[Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Bonham-Carter, Treasurer to Duke of Edinburgh] Typed Letter Signed ('Christopher Bonham-Carter') to 'Director of the Operations Division, Ministry of Defence (Navy)', about 'Bloodhound's passage back from Brunsbuttel'.

Author: 
Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Bonham-Carter (1907-1975), Royal Navy, and Treasurer to the Duke of Edinburgh, 1959-1970 [Racing Yacht Bloodhound; Royal Yacht Britannia Trust]
Publication details: 
London: on his Buckingham Palace letterhead ('From: Rear-Admiral Christopher Bonham-Carter, C.B., C.V.O.'). 27 October 1964.
£95.00
SKU: 15004

2pp., 4to. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. In the letter the Duke of Edinburgh is referred to as 'the Sailing Master'. Addressed to 'The Director of the Operations Division, Ministry of Defence (Navy)', and beginning 'Dear Director of Operations Division (if indeed you are still called that!), | The Sailing Master (and I) are interested in whether we caused you any concern during Bloodhound's passage back from Brunsbuttel to this country. | I happened to have been in Scotland and rather out of touch at this time, so I don't know the answers from the receiving end and remained in blissful ignorance of what was going on. | Bloodhound achieved the usual radio failure and the sequence of signals as I have it from the Sailing Master, was as follows: -'. Four entries, lettered a to d, follow, concluding '(d) about 0800 on 18th he got through to North Foreland Radio on is very sick radio. Thereafter all was peace. During this period Bloodhound was going, I won't say happily, but safely through a Force 9 Gale and the Sailing Master was worried sick that, because of his communications, at any moment a Shackleton (or whatever it is nowadays) would appear overhead! The headlines in the Express were only too apparent to him! "Royal Yacht Lost in Gale!" etc. etc.' He would like to know whether 'any of his various ropey signals got through and allayed any anxiety'. The Racing Yacht Bloodhound was owned by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh in the 1960s and was acquired by the Royal Yacht Britannia Trust in 2010.