AUCTION_PLUGIN_SKU_LABEL: 80104

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Description

Joseph TRUMPELDOR / ZION MULE CORPS mail: 29 JUNE 1915 civilian Registered Letter RE stationary cover with manuscript "On Field Service" (OAS) endorsement, from APO SZ1 Gallipoli/West Beach Cape Helles to Miss E. Rosoff in ALEXANDRIA Egypt, prepaid by embossed red 3d GB KVG frank (now removed from top right) + handwritten endorsement in box at bottom, on 3 lines "from Captain Trumpeldor | Zion Mule Corps | Mediterran. Exped. Force Gallipoli", with handwritten registration R APO SZ1 - 218 at top left + correspondence chain serial number 24 written twice on front, tied by single strike of double ring APO postmark Proud D1 at bottom right & inspected by censor 2682 (per Daniel assigned uniquely to the Zion Mule Corps, under 1st Australian & 29th Divisions) whose square CM2 mark is tied to bottom right (full identity borne out by other letters from Trumpeldor); backstamped 7 VII 15 ALEXANDRIA R3 transit & same day ALEXANDRIA R arrival; right flap mostly torn off, but not affecting the key postal/historical markings.
Trumpeldor (1880-1920), a hero of the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, the highest decorated Jewish soldier in the Czarst Russian Army & Zionist activist, helped establish and lead the Mule Corps - generally considered the 1st Jewish military unit in 2000 years. The addressee Esther 'Fira' Rosoff (1893-1951) was his girlfriend/fiancee at the time; she immigrated to Palestine in 1908, was expelled with most of the Jewish community by the Turks in December 1914 and met Trumpeldor in the Gabari deportee camp in Alexandria in 1915 and the two became engaged.
Her brother, Israel Binyamin Rosoff (Rosov), 1869-1948, was a Zionist activist and leader, and early member of the Revisionist movement. The day before posting this letter the unit took part in the successful Battle of Gully Ravine, which ended on 5 July.
The handwriting on this letter is all Trumpeldor's and conforms exactly to the style of other letters in his correspondences with Rosoff; this is the only Registered Letter cover of his known to us on the market in the last decade.