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Field Marshal Montgomery WW2 hand written letter??

I just picked this up for a song, as there were no other bidders for it, which is what actually has me worried, seeing as if it is indeed real, it should have garnered considerably more interest?

At first inspection, this hand written and signed letter by Field Marshal B.L. Montgomery, dated "Germany June 27, 1945", seems to be correct. However the lack of a header is what started me to question it. From all the other written letters I have seen by him, they all seem to have some sort of personal letterhead (of one form or another), as would be befitting the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army! And also the fact that it is not addressed to anybody? I mean, he's asking someone to thank his troops for a job well done in winning the war, but who?? So, perhaps he was writing this for his own use as a speech, but in reading it, it doesn't appear so, and why sign it the way he did if that was the case?

I'm stumped...this letter on the one hand seems correct, yet it also has some (in my view) major issues. Perhaps it is the work of a master forger who had no proper letterhead and no thought on who to address it to? Oh the things that go through ones mind! Here's hoping it's genuine. What do others think? Thanks!

Tags: Field, Marshal, Montgomery

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Permalink Reply by Greg on April 11, 2018 at 2:30pm

Here is another letter I found which was written three months beforehand for comparison.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Paul on April 12, 2018 at 7:47am

A bit hard to tell is it actually "live" ink or perhaps a preprint. I would think if it was actually written by him it is probably a template for something to be mass produced to be given to troops. You might want to search and see if any examples like this show up. The informal paper and the way it is meant to be for a large number of men is unusual. Hopefully others that know Montgomery better than I do will chime in. My father saw Montgomery during the War while serving in the 9th Army so it is always interesting to see things like this. Personally I doubt a forger would use a blank sheet like that and then write that much in hand. I may be wrong but that is a lot of effort to do it.

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Permalink Reply by Greg on April 12, 2018 at 11:12am

Thank you very much for your reply Scott! I never thought of the preprint angle. It appears that you are correct...a search of the wording of the letter revealed an entry in the book "Ubique: The Royal Artillery in the Second World War" by Richard Doherty which refers to the letter. I informed the seller, who admits he was unaware of this, and has promptly cancelled my order.

Thanks again, and thanks for AML!

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Permalink Reply by Scott Paul on April 12, 2018 at 11:17am

You are more than welcome I am glad that things worked out so well. Winston Churchill used very good preprinted thank you notes (most were dated) to people wishing him a Happy Birthday.

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Permalink Reply by Greg on April 12, 2018 at 11:39am

I wasn't aware of that. I'll have to keep my eye out for those pesky preprints more often in the future!

Thanks again Scott!

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Permalink Reply by michelle on April 12, 2018 at 12:31pm

he also had a number of secretaries working for him as well, a bit like some of hte jfk signatures on ebay. A genuine Montgomery letter would be worth quite a few thousand pounds at auction.

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Permalink Reply by Greg on April 13, 2018 at 6:44am

I'm surprised to hear that as all the Monty signatures I've seen would appear to be done in his own hand? Would you happen to have an example of one of his secretarials? Is my first example one of those? The only thing I really found off in that letter was how he did his capital 'I'; they don't appear to have his usual graceful flow and appear more forced to me, compared to the second example I provided...

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Permalink Reply by michelle on April 14, 2018 at 4:04am

I have actually seen a few montgomery ones that were secretarial but apologies for the confusion as I was a bit unclear. when I was talking about secretaries I was replying to someone's previous post about W Churchill who had nearly as many secretaries signing for him as JFK, - sorry again if I have unintentially confused you Greg. However, a genuine Montgomery does sell for quite a lot.

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Permalink Reply by Greg on April 14, 2018 at 12:02pm

I can imagine someone like Churchill having a lot of secretaries, but I wouldn't have expected that of Montgomery? If you should ever come across a Monty secretarial, could you post it here, I'd be very interested in seeing it.

Thanks again for everyone's help!