Orders, Decorations and Medals

A rare Second World War blockade runner’s B.E.M. group of four awarded to Apprentice L. F. Fletcher, Merchant Navy: 18 years of age at the time of being decorated - for his part in the very first of Commander Sir George Binney’s clandestine operations out of Sweden (a.k.a. “Operation Rubble”) - he was lost in the S.S. Zurichmoor when that ship was torpedoed east of Philadelphia by the U-432 in May 1942

British Empire Medal, (Civil) G.VI.R., 1st issue (Leslie Frederick Fletcher); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, generally extremely fine (4) £600-800

B.E.M. London Gazette 12 June 1941.

Leslie Frederick Fletcher was decorated for his services in the tanker Ranja, one of five vessels selected to carry pig iron, special steels, ball bearings and machine tools from Sweden to the U.K. in January 1941, the whole manned by a total of 147 men and one woman, comprising 58 Englishmen, 57 Norwegians, 31 Swedes and one Latvian. From this daring enterprise, which was master minded by Commander Sir George Binney, R.N.V.R., then resident under a more innocent title at the British legation in Stockholm (and later awarded a D.S.O.) - emerged a series of similar operations, latterly carried out with the assistance of S.O.E. (see Dix Noonan Webb, 22 September 2006 (The Ron Penhall Collection), Lot No. 52, for another B.E.M. of 1943-44 vintage).

As for the precise reasons behind Fletcher’s award, the following extract from Sir George Binney’s official report must be of direct relevance:

‘Later that afternoon [24 January 1941], there was anti-submarine activity and German aeroplanes attacked one or two of the escort vessels. We subsequently learned that the Ranja had been machine-gunned and that bombs had been dropped on her without success. Unfortunately, the 1st Officer of the Ranja, Nils Rydberg, a Swede from Gothenburg, was shot through the abdomen on the bridge, a wound to which he has since succumbed ... ’

The dead Swedish officer was recommended for a posthumous award, while the Ranja’s Master, Captain John Nicolson, received the O.B.E., and Fletcher and another crew member, the B.E.M.

In April 1942, after previous attempts to attend an investiture in London had failed due to him being away at sea, Fletcher wrote to the Board of Trade from his father’s address at the Royal Masonic School in Bushey, Hertfordshire, to say that he was now back in the U.K. for a few days. Sadly, however, he was never to set eyes on his award, for he never returned from his next voyage, aboard the S.S. Zurichmoor, which ship was torpedoed by the U-432 at 0024 hours on 23 May 1942, east of Philadelphia - she went down with all hands.