Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt | Banknote ("Short Snorter") signed by both, 1942-43

Winston S. Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt

British pound note "Short Snorter"

Kept by Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, British Ambassador to Turkey, and signed by Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Ismet Inönü (President of Turkey), Şükrü Saracoğlu (Prime Minister of Turkey), Anthony Eden, Frank A. Kaufman (a US Lend Lease representative), and ten others (chiefly military officers), headed "Short-snorter Sir H.K. Hagessen [sic] December 1, 1942", Inönü's signature dated 30 January 1943

[with:] envelope labelled in the hand of Knatchbull-Hugessen ("Short Snorter with signatures")

A SENIOR DIPLOMAT'S EXCEPTIONAL MEMENTO OF WORLD WAR II, WITH THE RARE COMBINATION OF ROOSEVELT AND CHURCHILL'S SIGNATURES. Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen (1886-1971) was British ambassador to Turkey from 1939 to 1944. Turkey was a key neutral power and Knatchbull-Hugessen spent much of his time in Ankara sparring with Franz von Papan, his German counterpart. His great diplomatic coup was to bring Churchill to Turkey for the Adana Meeting of 30 January-2 February 1943, just after the Casablanca Conference, at which he met with President Inönü of Turkey in a railway carriage near Turkey's Mediterranean coast to try and persuade him to join the Allies.

Knatchbull-Hugessen had this pound note signed during his travels in the lead-up to the Adana meeting. During World War II the British took up with great enthusiasm the American aviation tradition of the "short snorter", a bank note signed by those who travelled together on an aeroplane. The current example is dated 1 December 1942, and the earliest signatures were undoubtedly obtained on that date, but it evidently includes names gathered over the following two months. Roosevelt's signature must have been obtained during the Casablanca Conference (14-24 January 1943), whilst the Turkish signatures are dated during the Adana Meeting.

Condition Report:
Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate

Condition 11 of the Conditions of Business for Buyers (Online Only) is not applicable to this lot.