Six: Acting Able Seaman H. W. Newnham, Royal Navy, a Gun Layer in Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star, 1 clasp, France and Germany; Africa Star; Pacific Star; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45, all unnamed as issued, mounted as worn, very fine (6) £140-£180

Harry Walter Newnham was born at Lewisham, London, on 18 June 1910. A painter by trade, he volunteered for service in the Royal Navy on 2 November 1942, as an Ordinary Seaman in H.M.S. Glendower. Built at the request of H.M. Government by none other that Billy Butlin, Glendower was a tented training camp situated on the Lleyn Peninsula, near Pwllheli in North Wales. After the war, in 1946, Butlin took back ownership of the camp which eventually opened to the public as Butlins Pwhelli. In February 1943, Newnham was advanced to Acting Able Seaman, with a non-substantive rating as Acting Seaman Gunner, on the books of H.M.S. President III. On 11 September 1943, he qualified as a D.E.M.S. Gun Layer and served as such until 24 January 1946, when he was ‘Released in Class A’.

Sold with original cloth and bullion DEMS Gun Layer’s arm patch and original parchment Certificate of Service which records Chevrons for 1943, ‘44 and ‘45.