Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A scarce Second World War armed merchant cruiser operations group of four awarded to Seaman B. W. Thwaites, Royal Naval Reserve, who was taken P.O.W. following the gallant last stand of the Voltaire against the superior German Raider Thor in April 1941, an action not dissimilar to the famous duels fought by Rawalpindi and Jervis Bay

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Naval Reserve L.S., G.VI.R., 1st issue (10023 B. W. Thwaites, Smn., R.N.R.), mounted as worn, generally good very fine, together with two related gilt and enamel “Voltaire” badges (6) £300-400

William Thwaites was born in Brighton, Sussex in February 1913 and entered the Royal Naval Reserve in January 1932. Called up on the outbreak of hostilities, he joined the ship’s company of the armed merchant cruiser H.M.S. Voltaire, an ex-Lamport and Holt liner, in December 1939.

On 4 April 1941, the Voltaire was intercepted by the German Raider Thor in a position several hundred miles W.S.W. of the Cape Verde Islands. Slower and less well-armed than her adversary, the British armed merchant cruiser put up a gallant fight and it was a full two hours before she was sunk with the loss of 72 officers and ratings. Nearly 200 survivors were picked up. Kenneth Poolman describes the action in his history, Armed Merchant Cruisers:

‘On 5 April German radio broadcast the news that a raider had sunk the Britannia and the British armed merchant cruiser Voltaire.

The C.-in-C. America and West Indies Station ordered the Canadian A.M.C. Prince David to make a search along the track of the Voltaire at her best possible speed. At 2 p.m. on 7 April she sighted a patch of very heavy oil covering an area of three square miles, together with charred wood, clothes and newspapers in a position half-way between the West Indies and the Cape Verde Islands. This was Voltaire’s estimated position on the 4th, and the wreckage was almost certainly hers. There were no survivors in the water, and it seemed likely that something like a repeat of the Alacantara’s and Carnarvon Castle’s actions had taken place - with more final results. Voltaire had probably been outranged and, in view of her slow speed, outmanoeuvred as well. She became formally overdue at Freetown.

It was indeed the Thor again, hammer of the A.M.Cs. The tankers Eurofeld and Alsterufer had kept her going through February and March, and Kahler had met the Pinguin’s ten captured whale catchers en route for France and supervised their refuelling from the Spichern, ex-Krossfonn, Widder’s prize, but she had made no captures himself until Britannia had appeared on 25 March, tried to run for it and had been shelled full of holes. Kahler had had to leave her survivors in the overcrowded boats to thirst and the cruel sun, the floaters to the sharks, when he intercepted a message that an enemy ship was on her way, though he informed Berlin by radio of their plight. When a ship appeared she was the Swedish Trollenholm bringing coals from Newcastle to Port Said. He took off her crew and sank her.

Just after sunrise on 4 April Thor was steaming about nine hundred miles west of the Cape Verde Islands when her man in the barrel sighted smoke. Anxious for a capture, Kahler steered for her.

It was the Voltaire, though Kahler did not immediately recognize her as an auxiliary cruiser. Thor was flying the Greek flag when Voltaire sighted her, and both ships challenged each other, each firing a warning shot across the other’s bows. Kahler saw that he was faced with an armed liner, unmasked his guns, and Koppen-Boehnke opened fire with salvoes outside the range of Voltaire’s old 6-inch. The first salvo destroyed the A.M.C’s radio room and generator, and in four minutes her painted peacetime wood panelling was well alight.

As the range closed Voltaire opened fire, but with all electrical circuits gone her guns were firing individually, raggedly and at random, while Thor’s 5.9s were scoring hit after hit on hull and upperworks. “This time,” Kahler had written in his log, “I have to finish her off.”

When the range had sunk to 7,000 yards, Voltaire was circling at 12 knots, steering gear jammed, gulping water through the shell holes in her hull which did nothing to douse the fires racing though her decks, though some of her guns were still firing. Half an hour after the battle had begun one gun was in action forward and Captain Blackburn himself was controlling a single gun on the poop. Some of the raider’s old guns had stopped when overheated training gear broke down once more, and with the range now down to 2,000 yards Kahler manoeuvred for a torpedo attack. But as he closed the A.M.C. he could see that men were jumping into the sea from what was now a blazing wreck. Her guns finally stopped firing, and some men on the poop were even waving improvised white flags.

Kahler ceased fire and lay cautiously 4,000 yards off while his boats picked up survivors, the German boats’ crew ready with rifles and machine-guns to keep off sharks. Voltaire sank by her stern two hours after the first shot had been fired, and Kahler, knowing that his victim had been unable to use her radio, felt free to spend five hours saving as many men as he could. With so many badly wounded then aboard, the torpedo deck had to be used as an overflow sick bay. When the final roll call was made, seventy-two men had been killed of Voltaire’s ship’s company of 269. One seaman rescued had a copy of the book Principles of Mercantile Law in his back pocket.’

Thwaites, lucky to be among these survivors, was subsequently interned in P.O.W. camp B.A.B. 21, near the Polish border, and Stalag 344, from which latter establishment he was repatriated at the end of the War. Released from the R.N.R. in November 1945, he was awarded his L.S. Medal in mid-January of the following year; sold with photocopied service record and other research.