Nine: Chief Stoker Mechanic J. J. Blacklock, Royal Navy

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star, 1 clasp, France and Germany; Africa Star; Burma Star, 1 clasp, Pacific; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45, with M.I.D. oak leaf; Korea 1950-53, 1st issue (C/K 65976 J. T. [sic] Blacklock C.P.O.S.M. R.N.); U.N. Korea 1950-54, unnamed as issued; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R. (K.65976 J .J. Blacklock. S.P.O. H.M.S. Renown.) very fine or better (9) £500-£700

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The James Fox Collection of Naval Awards.

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M.I.D. London Gazette 18 January 1944:
‘For gallant and distinguished services in H.M. ships... Warspite... in operations in the Mediterranean from the time of the entry of Italy into the war until the surrender of the Italian fleet.’

John Joseph Blacklock was born in Wigton, Cumberland, on 25 February 1907 and joined the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class on 15 April 1925. Posted to the battleship H.M.S. Royal Sovereign 10 October 1925, he was promoted to Stoker 1st Class on 25 February 1926, and saw service with the Atlantic Fleet, and then from 1927 with the Reserve Fleet. Posted to the light cruiser H.M.S. Ceres on 6 May 1929, he was appointed to Acting Leading Stoker on 10 September 1929, and saw service aboard her with the Home Fleet, being confirmed as Leading Stoker on 19 September 1930. He subsequently served in the destroyer H.M.S. Whirlwind; the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Vindictive, and the light cruiser H.M.S. Dragon, being appointed to Acting Stoker Petty Officer on 1 January 1934, and promoted to Stoker Petty Officer on 1 January 1935, when attached to the America and West Indies Station.

Blacklock joined the light cruiser H.M.S. Achilles on 31 May 1936, and was with her for the three years she was loaned to the Royal New Zealand Navy, before being posted to the battlecruiser H.M.S. Renown on 29th August 1939, and was aboard her on the outbreak of the Second World War. She spent September as part of the Home Fleet patrolling in the North Sea, but was transferred to Force K in the South Atlantic in October to help search for the ‘pocket battleship’ the Admiral Graf Spee, sinking the blockade runner SS Watussi on 2 December. She remained in the South Atlantic even after Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled in December and did not return to the Home Fleet until March 1940. Blacklock was awarded the Royal Navy Long Service and Good Conduct Medal whilst aboard Renown on 28 March 1940. She subsequently supported British forces during the Norwegian Campaign and briefly engaged the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on 9 April of that year.

Appointed Acting Chief Stoker on 18 September 1940, Blacklock joined the battleship H.M.S. Warspite on 21 November 1941, and saw service aboard her for the remainder of the war, seeing action against the Japanese as part of the Eastern Fleet; in the Mediterranean in preparation for Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily; and at the Allied landings at Salerno, during which Warspite was badly hit. Having been promoted Chief Stoker, Blacklock was Mentioned in Despatches for gallant and distinguished services in the Mediterranean, most probably for his actions after Warspite was hit and her subsequent withdrawal to Malta when severely crippled. Having undergone repairs, Warspite saw further action during the Normandy landings when, at 05:00 on 6 June 1944 she was the first ship to open fire, bombarding the German battery at Villerville from a position 26,000 yards offshore, to support landings by the British 3rd Division on Sword Beach.

The War over, Blacklock was shore pensioned on 17 March 1947, but was recalled to the Service following the outbreak of the Korean War as a Chief Petty Officer Stoker Mechanic on 8 May 1951. Posted out to the Far East to join H.M. Naval Base Tamar at Hong Kong, he then joined the destroyer H.M.S. Cossack out in Hong Kong on 12 July 1951, and saw service in the waters on and off the coast of Korea during the Korean War, before being posted home on 16 December 1952. Promoted to Chief Mechanic (Engineering) on 18 March 1955, and was eventually invalided ashore ‘physically unfit for naval service’ on 10 August 1955. 

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