Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part I)

Six: Chief Petty Officer Telegraphist H. Soffe, Royal Navy

British War and Victory Medals (J. 42599 Tel., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., 3rd issue, coinage head (J. 42599 L. Tel., H.M.S. Rowena), the first two with contact wear and polished, fine or better, the remainder generally very fine and better (6) £100-120

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the collection of Angela and the late Douglas Bertram.

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Herbert Soffe was lost aboard the S.S. Aguila on 19 August 1941, when that vessel, bound for Gibraltar and acting as the Commodore’s ship in convoy O.G. 71, was torpedoed by the U-201 and went down in 90 seconds - among those lost in her were 20 girls of the W.R.N.S.

The terrible fate of convoy O.G. 71 is vividly described in Nightmare Convoy by Paul Lund and Harry Ludlam, and was to prove the inspiration for Nicholas Monsarrat’s famous title The Cruel Sea - as a young naval officer he had witnessed the unfolding massacre of the convoy’s merchantmen from an escorting destroyer.

Herbert Soffe, who was born at Reading, Berkshire in November 1899, and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in late 1915, witnessed active service as a Boy Telegraphist aboard the cruiser H.M.S. Highflyer between April 1917 and the end of hostilities. A regular between the Wars, he was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in December 1932 and had attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer Telegraphist by the renewal of hostilities. It was in this latter rate that he joined the staff of Vice-Admiral Patrick Parker, D.S.O., one of that gallant band of retired R.N. officers who volunteered for duty in the unenvious role of “Commodore of Convoys”. He, too, went down in the Aguila.