WORLD WAR II:

An exceptional and extremely rare vintage multiple signed ‘Short Snorter’, the American One Dollar bank note, featuring over twenty five signatures, including ‘The Big Three’ of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, and many other leading political and military figures of World War II, all collected by Frank Sawyer, valet to Winston S. Churchill, at various historic meetings between 1939-45. The identified signatories on the ‘Short Snorter’ are -

Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965) British Prime Minister 1940-45, 1951-55. At the outbreak of World War II Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and, following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain, became Prime Minister in 1940. His speeches and radio broadcasts helped inspire British resistance, especially during the difficult days of 1940-41 when the British Commonwealth and Empire stood almost alone in its active opposition to Adolf Hitler. Churchill led Great Britain as Prime Minister until victory over Nazi Germany had been secured.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) American President 1933-45. Following the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Roosevelt obtained the approval of the United States Congress to declare war on Japan and, a few days later, Germany. The President worked closely with Winston S. Churchill and Joseph Stalin (as well as Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek) in leading the Allies against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan in World War II. ‘The Big Three’ of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met regularly during World War II, most notably at the Tehran Conference (1943) and the Yalta Conference (1945).

Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1922-52. Stalin met Winston S. Churchill and/or Franklin D. Roosevelt in several conferences during World War II to plan military strategy and, later, to discuss Europe’s post-war reorganisation. The earlier conferences, such as that with British diplomats in Moscow in 1941, and with Churchill and American diplomats in Moscow in 1942, largely focused on war planning and supply. In 1943 Stalin met Churchill and Roosevelt at the Tehran Conference and in the following year the Soviet dictator met Churchill at the Moscow Conference. In February 1945, at the Yalta Conference, Stalin demanded a Soviet sphere of political influence in Eastern Europe. He was eventually convinced by Churchill and Roosevelt not to dismember Germany.

King George VI (1895-1952) King of the United Kingdom 1936-52. In 1939, following Britain’s declaration of War on Nazi Germany, King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth, resolved to stay in London and reside at Buckingham Palace despite the German bombing raids (one of which nearly killed them). Throughout World War II King George VI made various morale boosting visits and travelled to see Allied military forces abroad in France in December 1939, North Africa and Malta in June 1943, Normandy in June 1944, southern Italy in July 1944 and the Low Countries in October 1944. Each Tuesday for four and a half years from September 1940 King George VI met privately with Winston S. Churchill for lunch in order to discuss the war in in secret and with frankness, developing into ‘the closest personal relationship in modern British history between a monarch and a Prime Minister’.

Anthony Eden (1897-1977) 1st Earl of Avon. British Prime Minister 1955-57, succeeding Winston S. Churchill after having served as his deputy for almost fifteen years. Eden served as Foreign Secretary on three occasions, including a spell for most of World War II from 1940-45, and also briefly served as Secretary of State for War in 1940. Eden was one of Churchill’s closest confidants, however his role during the war as Foreign Secretary was restricted as Churchill himself conducted the most important negotiations with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin. Despite this Eden served loyally as Churchill’s lieutenant and was present at the Quebec Conference in 1943 and the Potsdam Conference in 1945.

Louis Mountbatten (1900-1979) 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma. British Admiral of the Fleet. Mountbatten, a favourite of Churchill, served as Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command from 1943-46. He also accompanied Churchill to his meeting with Franklin Roosevelt in French Morocco, known as the Casablanca Conference, in January 1943 (which Stalin declined to attend).

Harold Alexander (1891-1969). 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis. British Field Marshal. Alexander oversaw the final stages of the Allied evacuation from Dunkirk and later held high ranking field commands in Burma, North Africa and Italy, including serving as Commander-in-Chief Middle East and commanding the 18th Army Group in Tunisia. Alexander then commanded the 15th Army Group for the capture of Sicily and ended the war as Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean.

Alan Brooke (1883-1963) 1st Viscount Alanbrooke. British Field Marshal who served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the professional head of the British Army, during World War II. As Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, Brooke was the foremost military adviser to Winston S. Churchill and had the role of co-ordinator of the British military efforts in the Allies’ victory in 1945.

Arthur Tedder (1890-1967) 1st Baron Tedder. British Marshal of the Royal Air Force. Tedder served as Air Officer Commanding RAF Middle East Command during World War II and directed air operations in the Mediterranean and North Africa, including the evacuation of Crete and Operation Crusader in North Africa. Later in the war Tedder took command of Mediterranean Air Command and, as such, was closely involved in the planning of the Allied Invasion of Sicily and then the Allied invasion of Italy. Tedder was appointed Deputy Supreme Commander at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) under Dwight Eisenhower at the time of the planning of Operation Overlord, the invasion of France.

Hastings Ismay (1887-1965) 1st Baron Ismay. British Indian Army General and Diplomat. During World War II Ismay served as chief military assistant to Winston S. Churchill, becoming the principal link between the Prime Minister and the Chiefs of Staff Committee. Ismay accompanied Churchill on numerous wartime conferences including the Casablanca Conference, the third Washington Conference, the Quebec Conference, the Cairo Conference and the Tehran Conference, all of which took place in 1943. Ismay also accompanied Lord Beaverbrook to the first Moscow Conference in 1941 and accompanied Anthony Eden to the third Moscow Conference in 1943.

Max Aitken (1879-1964) 1st Baron Beaverbrook. Canadian Business Tycoon, Politician and Newspaper Proprietor. A friend and confidant of Winston S. Churchill, Beaverbrook was appointed Minister of Aircraft Production (1940-41) by the Prime Minister and also went on to serve Churchill as Minister of Supply (1941-42), Minister of War Production (1942) and Lord Privy Seal (1943-45). In 1941 Beaverbrook headed the British delegation to Moscow with W. Averell Harriman, making Beaverbrook the first senior British politician to meet Joseph Stalin since Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Beaverbrook also accompanied Churchill to several wartime meetings with Franklin D. Roosevelt, with whom he also enjoyed a friendly relationship.

Randolph Churchill (1911-1968) British Journalist & Politician, son of Winston S. Churchill. Churchill played an active role during World War II, both in political office and military service. He rose to the rank of Major and saw action in the Western Desert Theatre and also joined the newly formed Special Air Service (SAS) and their Commanding Officer, David Stirling, along with six other SAS officers on a mission in the Libyan Desert. Churchill encouraged the conversion of Vichy fighters to De Gaulle’s army, submitting reports to Parliament in 1943, and went on a diplomatic mission to Yugoslavia in 1944.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) American President 1953-61. A General with the United States Army during World War II, Eisenhower served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch (1942-43) and the successful invasion of France and Germany (1944-45) from the Western Front.

W. Averell Harriman (1891-1986) American Politician & Diplomat who served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a special envoy to Europe and as the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union 1943-46 and U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, 1946. Harriman was present at a number of important meetings and conferences during World War II including the meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt at Placentia Bay in 1941 (yielding the Atlantic Charter), the Moscow Conference of 1942, the Tehran Conference of 1943, the Yalta Conference and finally also the Potsdam Conference (both 1945).

Kathleen Harriman (1917-2011) American Journalist, daughter of W. Averell Harriman. Harriman accompanied her father to the Yalta Conference in 1945 and, a year earlier, serving as her father’s representative she had accompanied various other foreign correspondents to the Katyn forest in western Russia, the site of the massacre of thousands of Polish officers earlier in the war. The journalists had been taken there to witness the autopsies of the exhumed bodies, part of a Russian disinformation campaign to ensure that Nazi Germany would be blamed for the atrocities. The myth (aided by many unwitting news agencies) that the Nazis had carried out the killings would endure for many years until, decades later, the Russians admitted responsibility.

Roy W. Howard (1883-1964) American Journalist, President of United Press. Howard was granted an interview by Joseph Stalin in 1936. A supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in his initial Presidential election, Howard’s relationship with the American President later soured. White House documents dating from World War II revealed that Roosevelt had decreed that Howard should not be issued with a passport or to be sent overseas as a foreign correspondent.

King Peter II (1923-1970) King of Yugoslavia 1934-45. Following the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941 by Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy (all of whom annexed various parts of the country) King Peter II travelled to London where he joined numerous other governments in exile from Nazi occupied Europe. The King was commissioned in the Royal Air Force and, in 1942, made an ambassadorial visit to America, meeting Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an (ultimately unsuccessful) effort to secure Allied support for the exiled Yugoslav monarchist cause. Roosevelt and Churchill had, however, already engaged the support of the Communist Yugoslav Government in the Allied effort to defeat Nazi Germany.

All of the signatures are in fountain pen inks and, by the very nature of the short snorter, some are more legible than others. It is of particular interest, most likely as a deliberate act, that the Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin chose to sign his name across the image of American President George Washington at the centre of the bank note. The short snorter also features the ownership signature of Frank Sawyer. Some light overall age wear, otherwise about VG

An exceptionally rare collection of signatures by some of World War II’s most important political and military leaders, including ‘The Big Three’ of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin.

Provenance: The present short snorter was previously in the possession of Frank Sawyer, who served as Winston Churchill’s valet during World War II, leaving his service after the end of the war. In such a role Sawyer, would have accompanied Churchill on many domestic and foreign trips, not least to the various conferences held in Casablanca, Moscow, Tehran and Yalta during the course of the war. On such trips, Sawyer evidently had access to many of the important individuals in Churchill’s company and took such opportunities to extend the collection of significant signatures on his short snorter.

American Book Prices Current record only a small handful of autographs by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin together on one piece having been previously sold at auction, including a White House card signed at the Tehran Conference ($65,000, Profiles in History, 2014), another White House card signed by all three, from the Forbes Collection and contained in an album ($22,000, Christie’s New York, 2010) and a United States card signed at the Potsdam Conference (£15,000 [$26,258], Christie’s, 2003).

The tradition and history of the short snorter in World War II is perhaps best summarised by Michael Dobbs in his book Six Months in 1945 - FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman - From World War to Cold War (2012) in which he writes ‘Perhaps the quirkiest of summit rituals was the short-snorter game. Invented by Alaskan bush pilots, it had been embraced by Presidents, Prime Ministers, ambassadors and generals alike. The rules were simple. A group of people travelling together signed banknotes recording who was present. Anybody unable to produce the banknote upon request at a subsequent meeting was obliged to buy a drink (a ‘short snort’) for his companions. Previous conferences had resulted in countless short snorters signed by everybody from Churchill to George C. Patton. At the second Yalta plenary session, Harry Hopkins made it his business to get Stalin’s signature on a short snorter….FDR and Churchill had no hesitation signing the ten-ruble note bearing the sacrosanct image of Vladimir Lenin, but Stalin balked, obviously mystified. Roosevelt explained the rules, adding that anybody who flew across the Atlantic could join the club, provided that he was invited by at least two existing members. This gave Stalin an easy way out. He pointed out that he had never flown across the Atlantic and was therefore ineligible. “I am taking it upon myself to waive that requirement in this instance” replied the President magnanimously. The vozhd signed - but was not amused’.