Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family group:

Three: Apprentice P. R. Fletcher, Merchant Navy, who lost his life on the occasion the tanker British Security was torpedoed and sunk in May 1941 - he was just 17 years of age
1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, in their original addressed card forwarding box, together with the recipient’s Minster of Transport condolence slip in the name of ‘Peter Radcliffe Fletcher’, extremely fine

Three: Corporal R. Fletcher, Royal Army Medical Corps, his father
1914-15 Star (39729 Pte. R. Fletcher, R.A.M.C.); British War and Victory Medals (39729 Cpl. R. Fletcher, R.A.M.C.), extremely fine (5) £120-150

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners.

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Peter Radcliffe Fletcher was born at Sharpness, Gloucestershire, in July 1923, and first went to sea as an Apprentice in the tanker British Dominion in November 1939, a vessel of the British Tanker Co. Ltd. Removing to one of her consorts, the British Security, in early 1941, he was similarly employed when she was torpedoed and sunk by the U-556 on 20 May of the same year. She had departed the Clyde for Halifax, Nova Scotia, a few days earlier, laden with 11,200 tons of benzine and kerosene - there were no survivors from her crew of 48, or D.E.M.S. gunners, and her blazing hulk was sighted for a final time some three days after she had been torpedoed. The son of Reginald and Zoe Fletcher of Brixham, Devon, he was just 17 years of age, and is commemorated on the Merchant Navy Memorial at Tower Hill, London.

Reginald Fletcher first entered the Balkans theatre of war in October 1915; sold with research.