Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Second World War armed merchant cruiser operations B.E.M. and long service group of ten awarded to Chief Petty Officer J. Fisher, Royal Navy, a survivor of the loss of H.M.S. Formidable on New Year’s Day 1915

British Empire Medal, (Military) G.VI.R., 1st issue (C.P.O. Jack Fisher, C./J. 14897 R.N.); 1914-15 Star (J. 14897 J. Fisher, A.B., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (J. 14897 J. Fisher, L.S., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue (J. 14897 J. Fisher, P.O., H.M.S. Royal Sovereign), the Great War and L.S. & G.C. awards heavily polished, thus fine, the remainder good very fine (10) £400-500

B.E.M. London Gazette 1 July 1941.

Jack Fisher was born in Diss, Norfolk, in August 1894 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in November 1911.

An Able Seaman serving aboard the battleship H.M.S. Formidable by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he was similarly employed at the time of her loss on New Year’s Day 1915, when she was hit by two torpedoes from the U-24 off Portland Bill - in darkness and heavy seas, it proved difficult to get away the boats, as a consequence of which 34 officers and 513 men lost their lives. Fisher, however, was fortunate to be picked up by the cruiser Topaze. In the subsequent surge of press coverage - for the Formidable was only the second battleship lost to enemy action by this stage of the war - emerged the story of a dog, a collie by the name of “Lassie”, which had drawn attention to a rating who had been left for dead. In the fullness of time Hollywood took up the story, and a star was born.

For his own part, Fisher returned to sea in the monitor General Crawford in August 1915, and remained similarly employed until coming ashore to his final wartime appointment at Pembroke I in July 1918 - thus active employment out of Dover, including support to the Ostend Raid.

Gaining advancement to Petty Officer aboard the Empress of India in the summer of 1920, Fisher was a Chief Petty Officer by the renewal of hostilities and joined the ex-Cunard White Star liner Ausonia on her being converted to an armed merchant cruiser in late 1939. And it was in this capacity that he was awarded his B.E.M. in the summer of 1941, after the Ausonia had seen service on the Atlantic run in the Halifax Escort Force; sold with a file of research and a copy of Before The Bells Have Faded - The Sinking of H.M.S. Formidable, by Mark Potts and Tony Marks.