Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Captain A. M. Chapman, Merchant Navy

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf, all unnamed, mounted as worn, good very fine (4) £80-100

Alleyne Milbanke Chapman was born in Sunderland c.1913 and was educated at Argyle House School. Going to sea at the the age of 16, he worked initially for the firm of Alan Black and later with the Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company Ltd. In late 1942 he was Chief Officer of the M.V. Empire Spenser (Master John Barlow Hodge), a motor tanker of 8,194 tons. Built by Harland & Wolff, Belfast, she was on her maiden voyage. Loaded with oil at Curaçao, the ship proceeded to New York. There she formed part of the 33 ship Convoy HX 217, departing the U.S.A. on 27 November 1927 bound for Liverpool. On 6 December the convoy sighted two German submarines of wolfpack Panzer, and the following day attacks on the convoy began. At 02.17 and 02.19 on 8 December 1942, the U-524 (Lt-Cdr. Frhr. W. v Steinaecker) fired two spreads each of two torpedoes at the convoy which was sailing southeast of Cape Farewell. The Empire Spenser was hit and the Convoy Commodore reported, ‘immediately the whole area near was a sea of flame and columns of dense black smoke went up to five hundred feet’. Chief Officer Chapman was in command of one of the ship’s boats that was immediately launched. Standing by, he later returned to the stricken ship to aid in the rescue of those wounded and trapped. Amazingly, and partly as a result of his and other’s actions, out of a complement of 58, only one was lost. The blazing Empire Spenser was later sunk by a coup de grâce at 05.53. The convoy finally made it into Liverpool with 21 ships (10 turned back, 2 sunk), for which the wolfpacks Panzer’and Draufgänger in a running fight lost two of their number. For his services Chief Officer Chapman was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 6 July 1943).

Sold with a number of original documents, including: M.I.D. Certificate named to ‘Alleyne Milbanke Chapman, Esq., Second Officer, m.v. “Empire Spenser”; newspaper cutting entitled, ‘Heroism of Chief Officer’, bearing his picture and providing his account of the incident; letters of congratulation (3) from the Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company Ltd. the Mercantile Marine Service Association and the Ministry of War Transport; an envelope dated 28 November 1951, addressed to ‘Captain A. M. Chapman, 56 Newlands Avenue, Melton Park, Gosforth, Newcastle on Tyne’ and two letters of thanks - one from the British Embassy, Athens, dated August 1952, addressed to Chapman as Captain of the M.V. Latirus. Also with copied details of the convoy and the attacks made upon it.