Signed First Day Covers. Movie Star signed photos. APOLLO & NASA SPACE. WW2 Colditz veteran Jimmy Yule signed handwritten letter – UACC DEALER. Handwritten letter with Colditz content, signed by former Colditz prisoner of war Jimmy Yule. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JIMMY YULE was a member of the secret wireless team that, under the noses of the Germans, obtained morale-boosting news for their fellow inmates at Colditz. Every night one of two teams, each consisting of an operator and a scribe, would move into a hidden compartment under the rafters of the castle where a small domestic wireless left behind by the French was installed. Yule was the operator of one of these teams. His scribe was Micky Burn, a journalist who had been captured while serving with the Commandos on the Saint Nazaire raid. A party of “putter inners” would open up the hide, see the wireless team in and batten them down. Once inside, the operator would tune the wireless to London Calling with Alvar Liddell and keep it on station while the scribe noted down details from the broadcasts. It was taxing work, not only because of the risk of detection but also because the wireless had a tendency to fade and drift off frequency. After half an hour or so the putter inners would have to return to let them out. After they had departed, a party of “dust layers” would scatter dust over the floor to restore the look of neglect that the guards were used to. The whole operation was covered by “stooges” who watched every movement the Germans made while the wireless was in use. It was then the scribe’s job to spread whatever information they had gleaned, from war news to football results, without compromising its source. Yule acted as a wireless operator from June 1943 until the end of the war. Throughout this period he was also involved in the writing of music, revues and pantomimes – activities which the Germans encouraged in the belief that they would distract prisoners from escape attempts. James de Denne Yule was born on September 17 1916 at Murree, India, and educated at Charterhouse. Maintaining a family tradition – his father being a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Indian Army – he then joined “The Shop”, the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and in 1936 was commissioned into the Royal Corps of Signals. In 1939 he joined the 5th Division Signal Regiment in France, but in April, in the wake of the German invasion of Norway, he was sent as part of 15th Infantry Brigade to Norway. The 15th Brigade’s fighting withdrawal from Kvam was the first contact between British regular troops (as opposed to Territorials) and the Germans in the Second World War. Although outnumbered and out-gunned, the brigade acquitted itself well. But when it was evacuated, it sailed without Yule. A few days earlier a train he was travelling on was bombed at Lesja and Yule found himself trapped under the wreckage. By May 1, unable to walk because of a twisted spine, he was a PoW. After a period in hospital in Norway, Yule was sent to Germany, being transferred from one prison camp to another and ending up, in March 1941, in Oflag VB near Biberach. Three weeks later, while he and 10 other officers were being transported by train to Bavaria, one of their number discovered that the carriage door was not locked. By the time the train reached its destination the compartment was empty and the line littered with PoWs. Yule had jumped with two companions, Bill “Lulu” Lawton of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment and E P G “Rex” Harrison of the Green Howards. Lawton injured his knee and had to give himself up, but Yule and Harrison started making their way towards Switzerland. After five nights on the run they hitched a lift on a train which they hoped would take them across the border, only to find themselves being carried into a well-guarded “shadow factory” where they were recaptured and sent to Colditz. The castle had by this time been earmarked for those prisoners regarded as especially deutschfeindlich, or hostile to the Germans, and it was here that Yule was to spend most of what he called his unscheduled holiday at the expense of the Wehrmacht. From the start, Yule threw himself into those theatrical activities which as well as relieving boredom, often served as a cover for escape plans. He knew how to arrange music and soon had a full pit orchestra, Jimmy Yule’s Band, equipped with instruments bought from the Germans with “Lagermarks” the PoW currency. One of his earliest and best-known productions was Ballet Nonsense. The band thrived despite the loss of its drummer, Lieutenant A P T Luteijn, of the Royal Netherlands Indian Army, who together with Lieutenant Airey Neave made a “home run” in January 1942, both disguised as German officers. In March 1943, Yule and 11 others were transferred to Spangenburg Castle, possibly because they were no longer regarded as a threat. Within weeks Yule had attempted to escape by crawling along the drainage pipes under the drawbridge, accompanied by Alan “Black” Campbell (now Lord Campbell of Alloway). Unfortunately, a dislodged stone landing in the moat alerted the guards and both men were “geschnappt”. After his return, in June 1943 Yule took up his post as operator of the secret radio, the existence of which was unknown to the Germans until after the war. WE ARE UACC REGISTERED DEALERS NUMBER RD209. We are UACC Registered Dealers RD209. Flat items are packaged in board backed envelopes with’Please Do Not Bend’ printed to the front. Items larger than 8×12 inches are usually sent in a sturdy tube. We are UACC Registered Dealer RD209. We continue to hold a large number of’Private Signings’ with Concorde Pilots, WWII Veterans, Celebrities and so on, in order to guarantee authenticity. _gsrx_vers_841 GS 7.0.16 (841). The item “WW2 Colditz veteran Jimmy Yule signed handwritten letter UACC DEALER” is in sale since Saturday, August 10, 2019. This item is in the category “Collectables\Autographs\Certified Original Autographs\Military”. The seller is “buyautographs” and is located in Ashford, Kent. This item can be shipped worldwide.

• Country Of Manufacture: United Kingdom