author & mariner Alan Villiers SIGNED 1937 Christmas card: WWII DSC Burma Sicily

Description

This is a Christmas card
signed by Alan Villiers.
Alan John Villiers (1903-1982) was
an author, adventurer, photographer,
and mariner, who commanded several
different full-rigged ships, and who
served
in the Royal Naval Reserve
during the Second World War.
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Villiers
first went to sea at age 15 and sailed
on board traditionally rigged vessels,
including the full-rigged ship Joseph
Conrad. He commanded square-rigged
ships for films, including Moby Dick
and Billy Budd. He also commanded
the Mayflower II on its voyage from
the United Kingdom to the United States.
Among Villiers many achievements,
he
circumnavigated the globe while
commanding an amateur crew.
With the outbreak of World War II,
Villiers was commissioned as a
Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve
in 1940. He was assigned to a convoy
of 24 large Landing craft, Infantry
(
LCILs).
Ordered to deliver them across
the
Atlantic, with a 40 percent loss rate
expected, Villiers got all but one safely
across. He commanded "flights" of
LCI(L)'s on D-Day in the Battle of
Normandy, the Invasion of Sicily, and
the Burma Campaign in the Far East.
Villiers was eventually
promoted to
Commander, and
was awarded the
British Distinguished Service Cross.
Villiers wrote 44 books, and served
as the Chairman (1960–70) and later
President (1970-74) of the Society
for Nautical Research, as a Trustee of
the National Maritime Museum, and as
Governor of the Cutty Sark Preservation
Society.
Among his many books are the following:
Whaling In The Frozen South
(1925)
Sea Dogs of Today
(1931)
Vanished Fleets
(1931)
Whalers of the Midnight Sun
(1935)
Cruise of the Conrad
(1937)
Stormalong
(1937)
The Quest of the Schooner Argus
(1951)
The Cutty Sark: Last of A Glorious Era
(1953)
The Windjammer Story
(1958)
Give Me a Ship to Sail
(1959)
The War with Cape Horn
(1971)
The Christmas
card is signed in ink
by Alan Villiers, and is dated 1937.
The signed card comes with a certificate
of authenticity
from JG Autographs.
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