Bidspirit auction | WW2 Victoria Cross Eric Wilson

WW2 Victoria Cross Eric Wilson VC signed RAF cover East African Campaign 50th Ann. In August 1940, Wilson was 27 years old, and by then an acting captain attached to the Somaliland Camel Corps, when Italian forces commanded by General Guglielmo Nasi invaded British Somaliland (now Somaliland). During the Italian conquest of British Somaliland the heavily outnumbered British-led forces made their stand on the hills around Tug Argan. During this battle, from 11 to 15 August 1940 at Observation Hill, Captain Wilson kept a Vickers machine-gun post in action in spite of being wounded and suffering from malaria. Some of his guns were blown to pieces by the enemy's field artillery fire, and his spectacles were smashed. He was wounded in the right shoulder and the left eye, and he was assumed to have been killed. For his actions, likened in the Daily Sketch to another Rorke's Drift, Wilson was awarded the Victoria Cross. Wilson has the rare distinction of being mistakenly awarded a ”posthumous” VC, announced in The London Gazette on 16 October 1940. At the time the award was made, he was believed to be missing in action, presumed dead. He had, however, been captured by the Italians. An official report in The Times on 16 October indicated that he had survived, but another captured officer was surprised to find the ”late” Captain Wilson still alive in a prisoner of war camp in Eritrea. In 1941, when the Italian forces in East Africa surrendered following the East African Campaign, Wilson was released from captivity. He returned to England and received his Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace in July 1942. Good condition Est.