Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. To coincide with the OMRS Convention

An fine Second World War London Blitz G.M. awarded to Sub-Inspector A. J. Ball, City of London Police, for his bravery during the devastating enemy raid of 29 December 1940, when St. Paul’s was so famously captured on camera amidst the inferno that came to be known as “The Second Great Fire of London”

George Medal, G.VI.R., 1st issue (Arthur James Ball) contact marks and edge nicks, otherwise very fine £600-800

G.M. London Gazette 2 May 1941.

‘During a heavy raid Sub-Inspector Ball, Police Sergeant Luckman and Police Constable Salmon displayed great courage and devotion to duty following the fires caused by the dropping of H.E. and incendiary bombs. The three men entered burning premises, at great risk to their lives, to rescue the occupants. They were responsible for the evacuation of people from shelters which were endangered by fire. Although the officers were badly shaken by blast and injured, they continued to render assistance throughout the night wherever their services were required.’

Sergeant Luckman and Constable Salmon received British Empire Medals for this incident, which occurred in the vicinity of Moorgate Underground Station in the City of London on the night of 29-30 December 1940. In his book, Britain Under Fire, The Bombing of Britain’s Cities 1940-45, Charles Whiting refers in detail to the horrific events of that fateful night:

‘Promptly at 6.15 on the night of this last Sunday of 1940, the fire-raisers of the Luftwaffe’s KG 100 appeared above the vulnerable square mile of the old walled City of London: the most perfect target they could have chosen for what they planned this December 29th.

They began to drop their big canisters of incendiaries. Eight hundred of them. The Londoners called them ‘Molotov Cocktails’, a monstrous version of the fire-bomb named after the Soviet foreign minister. At 1,000 feet above the City, the containers broke open and incendiaries started to spill out, scattering over a wide radius, though most of them landed a 1,000 yards short of their target at Southwark. They began to explode, dancing vividly to life in the blacked-out, mostly deserted streets, showering bright white-glowing sparks on all sides.

The fire-watchers went into action at once. Their technique was simple but dangerous: a bag of sand or a dustbin lid would be thrown onto the writhing, furiously spluttering thing to smother it, then any flame would be doused with the primitive stirrup pump. But if the incendiary was an explosive one, it could blind you; and if you were hit by one of the phosphorous pellets that some of them contained, it would burn itself deeper and deeper into your flesh until you immersed yourself in water to cut off the oxygen. If you were lucky a doctor might come by and cut out the merciless pellet before it ate away the flesh to the very bone.

But strive as they might, the fire-watchers were outmatched, and the City was soon ablaze, from Moorgate to Aldersgate, from Old Street to Cannon Street. As in Manchester, shop-owners and office managers had gone home for the weekend taking their keys with them. The fire-fighters themselves were swamped with hundreds of incidents where they could do nothing but stand and watch buildings burn down because they had no means of breaking in ...

... But there was worse to come. In the wake of the incendiaries came the high explosive bombs. Soon, twelve of the City’s largest mains were fractured, one of them the ‘dirty water’ main laid to cope with fire-fighting emergencies between the Thames and the Grand Union Canal by Regent’s Park. The water supply began to give out ...

... Yet if the Cathedral was saved, much much more was lost. The heat generated at the heart of this fiery hissing maelstrom was so tremendous that it would crumble stone walls and cause asphalt roadways to burst into flames. Girders were twisted into grotesque shapes by the heat as if they were made of toffee. Nothing could survive in the path of this glowing, roaring red monster.

At Moorgate Station [one of the scenes of Sub-Inspector Ball’s gallant deeds] a terrible fire was raging. The heat twisted and buckled the roof’s supporting beams, melting the aluminium fittings and glass so that they oozed to the shattered platforms like pools of silver, and warped the railway lines. Like Cannon Street and London Bridge stations, both on fire, Moorgate was out of action ...’

Arthur James Ball, who was born in January 1899, joined the City of London Police in 1923, after brief service in the Army. He had attained the rank of Chief Inspector by the time of his retirement in 1954, and was entitled to the Defence Medal and Police Exemplary Service Medal, in addition to his G.M.

N.B.
The recipient’s G.M. was stolen from his house in Tulse Hill in 1945, and officially replaced in the same year. Then in 1960, having moved to Long Ditton, near Esher, his property was again burgled, and a second official replacement was issued. In all probability, the above described award is his first official replacement issued in 1945, since it does not bear the usual ‘Replacement’ inscription.