British and World Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Second World War B.E.M. awarded to Seaman H. J. George, Merchant Navy, who remained at his post manning the Trinity House vessel Reculver’s wireless set throughout a devastating air attack - an incident described in one wartime publication as ‘one of the most savage of Nazi air force attacks on unarmed ships’ yet

British Empire Medal, (Civil) G.VI.R., 1st issue (Harry J. George), good very fine £500-550

B.E.M. London Gazette 25 February 1941:

‘When his ship was attacked by enemy aircraft Seaman George remained at his post in spite of repeated attacks by bombs and machine-gun fire. His reliability and devotion to duty gave the Master the greatest help.’

Harry John George was decorated for his bravery in the unarmed Trinity House vessel Reculver during the above attack off Great Yarmouth on 9 January 1940, an action which also resulted in the award of the M.B.E. to the ship’s Master, Captain W. J. Lees, and of a commendation to the Chief Officer, J. J. E. Woolnough. In his report on the incident, Captain Lees stated that his ship had been bound to the relief of the lightships to the east and north of Yarmouth when a German aircraft appeared on the scene:

‘By the time I had reached the bridge and taken over from the Chief Officer, I saw the aircraft to the westward in line with the Caister Water Tower ... He passed over us then in a deep dive from east to west towards the sun. As he made each steep dive towards us he was little more than mast high. Immediately I realised that he intended attacking us I relieved my wheelman [George] because he was the only Wireless Operator available, and I then took the wheel. After passing over the ship the plane made a steep bank again from east to west for the second attack. The approach was more from the south this time. At the time we were zig-zagging. When he was approaching for the second attack I gave the ship some port helm. He certainly approached us diagonally from the starboard bow to port quarter. The ship was swinging at the time and he dropped one bomb which hit the waterway moulding on the starboard side immediately between the forward davits. It slid from there and exploded immediately after off the motor launch. A considerable amount of damage was done as a result of this and the motor launch was wrecked. The plane then passed diagonally over and dropped another bomb on the port quarter, but as we were swinging to starboard the bomb exploded about 10 feet from the ship, underneath the water, and on the port quarter.

The concussion from these bombs put my helm out of action and also the engines. Previously I had heard my W./T. operator [George] getting out a message that we were being attacked by enemy aircraft. Between us we tried to get more helm movement but we realised that it was hopeless. The rudder was jammed hard aport. The plane swerved round again and made a run to the north into the land, steep banked near the land and made an attack again from west to east. In this third attack the engines were put out of action. The plane made a last dive and dropped a third bomb immediately amidships and they now machine-gunned us from the tail. The he ascended into the clouds and went away to the east. This third bomb was actually seen by one man to lay on top of two water tanks situated amidships on the boat deck before exploding. The man in question had time to jump from the boat deck on to the lower deck before the bomb exploded. This bomb caused the death of the 2nd Officer. The force of the explosion of this bomb ran down and damaged the Lightship Officers, Seamen and Firemens’ Quarters, and the engine room and tunnel, at the same time causing quite a considerable amount of damage to the boat deck, and both the port and starboard boats were wrecked. Both engine room vents were blown to pieces and the port vent fell on top of the 2nd Officer who was cutting away the griping arrangement of the port forward boat. This caused his death and he was killed instantly.

Mr. Woolnough, Chief Officer, was ushering men from one side of the ship to the other and tried to keep the men controlled, and it was a pretty hard task ... after the attack we managed to get the port boat out and 28 men were got into it and they pulled towards the trawler ... ’

At length these 28 men reached safety, but in a subsequent feature published in The War Illustrated, it was reported ‘of the 40 men on board 30 were injured and two killed’ - certainly the article’s accompanying photographs show extensive damage to the Reculver, and evidence of accurate machine-gun fire from the retiring German raider (copy included). The same source also confirms that a handful of men remained on board, the lifeboat which they attempted to launch having been attacked by the enemy aircraft and riddled by bullets - ‘Luckily we discovered the vessel was not sinking, so we got busy bandaging the casualties and preparing them for transfer.’

Indeed the enemy raider’s actions caused a considerable flurry of complaints, for as one crew member stated, ‘It was always reckoned that lightshipmen are not fair game, and we had got used to Jerries who never attacked us. We hadn’t a chance. We had nothing at all to answer back with. When they found out that we hadn’t any “teeth”, they dropped some bombs.’

A few months later, however, on 14 October 1940, the Reculver fell victim to a different type of hazard, when she was mined and sunk off Spurn Point.