Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Chief Steward T. MacKenzie, Merchant Navy, who lost his life on the occasion the S.S. Cyclops was torpedoed and sunk in January 1942

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Pacific Star; War Medal 1939-45, in their original addressed card forwarding box, together with the recipient’s Minister of Transport condolence slip in the name of ‘Thomas MacKenzie’, extremely fine (5) £80-100

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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Thomas MacKenzie, who was born at Seaforth in 1893, appears to have joined the Orient Line as an Assistant Steward in about 1920, but transferred to Alfred Holt & Company towards the end of that decade.

A Chief Steward serving aboard the S.S. Eurybates out in the Far East on the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939, he removed to the Cyclops at the end of the same year, and was similarly employed at the time of her loss on 11 January 1942, when she was torpedoed and sunk by the U-123 200 miles south-east of Cape Sable - 41 crew, including MacKenzie, and 46 passengers perished, quite a few of them owing to exposure whilst in lifeboats; sold with a file of research.