April 27, 2024

The World of Churchill Collectables

By BRIAN KRAPF

The eightieth anniversary of D-Day is next month, 6 June 2024. In honor of that milestone event, we will examine a related historical item: Eisenhower’s Letter to the troops from HMS Lightfoot. Shown here is General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Great Crusade” D-Day letter to the troops, disseminated just prior to their embarkation to cross the English Channel for the Normandy landings. The letter is historic, though not particularly rare: every allied soldier, sailor, and airman participating in the 1944 landings received one. This one, however is special.

This copy seen here was signed along the right-hand margin on 6 June 1944 by the crew of HMS Lighfoot. Lightfoot was a minesweeper built in Canada in 1942 and transferred to the Royal Navy on 19 October 1943 under the Lend Lease program. As a minesweeper, Lightfoot participated in D-Day. Since the waters off the Normandy coast needed to be cleared of mines, she would have been one of the first ships of the great armada to sail into the battle zone. The minesweepers crossed the English Channel on 5 June to begin clearing mines for Operation Neptune, the actual landing of troops. Between sweeps, Lightfoot, like other minesweepers, provided cover fire for the troop landings. A period photo accompanying this article shows HMS Lightfoot painted in the D-Day scheme used by all allied ships participating off the Normandy coast.

Realizing they were a part of history, the Lightfoot crew signed this copy of the Eisenhower letter for posterity on D-Day itself. It is simply an amazing piece of history from a day that changed the course of the Second World War.

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Brian Krapf’s book A Churchill Treasury: Sir Winston’s Public Service through Memorabilia will be published on June 30.