Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare Second World War minesweeping operations D.S.C. and Bar group of five awarded to Lieutenant-Commander J. Fountain, Royal Naval Reserve: his first two minesweeping trawlers having been lost to enemy action within a matter of months in 1940, he was awarded the D.S.C. - adding a Bar to this distinction for his gallant work in poor weather conditions a year later

Distinguished Service Cross, G.VI.R., with Second Award Bar, hallmarks for London 1940, the reverse of the Cross officially dated ‘1941’ and privately engraved, ‘J. Fountain’, and the reverse of the Bar officially dated ‘1942’, in its Garrard & Co. case of issue; 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, these four in their addressed Admiralty forwarding box with related issuance slip in the name of ‘Lt.-Cmd. James Fountain’, generally good very fine (5) £2400-3000

D.S.C. London Gazette 1 January 1941:

‘For outstanding zeal, patience and cheerfulness, and for never failing to set an example of wholehearted devotion to duty, without which the high standards of The Royal Navy could not have been upheld.’

Bar to D.S.C. London Gazette 27 January 1942:

‘For courage, resolution and devotion to duty while minesweeping.’

James Fountain was appointed Temporary Skipper, R.N.R., in the minesweeping trawler H.M.S. Resparko in May 1940, a short lived appointment owing to her loss at Falmouth that August, when she was bombed in the docks and went down in two minutes. Fountain’s next appointment was to the Calverton, another minesweeping trawler, in September 1940: as it transpired, this proved to be an even shorter appointment, for Calverton was mined in the Humber estuary that November.

He was awarded the D.S.C., which distinction he received at Buckingham Palace on 18 February 1941. His subsequent award of a Bar to his D.S.C. was in respect of his services in the minesweeping trawler Ben Meidie in 1941, a vessel of the 113th M./S. Group based at Grimsby. He remained actively employed in Ben Meidie until 1945, latterly as her C.O. in 111th M./S. Group, and received the Bar to his D.S.C. at Buckingham Palace in April 1944. Described in one newspaper article as ‘a bit of a dasher’, Fountain was from Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire.

Sold with five pages from a family photograph album, comprising some 25 images, a number of nautical interest in the Far East and including the recipient, three newspaper cuttings, a studio portrait photograph and a copy of His Majesty’s Minesweepers (H.M.S.O., 1943).