Cabinet meetings dragged on at great length to little effect, as did meetings of the Chiefs of Staff, both to Ironside's great frustration. He also found it hard to cope with Churchill's mood swings and insistence on micromanagement of the campaign, and a gulf began to grow between the two.

Ironside's main contribution to resolving the Norwegian campaign was to insist on a withdrawal when the situation worsened, and he pushed through the evacuation of central Norway at the end of April despite ministerial ambivalence