Forged Papers and Medals of Colditz Escapee Up For Sale

[gaijinsamurai]

It was an escape right out of a Boys' Own adventure - and one of the most celebrated tales of British ingenuity to emerge from World War Two.
And now the forged papers that made it possible for one of the few men to make it out of the 'escape-proof' Colditz prison camp have come up for sale, along with the hero's medals.
Lieutenant-Commander William Stephens was captured during the daring raid on the German naval base at St Nazaire in France and ended up at the notorious castle..........


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111466/Revealed-The-forged-papers-used-Colditz-escapee-make-home-run-Europe-Britain.html#ixzz1oUT1VIwj




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111466/Revealed-The-forged-papers-used-Colditz-escapee-make-home-run-Europe-Britain.html

[pocoloco]

I hope they end up in a proper museum. Thanks for the link GS.

[Jarhead]

^^ Or at least in a proper collection.
Hopefully this lot stays together.

[Connaught Ranger]

I hope they end up in a proper museum. Thanks for the link GS.

One has to be careful with items being donated to museums, there are known cases of the items being sold off at a later stage by the the museum when the current director wants to fund new display projects or pay for maintainance.

Connaught Ranger

[pocoloco]

One has to be careful with items being donated to museums, there are known cases of the items being sold off at a later stage by the the museum when the current director wants to fund new display projects or pay for maintainance.

Connaught Ranger

I guess that might true in case of either privately funded museum or one that is run by a trust or foundation of some sort. Here the nationally run museums could not do that. Of course they can take something away from their collections, but that means that the items need to be destroyed.

[Connaught Ranger]

I guess that might true in case of either privately funded museum or one that is run by a trust or foundation of some sort. Here the nationally run museums could not do that. Of course they can take something away from their collections, but that means that the items need to be destroyed.

Surprising what can be "filed away" in the archives and then mysteriously leave the museum by the back door,;-) or more blatantly, legitimately sold by the museum, this has happened to items donated to British Regimental Museums, as well as national publicly funded museums.

Another interesting case was that of a British Gurkha veteran who donated his actual WW2 medal bar including Victoria Cross to the Regimental Museum, on a visit to the U.K. and hoping to aid the cause of the plight of British Gurkha veterans and their low military pensions, when he applied to the museum to obtain his medal bar for wear while in the U.K. to have his request be flatly refused by the civilian administrator of the Museum who claimed by donating the medal bar to the Museum he had given up all rights to the items!!!

Last year in New Zaland was a well publicised case of a military musuem official on trail for stealing many military medals from the museum and selling them for cash.

Connaught Ranger.