Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Sick Berth Petty Officer A. Rayton, Royal Navy, who was among those lost in the armed merchant cruiser Comorin when she caught fire and capsized in the North Atlantic in April 1941

British War Medal 1914-20 (M. 5112 A. Rayton, S.B.A., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue (M. 5112 A. Rayton, S.B. P.O., H.M.S. Egmont), together with original Admiralty condolence slip in the name of ‘Arthur Rayton’, good very fine and better (5) £250-300

Arthur Rayton was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire in February 1893 and entered the Royal Navy as a Sick Berth Attendant in October 1912. On the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he was employed at the R.N.H. Haslar but, in April 1915, he commenced a two years’ posting to Malta. He returned to Haslar in November 1917 and was similarly employed at the war’s end (British War Medal 1914-20). He was advanced to Sick Berth Petty Officer in the summer of 1926 and was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in December of the following year.

By early 1941, he was serving in the armed merchant cruiser Comorin, which liner had been requisitioned by the Admiralty in September 1939. In April 1941 Comorin was on passage from the UK to Freetown; in addition to her own ship’s company she was carrying drafts for other ships and bases, a total of 475 officers and men. On 6 April a fire broke out in her engine rooms and soon engulfed much of the ship. Although two other ships, the destroyers Lincoln and Broke, came to her aid, the weather was bad and it was extremely difficult for the smaller ships to approach the massive liner, rolling heavily in the huge North Atlantic waves. Lieutenant-Commander Peter Scott, aboard the Broke, later wrote:

‘When we drew near, the scene was awe-inspiring. The great liner lay beam on to the seas, drifting very rapidly. A red glow showed in the smoke which belched from her funnel and below that amidships the fire had a strong hold. Clouds of smoke streamed away from her lee side. The crew were assembled aft and we were in communication by lamp and later by semaphore ... To go alongside Comorin seemed an impossibility. The waves were fifty to sixty feet from trough to crest and the liner’s cruiser stern lifted high out of the water at one moment showing rudder and screws and crashed downward in a cloud of spray the next. I thought a destroyer could not possibly survive such an impact ... ’

When Broke arrived on the scene, Lincoln was engaged in rescuing men with her Carley rafts but only a few men could be taken each time and it was a desperately slow business. Also, because the rafts could not go right up to the side of the wildly rolling ship, the men had to go down a rope to them, and several were drowned in the attempt.

Broke however managed to go alongside the liner; she repeated this manoeuvre dozens of times, and each time a few men jumped from Comorin to the destroyer’s focsle. It was essential to time the jump correctly; not only were the two ships rapidly moving up and down, but they were also rolling in opposite directions, so that one moment they touched, the next they were ten yards apart. A few men fell between the ships, and many others broke a limb, but the great majority were saved.

In fact, 455 men were saved and only 20 were lost; sadly, Arthur Rayton was amongst these casualties. He left a widow, Mrs Elizabeth Rayton. His name is recorded at the Portsmouth Naval Memorial; sold with copied research, a picture postcard of the Comorin.