Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Six: Lieutenant A. H. Hale, Royal Naval Reserve

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Pacific Star, clasp, Burma; War Medal 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf, these unnamed; Cadet Forces Medal, E.II.R., 2nd issue (Ty. Lt. (S.C.C.) A. H. Hale, R.N.R.) mounted as worn, good very fine (6) £180-220

Alan Herbert Hale was born in Devizes, Wiltshire on 30 July 1922. He joined the Royal Navy as a Boy Seaman in August 1937. With the outbreak of the Second World War he was drafted to H.Q. Western approaches at Liverpool for duty as a Gunnery Rating in Armed Merchant Ships from October 1939. During the period 1939-1943 he was heavily involved with Arctic and Atlantic convoys, including the ill-fated ‘P.Q.17’, where he was mentioned in despatches for services on S.S. Manchester Exporter. During May-November 1943 he was involved with convoys in the Mediterranean. In December 1943 he was loaned to the Royal Canadian Navy as a Petty Officer Gunnery Instructor, serving as such at Vancouver until March 1944. From March 1944 he was posted to convoy duties from the west coast of Canada and U.S.A., in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. In February 1945 he was commissioned a Sub-Lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. and remained in the Pacific theatre of war until the end of hostilities and beyond, helping in the repatriation of Prisoners-of-War. Returning to the U.K. in late 1945 he was discharged from military service in May 1946. In June 1946 he joined H.M.S. President, London Division of the R.N.V.R. and was promoted to Lieutenant, R.N.V.R. by the end of March 1947. He transferred to the Sea Cadet Corps as Instructor Officer in July 1965 where he remained until his retirement in 1983, being based at the Cadet Training Ship Nelson, Riverside Foundry Bridge, Norwich. Lieutenant Hale died in Norwich in March 1991. With copied service details and two copied photographs of the recipient.