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Lot 278

WORLD WAR II – COASTAL RADIO ALERTS

22 November 2011, 10:30 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £812.50 inc. premium

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WORLD WAR II – COASTAL RADIO ALERTS

"Distress Record" of signals received by coastal radio between 24 January 1942 and 29 March 1943, entries listed under the headings of Date, Time, Name, C/S, Position and Particulars, Station Dealing, Sigs Used, Remarks etc, Alarm Signals, recording such things pleas from British airmen in distress, sightings of downed aircraftmen ("...SOS British Airman in dinghy 10 miles SW of Boulogne..."), submarine sightings ("...Periscope seen portside of convoy..."), aircraft downed in the sea, boats damaged and sunk by torpedo, boats attacking by enemy aircraft, attacks by surface vessels, alerts for overdue aircraft; the signals received from a wide range of radios, stationed in places such as Valentia, Malinhead, North Foreland, Landsend, Portpatrick, Reykjavik, Simonstown, Sierra Leone, Gibraltar, Puerto Rico, Tiree, the messages usually succinct but nevertheless extremely graphic: "Torpedoed badly holed No 1 hold endeavrg to keep sl afloat boats lost situation critical req imm assistce approx posn bearg 130 degs 95 mls from posn O.../ ...going down slowly... sinking, many wounded and dying, please send help, cannot receive.../...Foundering req imm assistce now taking to rafts boats carried away", pencilled on last leaf "New Distress book in Secret file"; together with a Distress Book begun in 1952, the 1942 volume over 120 pages, entered in a Stationery Office Book 135, worn through use and spine lacking but still in sound condition, small 4to, 1942-1943 (2)

Footnotes

The radio signals recorded derive from stations in a wide range of places, some as far afield as Simonstown, Puerto Rico and Sierra Leone, but the preponderance of coastal stations such as Wick, Portpatrick suggest that the monitoring station recording these signals was situated in the north of the British Isles.






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