Malta--Visitors Book

including Viscount Gort, Governor of Malta (10 July 1943), General Dwight Eisenhower (July 1943), General H.R. Alexander, Admiral Louis Mountbatten, General B.C. Freyberg (29 July 1943), also signed by Noel Coward, General Henri Giraud (14 August 1943), Vice Admiral Andrew Cunningham (17 November 1943), Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal, the Chinese General Yang Chieh [Jie] (17 January 1944), the 10th Duke of Devonshire (20 November 1950), Winston S. Churchill, Field Marshal Wavell, Air Marshal Sir Arthur "Mary" Coningham, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Jawaharlal Nehru (2 December 1946), Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck (30 April 1947), Field Marshal Montgomery of Alamein (1 March 1951), altogether 34 signatures on five pages, oblong 8vo, embossed limp green calf covers

An exceptional relic of World War II. This was evidently an informal distinguished visitors' book, probably connected to an official building in Malta. The island a crucial location for the battle for the Mediterranean during World War II and the book was begun when many of the most senior officers involved in the Invasion of Sicily were on Malta; at least one signature, that of the island's governor, Viscount Gort, is dated on the day the invasion force landed on Sicily. The book includes signatures of senior members of the armed forces of the UK, USA, Free France, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and China. The most significant group of post-war signatures are those of Nehru, Jinnah, and Wavell, then Viceroy of India, who stopped in London en route to London for a conference on the future of India that ended in failure and paved the way for the partition of the country. Churchill's signature is undated but it may date from the Malta Conference with Roosevelt of February 1945, although there do not appear to be any other signatures relating to that event in the book.