Germany, Kriegsmarine. A Historically-Significant Photo Album from a POW of U-110 and Survivor of Operation Primrose

(Kriegsmarine Kriegsgefangener Fotoalbum). A rare and historically-significant photo album documenting the time in captivity of crewmen of U-110, a Type IXB U-Boat captured by the Royal Navy on 9 May 1941, affording the Allies critical insight on coded communications and ciphers used by the Wehrmacht, constructed of a card stock binding with 11 interior card stock pages protected by intact cellophane liners, featuring 49 black-and-white photos of various sizes, featuring a variety of fascinating images depicting camp life, including images of German prisoners of war (POW) at leisure, including summer and winter sports, with further depictions of work and activities including logging and hunting, supplemented by images of military interest, with POWs in uniform, conducting a burial at Camp 132 in Medicine Hat, Alberta, and keeping animals, including squirrels and a tame bear, interspersed with landscapes and images of the camps as a whole, with each image accompanied by a paper label bearing a descriptive typewritten caption of the scene, also accompanied by a chronological list of the camps the crew were detained in (with 13 locations in Canada, England, Scotland, and Germany from may 1941 until February 1947), notably supplement by an exceptionally rare sports badge produced for inmates of Camp 23 (Monteith, Ontario), constructed of machine embroidery and measuring 12.5 cm (w) x 12 cm (h), in addition to a laminated Christmas 1942 greeting card signed by a number of the crew and measuring 19 cm (w) x 26.5 cm (h), and concluding with a hand-drawn obituary naming the 15 crew members who died during their period of captivity, with the seated rat tradition badge of U-110, measuring 25 cm (w) x 29 cm (h), a superb memento documenting the fate of the crew of a U-Boat involved in one of the key intelligence-gathering operations of the Second World War in extremely fine condition.

Footnote: On 8 Mary 1941, U-110 participated in an attack on Convoy OB-318 near the Hebrides. Breaking off due to lighting conditions, the vessel returned and, alongside U-201, fired three torpedoes resulting in the sinking of two ships. At this time, U-110's periscope was sighted by the Royal Navy corvette HMS Aubrietia which, supported by destroyers HMS Bulldog and HMS Broadway, severely damaged it with depth charges. Now disabled and with the latter on course to ram, the crew surrendered and abandoned ship. However, Kapitänleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp, in command of U-110, realized that the U-Boat was not sinking and attempted to swim back to destroy classified material, but vanished in the process. A total of 15 sailors were killed during this action, with an additional 32 captured (including the sailor who compiled this album). A boarding party from HMS Bulldog stripped U-110 of everything portable, including its Enigma machine and Kurzsignale code book. The Royal Navy attempted to tow the U-Boat to Iceland, but it sank in the process. The information acquired from U-110 ultimately allowed Bletchley Park codebreakers to solve the Reservehandverfahren, a German hand cipher.