What happened to the Isle of Man TT Trophies during WWII?
I promised myself I'd make this video before the end of TT - well, close but no banana.
It's one of my favourite stories from TT history, and barely anyone seems to have heard it.
Many people are aware that the Nazis exploited the 1939 TT for propaganda value, mainly thanks to Roger Willis's excellent book The Nazi TT. But even Roger states that it's fortunate the trophies never left the Island.
Well, they did.
The Lightweight Trophy went to Italy. The Senior Trophy went to Germany. Within weeks, Britain was at war.
I first heard this story many years ago, but I can't find the original source. So I pieced together the tale of what happened to the trophies - and who recovered them - using the Manx National Heritage iMuseum newspaper archive (and borrowed their photos and footage for this video). Full list of sources in the description.
If anyone knows the original source for this story, please let me know!
N.B. If you remember reading about this in a series of tweets in 2023, that was also me - but I originally heard the story many years before that.