Lieutenant Eric Wilson WW2 East African Campaign Hand Signed Benham FDC

STB009 This is stunning Benhams collectors official limited East African Campaign WW2 first day cover hand signed by Leiutenant ECT Wilson 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 further detailed in absolute brand new mint condition. You wont source better.

When the Italians attacked on 11 August 1940, they twice managed direct hits which knocked Wilson's gun off its mountings, killing a Somali corporal and wounding Wilson and several of his soldiers. But the Englishman and his colleagues remounted the gun and made such an effective defence that the Italians were kept at bay. For five days the Allied positions were attacked. Wilson suffering from an attack of malaria as well as untended wounds and the surviving Somali soldiers kept the enemy out until a final Italian charge over-ran the position.

'Captain Wilson, fighting to the last, was killed,' announced the citation for Eric Wilson's award of the Victoria Cross in the London Gazette of 14 October 1940. But in fact the acting captain had been captured on Observation Hill. He was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Eritrea. The camp was liberated a few months later, and Wilson was free to continue his daring career at first in the 'wild bunch' known as the Long Range Desert Group, then as 2i/c 11th Battalion, the King's African Rifles, on their 1944 advance down the Kabaw Valley ('Death Valley') in Burma.