Orders, Decorations and Medals

Three: Stoker J. Pearse, Royal Navy

1914-15 Star (SS.100131 Sto.1., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (SS.100131 Sto.1., R.N.) good very fine (3) £150-200

John Pearse was killed in action on 29 February 1916 whilst serving aboard H.M.S. Alcantara. The R.M.S.P. Co’s. liner, Alcantara was taken over by the Admiralty at the beginning of the First World War and converted into an auxiliary cruiser. The ship formed one of the 10th Cruiser Squadron and was commanded by Captain T. E. Wardle, her chief duty being the maintenance of the patrol between Scapa flow and the coast of Norway. At about mid day on 28 February 1916 the position of the Alcantara was 60 miles E. of the North of the Shetlands, where she was to contact her relief ship, the Andes, also an ex R.M.S.P. liner, when a wireless message instructed her to remain thereabouts and keep a sharp lookout for a suspicious steamship coming out of the Skagerrak. At about 8:45 on the following morning Captain Wardle spotted smoke on the horizon on his port beam. He bore up for the steamship, receiving at the same time a wireless warning from the Andes that this was in all probability the ship he was seeking. The Alcantara signalled to the vessel to stop, and fired two rounds of blank ammunition.

The ships had approached to within 1,000 yards of each other, the Alcantara coming up astern and lowering a boarding boat, when the stranger, which had Norwegian colours painted on her side and her name Rena-Tonsberg, distinctly visible, dropped her bulwarks and ran out her guns. The British ship was at a disadvantage, though all her guns were manned, and she sustained a tremendous salvo which destroyed her telemotor, steering gear, engine room telegraph and telephones, as well as killing many men, but her guns replied at a range at which it was almost impossible to miss. The action was short but intense, and after some 15 to 20 minutes both ships were in a bad way. The German, which proved to be the raider Greif, was on fire and sinking, while the Alcantara had a heavy list to port and was taking on water so rapidly that Captain Wardle gave orders to ‘abandon ship’. She had been hit by a torpedo and gradually capsized, lying keel uppermost for a time, thus affording her crew an opportunity to secure rafts and pieces of wreckage.

The Andes, followed by the cruiser Comus, and the destroyer Munster, now came upon the scene and picked up the survivors. Meanwhile the Greif had also been abandoned and the cruisers sank her by gun fire. Thus ended one of the most fiercely fought actions between merchant ships in the First World War. The Alcantara lost two officers and 67 men, Captain Wardle who was among the survivors was awarded the D.S.O. for this action. The total rescued from the Greif was 220 out of a compliment of about 300.