WW2 SOE agent & chiefs multi-signed cover UACC DEALER

Marriott Royal Navy series commemorative envelope dedicated to the SOE Agents in Europe 1939-45 signed by THREE notable former SOE veterans in Odette Hallowes (Field Operative), Maurice Buckmaster (Head of the French section SOE) and Sir Brooks Richards (Head of F Section, Algiers) this is a VERY rare cover and is numbered No97 of only 165 that were produced.

Colonel Maurice James Buckmaster OBE (11 January 1902 – 17 April 1992, Forest Row, East Sussex) was the leader of the French section of Special Operations Executive and was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

Odette Sansom Hallowes GC, MBE (28 April 1912 – 13 March 1995) was an Allied intelligence agent during the Second World War.

Sir Francis "Brooks" Richards, KCMG, DSO, DSC (18 July 1918, Southampton – 13 September 2002, Dorchester), was a British diplomat and, during the Second World War, a director of operations for the Special Operations Executive (Head of F section in Algiers).

At the outbreak of war, he organised secret service agents for secret Channel crossings to France and across the Mediterranean to land in Tunisia.

In 1940 he was put in command of HMS Sevra (sunk that November), and in 1941 he was taken on by SOE. At the end of 1942 he was in Algiers when admiral Darlan was also there at the time of the Allied landings. He met Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle several times before La Chapelle attempted to assassinate Darlan. Brooks Richards always denied that Bonnier de la Chapelle, who moved in Royalist circles, was working for SOE. In May 1943, after the liberation of Tunis, Commander Brooks Richards was head of F section in Algiers, directing SOE agents parachuted into enemy territory or landed at night on the beaches. In Algiers he also got to know Charles de Gaulle. He wrote an account of this period in his book Secret Flotillas.

In Autumn 1944 he served in the staff of Duff Cooper, minister-resident charged with re-opening the British embassy in Paris, and in 1945 he became a reservist in the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR). In 1944 to 1948 he was a press attaché in Paris, and in 1954 he began a diplomatic career, starting as first secretary and head of the administration in the Persian Gulf, a post he held until 1957. In 1958–59 he was Assistant Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary, before returning to France during De Gaulle's presidency to work as intelligence advisor at the British embassy from 1959 to 1964.