Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

General Service 1962-2007, 2 clasps, Borneo, Malay Peninsula (Lieut. J. R. Furse. R.N.) minor edge bruise, very fine £140-180

John Furse joined the Royal Navy as a Cadet in May 1953. He advanced to Lieutenant (E) in July 1957, and his subsequent postings included in H.M. Ships Newfoundland, Centaur and Albion. Promoted Lieutenant-Commander (E) in July 1965, Furse held posts at the Ministry of Aviation and the Ministry of Technology between 1966 - 1969. Subsequent postings included with the Ark Royal and the Centurion.

Furse advanced to Commander (E) in June 1973, and led the Joint Services Expedition to Elephant Island, March 1976 - November 1977. Described thus, ‘Sixteen men fly from Heathrow on November 20 to endure nearly four months on a cluster of tiny, inhospitable icebound islands in Antarctic.... The party, which includes seven members of the Royal Navy and a Royal Marine, constitutes the 1976-77 Joint Services Expedition to the Elephant Island group.

For Cdr. Chris [sic] Furse, leader of the expedition, departure from London will end three years of preparation. This will be put quickly to the test, for the party flies to Rio de Janeiro to join H.M.S. Endurance and, after a week’s shakedown in the Falklands, disembarks in two parties on the bleak and lonely islands off the Antarctic Peninsular.

From that moment in December, the party will be alone. Irregular radio conversations with their nearest neighbours - the British Antarctic Survey in the South Orkneys, 250 miles to the east - will be their only contact with the outside world.

The nearest village will be more than 600 miles away to the north, beyond Cape Horn, and the nearest ship could be even further away.

In February, H.M.S. Endurance returns to transport the two parties from the outlying islands to Elephant Island itself. There the reunited 16 will celebrate a belated Christmas, return to South America in the Endurance, and fly back to Britain at the end of March.

Main aim of the expedition is the first scientific survey of the islands. The first landing on Elephant Island was made in 1916 by Sir Ernest Shackleton after his ship, Endurance, had sunk in the ice pack. Because of their notoriously filthy weather, the islands remained unexplored, and relatively unknown, until Cdr. Malcolm Burley’s 1970 Joint Services expedition.

Cdr. Furse was a member of that team, and has planned this visit to cover the outlying islands, which are even steeper and bleaker than the main islands....’ (newspaper cutting included with the lot refers)

Sold with newspaper cuttings, which include a photographic image of recipient.