Here is one of those stories where they try to put the best face on a pretty bad picture. In doing so, they come right up to the edge of making a fake stamp. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
What right does a government in exile have to print stamps that should be collected and bought in bulk by the stamp collecting hobby. As with a similar Yugoslav stamp I wrote about here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/07/30/communist-yugoslavia-1950-sells-off-the-invalid-exile-stamps/ , the answer was found in the navy ships at sea that escaped the invasions. The tiny crews could use the stamps on their mail, so that makes them real. Or course, you have to accept that the British Royal Navy was handling it. Well if you do accept it, sorry I think it fake. HNoMS Sleipner was a good subject, it was pretty much it as far as Norway still fighting for the Allies. It had a crew of 72.
Todays stamp is issue A43, a 10 Ore stamp issued in London by the Royal government of Norway in exile in 1943. It was an 8 stamp issue in various denominations. Post war, the issue was made more real by selling them finally from Norway’s post offices. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused. A version of the stamp set with an overstamp of London with a date and a serial ups the value to $700. Barrel aged no doubt.
The Royal Norwegian Navy ordered 6 copies of the locally made Sheipner class of destroyers in the mid 1930s. They were reasonably modern but sized more like a larger torpedo boat. Four were in service when Germany invaded in April 1940. The lead ship Sleipner, named after Norse God Oden’s horse, had already seen its most interesting action. Germans had boarded and taken as a prize an American cargo ship the SS City of Flint. The treasure crew then sailed for the nearest neutral port to collect bounty. The Sleiper had chased it away from the port of Tromso without firing. The ship went on to Haugesund where the Germans were interned but the ship was not returned to the USA.
The Sleipner again went into action against the Germans after the invasion. The only one of the four destroyers in service to do so. It was to cover British landings at Narvik. The ship came under what must have seemed like intense attack from the air. 48 bombs were dropped near the ship with none hitting. There was a lot of Allied propaganda at the time portraying the Sleipner as an unsinkable ship. Given what happened later it was clear that the Germans were purposely missing because they intended to seize the ship intact and make use of it.
Two of the Sleipner class were seized intact by the Germans and put into action by the Kriegsmarine. Two more still under construction were finished and also used. Germany re-designated them Torpedoboots Ausland and gave them new names. The Gyller became the Lowe and had interesting service. In 1945 it was escorting the German troopship Wilhelm Gustloff which was evacuating German civilians by sea from East Prussia. Wilhelm Gustloff was then hit by a torpedo fired by a Soviet submarine S-13. Lowe pulled alongside and saved 472 people from the doomed ship.
Just because the Sleipner couldn’t be sunk doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be mothballed and that it was happened to it early in 1944 over a year before the end of the war. After the war the Sleipner and the four remaining sister ships that served Germany returned to Norway and were modernized and re-designated as frigates. The served Norway’s Navy until the late 1950s.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the stamp designers that labor to provide much needed funds for governments in exile. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.