Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Coder K. J. W. Wison, Royal Navy, who was killed in action in H.M.S. Firedrake when she was sunk on 17 December 1942

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, with named Admiralty enclosure; Memorial Scroll ‘Coder K. J. W. Wilson, Royal Navy’, extremely fine (3) £100-£140

Kenneth Joseph William Wilson, was serving in H.M.S. Firedrake, an 'F' class Destroyer, and lead escort to convoy ON153, with 43 ships bound for Canada sailing in a Force 12 storm, the worst the Atlantic had seen for a very long time. At around 17.00 the ASDIC operator picked up a contact. HMS Firedrake tracked the contact to about 5 miles south of the convoy, when at 20.10, she was hit by a torpedo fired by U-boat U211, breaking her in two. The bow section sank immediately, with the stern just managing to stay afloat. Lieutenant D. J. Dampier RN had found that there were 35 hands still on board and quickly got the men to work shoring up the bulkheads of No. 3 boiler room, and making safe and jettisoning the depth charges and torpedoes. The gun crew were ordered to fire star shells to attract the attention of the other escorts because all the radio and signalling equipment had gone with the bow part of the ship.

Around 22.00 one of the other escorts - HMS Sunflower, a Flower class Corvette, was attracted by the star shells so she made towards them, firing star shells herself. The skipper first thought that H.M.S. Firedrake’s stern section was a U-boat and was about to fire at it before realising what he saw. He tried to get Sunflower as close as possible to H.M.S. Firedrake in order to get the survivors off, but the weather was so bad and the sea too rough. There were 60 foot waves breaking over the two ships, which were bobbing about like corks, so he decided to stand by and hope the weather would get better. At about 0040 on the 17th December, the weather worsened and the bulkheads started to give way under the tremendous battering. H.M.S. Firedrake’s stern started to sink, so the men had no option but to take to the water, and at 00.45 the stern sank.

H.M.S. Sunflower moved in quickly to pick up the men in the water, a Newfoundland rating, G. J. Furey, had a rope tied around his waist and was lowered down the side of Sunflower. He would swim out to a man and grab hold of him, then his mates on board would heave them back to the ship and get him onboard. He and his mates managed to get 27 hands on board, but one later died. H.M.S. Firedrake was lost with the 168 men. Wilson is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial.

Sold with a file of copied research, a copy photograph of the recipient; and a hardback third edition of the book ‘Firedrake’ by A. D. Divine.