A Collection of Medals to Second World War Casualties

Three: Petty Officer Cook J. A. Gates, Royal Navy, killed in action when the Special Service Vessel H.M.S. Fidelity was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-435 in the mid Atlantic on 30 December 1942

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, with named Admiralty enclosure, in card box of issue, addressed to ‘Mr. D. Gates, 17 Murington Court, Fallowfield, Manchester’, extremely fine (3) £100-140

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to Second World War Casualties.

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James Alfred Gates served during the Great War in H.M.S. Fidelity. Formerly the French steamship La Rhone built in 1920, she was also operated by the French Colonial Intelligence Service as an armed merchantman. At the fall of France in 1940 she escaped from Marseilles and was taken over by the Admiralty in Gibraltar. After a series of special operations, she returned to the U.K. for an extensive refit and was renamed H.M.S. Fidelity. Completely overhauled and armed with two four inch main guns; four torpedo tubes, two Kingfisher seaplanes, two landing craft (LCV’s 752 and 754) and a motor torpedo boat (MTB 105), she was to operate as a Disguised Merchant ship or S.S.V. (Special Service Vessel), with a crew of 280, and in addition carried 51 Royal Marines and 4 other personnel.
In December 1942 H.M.S. Fidelity was sailing as part of convoy ONS 154 from Liverpool to Halifax. The convoy of 50 merchantmen and escorts had been sighted by enemy U-boats on 26 December and had fought a running battle losing several ships. The main attack came on the evening of 28 December, and during these attacks Fidelity escaped torpedoes launched by U-225 and U-615, by lowering her torpedo nets and launching a Kingfisher which unfortunately crashed into the sea. The following morning, 29 December, Fidelity was stopped 30 miles astern of the convoy with engine problems. She restarted her main engines at 5:00 a.m. and declined the offer to dispatch a tug from Gibraltar. Speed was limited to two knots while streaming anti-torpedo nets when she was observed by S.S. Meteor and S.S. Milne at 5:30 a.m. U-615 found Fidelity while her main engines were again stopped for repairs between 10:15 and 11:00 a.m. U-615 identified H.M.S. Fidelity as a Disguised Merchant Ship and shadowed her cautiously. A reconnaissance flight by Fidelity's remaining Kingfisher observed two shadowing submarines and two of S.S. Empire Shackleton's lifeboats. Fidelity immediately launched LCV-752 and LCV-754 to tow-in the lifeboats. She then recovered the Kingfisher and the two-landing craft with S.S. Empire Shackleton's survivors that afternoon and launched MTB-105 to conduct anti-submarine patrols through the night. U-615 launched four torpedoes at Fidelity at about 8:00 p.m., but the anti-torpedo net protected the ship from damage. MTB-105 however experienced engine problems and lost contact with Fidelity during the night. The following afternoon, at 4:30 p.m. on 30 December 1942, Fidelity was torpedoed by U-435, under the command of Siegfried Strelow, approximately 250 miles north-north-west of the Azores. In total it took five torpedoes to finally sink her and she exploded with such force that the German U-boat commander Strelow, suspecting some sort of anti-submarine trap, crash dived immediately. The casualties numbered 325 men, some of which were crew from the Empire Shackleton.

Gates was amongst those killed, and is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.