JS(CC)67 RAF cover showing a Coastal Command Vickers Wellington of No 36 Squadron over a German Type VII U-Boat bearing a single Royal Mail Submarine stamp cancelled on the first day of issue with our BFPS sponsored postmark for the Centenary of the Royal Navy Submarine Service 1901-2001.

This cover has been personally signed by Kapitänleutnant Siegfried Koitschka Knight’s Cross, U-Boat Commander of U-71 & U-616.

Official special, numbered and certified on reverse.

Kapitänleutnant Zur See Siegfried Koitschka Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Born  Siebitz, Bautzen 06.08.1917
U-Bootskriegsabzeichen 08.05.1941
Iron Cross 1st Class 07.10.1941
German Cross 19.11.1943
Knight’s Cross 27.01.1944

Siegfried Koitschka began his naval career in April 1937. After some months on the cruiser Admiral Hipper and in a training unit he transferred to the U-boat force in June 1940.  Six months later he became second watch officer (II WO) on the newly commissioned U-552, the famous ‘Red Devil Boat’.  He accompanied the U-boat on her first six patrols under the command of Erich Topp. He left U-552, certainly with a lot of combat experience, in December 1941.  After the commander training course in the 26th Flotilla, he became commander of the school boat U-7.  But in December of the same year he took command of his own boat, the Type VIIC U-boat U-616.  After one patrol in the North Atlantic he managed to break through the Straits of Gibraltar in May 1943.  After six patrols in the Mediterranean, where he sank a US destroyer in October 1943 and damaged two ships in May 1944 for a total of more than 17,000 tons (he claimed more sinkings, but they were not confirmed successes), he left Toulon on 30 April for his last patrol.  Two weeks later, east of Cartagena, Spain, one of the longest U-boat hunting operations of the war took place. After torpedoing two ships, Kapitänleutnant Koitschka with U-616 was located by US destroyers on 14 May 1944.  Over the next three days the U-boat was attacked British Wellington aircraft as well as the pursuing destroyers and was finally forced to surface on the 17 May.  All the crew survived the scuttling of the U-boat and taken as prisoners of war.  Siegfried Koitschka spent more than two years in Allied captivity before he was released in June 1946.

U-boat Commands:
U-71 06.01.1942 - 07.10.1942    Sank 3 ships for a total of 8.966 tons
U-616 08.10.1942 - 17.05.1944    1 ship damaged for a total of 10.627 tons

We usually have lots of other items up for sale so why not have a look