BOAT

The distinguished wartime career of George Patrick John Rushworth Jellicoe (1918-2007), 2nd Earl Jellicoe, is well described in Loma Almonds' 'A British Achilles' (2006). However Jellicoe, who commanded the Special Boat Section from 1943 to the end of the war, was not always blessed with success. The present collection of eighteen documents constitutes Jellicoe's own file on what Almonds describes as a 'shambles': an attempted series of sabotage attacks on six Sardinian airfields in the run-up to the allied invasion of Sicily.

Printed on one side of a piece of cream wove paper, roughly 41.5 x 60 cm. Central vertical crease. Fair, on lightly-aged paper. A little grubby, with a few closed tears and slight creasing to extremities. Consists of two rectangles (each 29 x 22.5 cm) in black ink, each containing four illustrations, surrounded by an ornate thick blue decorative border of intertwined mermarids, rowers, children in boats, swans, fishes and other aquatic motifs.

Motorcycle, motorboat and motorcar racer (1868-1940), leading figure in the motor business, 'in farming established the largest pedigree pig-breeding business in the United Kingdom [...] winner of many classic cycle races, the only British winner of the Gordon Bennett race, the International Harmsworth Motor Boat Trophy and the Championship of the Sea at Monaco [...] holder for over 17 years of 24 hours' motor-car record of 1581 miles' continuous driving, in this country, and then beaten by his own car' (Who's Who). Both items one page, quarto.