Five: Stoker 1st Class A. F. Anderson, Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, who was among those lost when H.M.C.S. Louisburg was attacked and sunk by enemy aircraft east of Oran in February 1943

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Canadian Voluntary Service Medal 1939-45, with overseas clasp; War Medal 1939-45, silver, together with the recipient’s Canadian Memorial Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially inscribed, ‘A. F. Anderson, Sto. 1st Class, R.C.N.V.R.’, extremely fine (6) £250-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Awards to the Canadian Forces.

View
Collection

Archibald Frederick Anderson was born at Swift Current, Saskatchewan, on 31 August 1918, and originally enlisted in the Non-Active Permanent Militia. Transferring to the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve as a Stoker 2nd Class in February 1941, and after attending assorted training bases, he was posted to the corvette H.M.C.S. Louisburg in November 1942.

Assigned to Operation “Torch”, the North Africa landings, Louisburg was escorting a convoy from Gibraltar to Algeria on 6 February 1943 when she was attacked and sunk by Italian dive-bombers and torpedo-aircraft east of Oran - 38 officers and men were lost on the same occasion, Anderson among them. The Louisburg was the fifth Canadian corvette lost to enemy action in the War, and the first to be lost in the Mediterranean.

The son of John and Catherine Anderson of Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver, B.C., he was 24 years of age and has no known grave, being commemorated on the Halifax Memorial, Nova Scotia; sold with copied service papers, in addition to copied accounts of the loss of the Louisburg in which Anderson is mentioned.