Auction Catalogue

28 February & 1 March 2018

Starting at 11:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

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Lot

№ 264

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28 February 2018

Hammer Price:
£300

Three: Able Seaman G. R. Frewer, Royal Navy, killed in action when H.M.S. Zinnia, as part of an escort group to convoy OG-71 from the U.K. to Gibraltar, was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-564 in the Bay of Biscay, 23 August 1941, events later portrayed in the novel The Cruel Sea

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, with named Admiralty enclosure, in card box of issue, addressed to ‘Mrs. H. S. Frewer, 13 Grenvile Road, Braintree, Essex’, extremely fine (3) £100-140

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to Second World War Casualties.

View A Collection of Medals to Second World War Casualties

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Collection

George Reginald Frewer served during the Second World War in the flower class corvette H.M.S. Zinnia. In August 1941 Zinnia was assigned as part of an escort group to convoy OG-71, from the U.K. to Gibraltar. Sailing through the Bay of Biscay, the convoy was spotted by a Focke Wulfe long range aircraft, which summoned a U-boat wolf pack. Over the next four days from 19-23 August 1941, a running battle ensued, and during the various actions the convoy lost 9 merchantmen including the S.S. Aquila and two escorts, the Destroyer H.M.S. Bath, and the Corvette H.M.S. Zinnia. The Zinnia was torpedoed by U-564 commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Reinhard Suhren at 5:25 a.m. on the 23 August, and blew up immediately; only 17 of her complement of 85 officers and crew survived. Frewer was amongst those killed, and is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial.

The author Nicholas Montsarrat, who was serving in another of the convoy’s escorts, claimed that this convoy was his worst experience of the war, and he incorporated the events surrounding the sinking of H.M.S.
Zinnia into his famous novel The Cruel Sea, later turned into a film.