Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Chief Engine Room Artificer E. J. Butland, Royal Navy, who was among those lost in the cruiser H.M.S. Curacoa when she was in collision with the R.M.S. Queen Mary in October 1942

Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1936-1939 (M. 35089 E. J. Butland, C.E.R.A. 2, R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R. (M. 35089 E. J. Butland, E.R.A. 2, H.M.S. Titania), good very fine and better (5) £350-400

Edgar James Butland was born at Dartmouth, Devon in November 1903 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy Artificer in August 1919. Between the wars he served on the China Station, including a tour of duty in the Insect-class gunboat Mantis on the Yangtze 1932-34. Returning to the U.K. in the latter year, he was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in 1936 and subsequently served off Palestine in the cruiser H.M.S. Emerald (Medal & clasp).

Advanced to Chief Engine Room Artificer in the cruiser Southampton on the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939, Butland remained similarly employed until April 1940, in which period his ship intercepted a German merchant ship off the Norwegian coast and was hit by a 500 kg bomb when lying at anchor off Rosyth.

Then in August 1940 Butland was drafted to the anti-aircraft cruiser Curacao, for service on convoy escort duties in the North-West Approaches. In June 1942 she took part in Operation ES, a dummy convoy intended to divert the enemy's attention from Convoy PQ 17. The ruse was unsuccessful as German air patrols failed to observe the dummy convoy.

In September 1942 Curacoa was deployed with the Western Approaches Command at Belfast, to escort convoys in the N.W. Approaches and the Irish Sea. On 2 October 1942 the escort group was tasked to escort R.M.S. Queen Mary on the final stage of a trans-Atlantic passage. The famous Cunard liner, built on the Clyde in the 1930s, displaced 81,125 tons and was the greatest and most luxurious of the pre-war liners. On her maiden voyage she won the ‘Blue Riband’ for the fastest Atlantic crossing. On the outbreak of war she had become a troopship, carrying an entire division (15,000 men) at a time and often steamed without an escort, relying on her great speed for protection.

On 27 September 1942 Queen Mary left New York bound for the Clyde, carrying about 15,000 U.S. servicemen. By the morning of 2 October she was some 40 miles north of Tory Island, off the northern coast of Ireland. Just after 7 a.m. the bridge watch sighted Curacao, which signalled that she would take up station five miles ahead, while six destroyers assumed flanking positions a few miles on either side of the liner. For the next five hours the convoy moved steadily towards Scotland, all hands scanning the clear skies for German aircraft. A stiff wind from the north-east was making life difficult for the destroyers racing about in search of U-Boats, but the Queen Mary steamed on majestically, untroubled by the choppy seas.

Though the Cunarder was steering a zig-zag course her great speed allowed her gradually to overtake the slower cruiser, and by two o’clock in the afternoon Curacao was only a few hundred yards off the liner’s bow. The Queen Mary’s officer of the watch was increasingly concerned about the Curacao’s proximity and ordered the helmsman to turn slightly away. However, at the same time the cruiser turned even closer to the liner. Queen Mary’s helmsman made a last-ditch attempt to avoid disaster and turned hard-a-port, and for a moment it looked as if the manoeuvre might work. However, the liner’s massive stem struck the Curacao eleven feet forward of her stern at an acute angle, spun the warship round and sliced through her.

Staff Captain Grattidge, resting in his cabin, felt a jolt that at first he thought was the near miss of a bomb. But when he reached the bridge he saw, ‘150 feet from the bridge on the port side, almost smothered in awesome clouds of black smoke ... the forepart of a vessel going down. Running to starboard I could see the after end of the same vessel, trembling to settle beneath the waves.’

Both sections of the Curacao were on fire and began to sink. The escorting destroyers raced to the scene but were able to rescue only 101 survivors. Queen Mary herself was under strict orders not to stop for any reason and steamed on. However, her bows had been stove in below the water line and she had to reduce speed to 10 knots. She arrived safely at Gourock on the morning of 3 October.

News of this disaster was blacked out and the loss of Curacao was not publicly announced until 1945, when a formal court of enquiry was convened to examine the cause of the accident. After almost four years of protracted litigation which went to the House of Lords it was held that Curacao was two thirds responsible for the collision and Queen Mary, one third.

Butland was not amongst the survivors. He is commemorated on the Chatham Memorial. He was survived by his wife, Mrs. V. F. Butland, who lived at Paignton, Devon.

Sold with an original portrait photograph, Principal Director of Accounts (Navy) campaign medal forwarding slip and and a M.O.D. letter in respect of the recipient’s widow’s claim for his Second War campaign awards in 1966; together with copied research, including ship photographs.