Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Lloyd’s Medal for Meritorious Services, 3rd type, silver (Chief Engineer Mark Cripps, S.S. “Elswick Grange”) edge bruising, very fine £220-260

The steamer S.S. Elswick Grange (John Berlin, Master) in convoy from Gibraltar was torpedoed by a submarine on the night of 17 May 1918. An Master’s report of the incident states:

‘All went well until 6.50 p.m. G.M.T. on Friday 16th May when convoy was suddenly attacked by enemy submarine or submarines. The S.S. Sculptor was torpedoed; we received orders from commodore to “go ahead full speed” & we had already received orders to zig zag .... Remainder of the Convoy proceeded in fairly good formation and again all went well until about 8.30 p.m. when the steamer Mavisbrook was torpedoed and sunk .... At 11.10 p.m. & put as we were on the swing to starboard a torpedo crossed our bow not 10 feet away & a fraction of a minute later a second one struck our starboard bow ship being still under the influence of a hard a port helm. I instantly blew the 6 short blasts of the whistle, stopped engines & through the voice tube ordered Engineers to come up on deck. Ship settled very quickly by the head at a big angle & the water was up to No. 1 hatch ... the seas making clean breaches over. All hands were called to stand by boats & the officer & self went round & examined as well was possible to do in the dark ... the forecastles were all demolished & 3 of the firemen buried under the wreckage, we got them out but two appeared to be dead ... With the labouring of the ship & the seas washing right across we decided to await daylight before anything further could be done. We accordingly all stood by in the boats, at about 3.30 a.m. the 2 firemen whom we believed to be dead recovered & were taken into the boats. At 4.30 dawn sufficiently strong to examine ship again & we did so thoroughly. I found that No.2 bulkhead was still intact & although there was great danger I decided to make the attempt to steam ship to the nearest port viz Oran. I sent a W/T call to Oran for assistance, meanwhile my officers, Engineers & myself worked & got the ship ready, the carpenter donkey man & one fireman volunteered to assist, the two gunners went to their post, also W/T operator, cook & steward but the others hung back. The Engineers raised steam & we started slowly ahead, at first we found great difficulty in steering & as I increased speed one or two revs the ship seemed to go right under with the bows & I was obliged to stop & come astern ... I cannot let this go before you without mentioning the great assistance rendered to me by the Chief Officer Mr John Harris, Second Officer Reginald Bridson, Chief Engineer Mr Mark Cripps, Second Engineer Mr Arthur Barnard, Third Engineer Mr James M. Wright, S. Wilson, Fourth Engineer, Donkey man Abdullah Ali & Fireman Mohamed Ali and Carpenter O. Nelson.’

Of the 30 officers and crew of the Elswick Grange, a crewman was the only casualty, dying later in hospital.

Mark Cripps was born in South Shields in 1874. In addition to the Lloyds M.S.M. he was awarded the British War and Mercantile Marine Medals. Sold with copied research.