Auction Catalogue

25 September 2008

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations and Medals

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

Lot

№ 157

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25 September 2008

Hammer Price:
£1,400

A Second World War M.B.E. and Lloyd’s War Medal for Bravery at Sea group of seven awarded to Second Engineer Officer Norman Makepeace, Merchant Navy, for services aboard the Toorak, 16 January 1942

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Civil) Member’s 2nd type breast badge, silver; British War Medal 1914-20 (Norman Makepeace); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45; Lloyd’s War Medal for Bravery at Sea, silver (Second Engineer Officer Norman Makepeace, S.S.”Toorak”, 16th January 1942) mounted for wear, good very fine and better (7) £1400-1800

Ref. Spink Exhibition 1985, No. 79.

M.B.E.
London Gazette 27 April 1943.

Lloyd’s War Medal for Bravery at Sea
Lloyd’s List & Shipping Gazette 3 February 1944. ‘Norman Makepeace, Second Engineer Officer, Toorak’. ‘When the ship was torpedoed the wireless was put out of action and the boiler room fires were extinguished. Temporary repairs were effected and the ship proceeded at reduced speed. Second Engineer Makepeace remained alone in the engine-room and kept the engines running, and his courage and devotion to duty greatly contributed to the vessel’s safe arrival in port’.

The S.S.
Toorak, 8,627 tons, a British tanker of the Standard Transportation Company, was torpedoed by the U.86 in the North Atlantic on 16 January 1942. Despite serious damage she managed to reach the safety of a port and survived the war. For their services in preserving their ship, Captain Frederick Henry Graham was awarded the O.B.E., and Second Engineer Makepeace, the M.B.E. and Lloyd’s War Medal for Bravery.