Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Able Seaman J. W. Rosewarn, Royal Navy, who was killed when H.M.S. Somali sunk on 24 September 1942, having been torpedoed and fatally crippled by the German U-boat U-703 four days previously whilst escorting the Murmansk Convoy PQ-18, and then subsequently towed by her sister ship H.M.S. Ashanti 420 miles in an unsuccessful bid to bring her to safety

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, with named Admiralty enclosure, in card box of issue, addressed to ‘Mrs. Eileen L. Denton, 12 Salisbury House, Highbury Corner, London N5.’, extremely fine (3) £100-140

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

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James William Rosewarn served during the Second World War in H.M.S. Somali. On 20 September 1942 she was part of a Royal Navy force of seventy ships escorting convoy PQ-18 when they were located by a large U-boat ‘Wolf Pack’. Two merchantmen were immediately sunk. Then at 7:20 p.m. hours H.M.S. Somali, on the outer screen of the convoy, was hit by a torpedo fired by the German U-boat U-703. The ensuing explosion blew her torpedo tubes over the side and cut all of the port side main stringers so that the ship was only held together by the upper deck and starboard side as far as the keel. The port engine fell through the bottom of the ship and the Engine and Gear rooms filled rapidly with water. Most of her crew were safely transferred to other ships in the convoy, but a skeleton crew of 81 officers and ratings remained on board. H.M.S. Ashanti made a brave attempt to take H.M.S. Somali in tow but after some 4 days and 420 nautical miles H.M.S. Somali ‘folded in half like a hinge with bow and stern climbing skywards. For a moment she hung motionlessly then the deck plating snapped and her bulkheads collapsed. Her stern capsized and sank quickly and the bow went vertically and steadily’. All 81 still on board, including Rosewarn, perished. He is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.

Medals issued to the recipient’s widow, Eileen Lucy Rosewarn, who had subsequently remarried.