Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An exceptional Second World War B.E.M. group of six awarded to Chief Petty Officer J. E. King, Royal Navy, who, following the loss of H.M.S. Malvernian in the Bay of Biscay in July 1941, and in spite of his wounds, handled a crowded lifeboat for nine days in rough seas: finally rescued by a German minesweeper, he and his comrades became P.O.Ws, among them Lieutenant J. M. Moran, R.N., who, on being repatriated from Colditz at the War’s end, contacted the Admiralty with an account of King’s gallantry

British Empire Medal, G.VI.R., Military Division (C.P.O. John E. King, C/J. 110935 R.N.); Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1936-1939 (C/J. 110935 J. E. King, C.P.O., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (110935 J. E. King, C.P.O., H.M.S. Pembroke), generally good very fine (6) £1000-1200

B.E.M. London Gazette 16 July 1946:

‘For endurance and devotion to duty in handling a crowded lifeboat for nine days in rough weather after his ship had been lost through enemy action in July 1941.’

John Edward King was born on the Isle of Wight in September 1908 and entered the Royal Navy as a boy rating in July 1924.

His time aboard the Malvernian likely commenced at her requisitioning by the Admiralty in August 1940, when she was converted for use as an armed boarding vessel. On 1 July 1941, in the Bay of Biscay, she was bombed and set on fire by a Focke-Wulf Condor. Malvernian’s captain takes up the story:

‘By this time the plane was observed to be a large four-engined craft. He was approaching at a very high speed of about 240 m.p.h. and the height appeared to be about 300-400 feet. He manoeuvred so as to cross the ship almost in a fore and aft line and dropped two large bombs. The first penetrated the W./T. office and engine room, about 12 feet to starboard of the centre line of the ship. This bomb exploded on the main deck having penetrated the boat deck and shelter deck and reduced both compartments to shambles. The main engines and the auxiliaries were wrecked. The second bomb penetrated the Paymaster’s cabin and exploded on the main deck in No. 3 flat just abaft the bridge. The bridge was wrecked and a fierce fire broke out immediately. During this time he raked the ship with machine-gun and cannon fire and set fire to the petrol stored on the fore deck.’

Nor was the Focke-Wulf Condor finished:

‘After circling the ship for some time well out of range of the armament the plane made another attack from the port beam. He dropped three bombs or depth charges which fell just short of the ship amidships but the explosions shook the ship very considerably ... the wounded were being treated on the deck; there being no Doctor and the S.B.A. killed ... All the boats on the starboard side were blown to pieces, which left us with the port cutter and two life boats.’

That evening, as the fittest survivors continued to fight the blaze - some 70 members of crew were killed - the captain gave orders for the wounded to be lowered in the cutter, the whole under his First Lieutenant, with orders to sail north in the hope of meeting an Allied convoy; in the event this boat reached Vigo on the 22 July. Remarkably, given the extensive damage described in his report, the Malvernian was not finally abandoned until the 19th, when the captain and 31 others took to the last remaining lifeboat; they reached Corunna on the 21 July.

The fate of the second lifeboat was less happy: setting off on 7 July, it would be nine days before its unfortunate occupants were picked up by a German minesweeper. It was largely owing to the courage and skill of King that the over-crowded lifeboat survived the rough seas of the Bay of Biscay in the interim. The story of his courage - enacted in spite of painful wounds received in the enemy aircraft attack - was revealed in a letter sent to the Admiralty after the war. The author was Lieutenant J. M. Morgan, R.N.R., recently repatriated from Colditz:

‘I have the honour to bring the following facts to your notice concerning C.P.O. King, late of H.M.S. Malvernian, who was taken prisoner by the Germans on 17 July 1941.

C.P.O. King was wounded in the buttocks. For at least nine days of our spell in a 25 lifeboat the seas were extremely rough, waves breaking inboard at regular intervals, the boat leaking at the rate of about twenty gallons an hour, and officers and men so crowded that rest was utterly out of the question.

During all this time, and in spite of the extreme pain of his wound, which was aggravated by exposure, lack of treatment and the hardness of the thwarts, C.P.O. King stood almost continuous tiller watch, as he and Lieutenant Rogers, R.N.V.R., were the only two capable of handling the boat in the heavy seas we experienced. In addition he was very largely responsible for the working of the sails and the baling; and throughout the whole period his determination to bring the boat safely to land was a first class tonic to the men.

I feel it would be no exaggeration to state that we thirty survivors owe our lives very largely to the courage, determination and fine seamanship of C.P.O. King, and I am assured that my views are shared by the remaining officers in the lifeboat.’

As a consequence of Lieutenant Morgan’s intervention, the Chairman of the Admiralty’s Honours & Awards Committee approved the award of King’s B.E.M. Following his capture he had been admitted to hospital at Rochford, France and thence entrained for Germany. Thereafter - in common with many Naval prisoners - he was incarcerated at Marlag Nord until his liberation in April 1945; sold with copied research, including details of ‘Mike’ Morgan’s escape activities - activities that led to his arrival at Colditz in September 1942.