Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A well-documented group of eight awarded to Able Seaman W. C. B. Barwood, Royal Navy, who assisted in the rescue of 105 survivors from the City of Benares in September 1940, six of whom were child evacuees: another 77 children perished when that vessel, bound for Canada, was torpedoed and sunk, an incident that sent shock waves through the home press and brought to an end the Children’s Overseas Reception Scheme (C.O.R.S.)

British War and Victory Medals (J. 67449 Sig. Boy, R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1943-43; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (J. 7449 A.B., H.M.S. Titania), mounted as worn, the Great War awards with contact marks, about very fine, the remainder very fine or better (8)

William Cushway Barwood was born at Whitechapel in the East End of London in December 1900 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in February 1917. Appointed a Signalling Boy aboard the battleship H.M.S. Superb at the end of that year, he went on to enjoy two more seagoing appointments in the cruisers Cardiff and Ceres before the War’s end, latterly as an Ordinary Signaller.

An Able Seaman by the renewal of hostilities, Barwood served for most of the Second World War aboard two destroyers, namely the Hurricane from June 1940 until May 1941, and the Lamerton from August 1941 until March 1944. In the former ship, which he had joined on her launching at Barrow-on-Furness, he was directly involved in the rescue of survivors from the ill-fated City of Benares in September 1940. No better summary of this famous disaster may be found than that written by John Slader in The Fourth Service:

‘Even more distressing, perhaps, was the disaster that overcame Ellerman’s 1936-built City of Benares, which sailed from the Mersey some ten weeks later. It was in fact Friday the thirteenth, a date that seamen, by superstition, would refuse to sail upon in peacetime. However, convoy OB213, nineteen ships strong, departed on Friday, 13 September 1940, bound for Canada. Superstitions are not allowed to interfere with the conduct of war.

City of Benares was commodore ship with Rear-Admiral Mackinnon, D.S.O., aboard. Convoy speed was 8.5 knots. There were three columns with the Commodore leading the one in the centre; the escort was one destroyer and two sloops. Her loss is remembered in particular for 77 children who were drowned when she was torpedoed by U-48 on 17 September. Only 13 children survived.

During the early hours of that fateful day, the escort vessels left, being at the limit of their range. There was a strong north-west wind, a rough confused sea and it was necessary to discontinue zigzagging. At 2205 hours a torpedo struck City of Benares. There was a violent explosion and within minutes she began to settle by the stern. The vessel was abandoned at 2220 hours, but there was difficulty in lowering the lifeboats on the weather side. Some of the children in lifeboat number 8 had been seriously injured in the explosion. As the boat cast off, shipping water badly, they were laid flat in the bottom, the blood-tinted sea-water giving indication of their plight.. A total of 255 lost their lives in the disaster.

Under the Childrens’ Overseas Resettlement Scheme (C.O.R.S.) young children from five to fifteen years were offered homes in British dominions for the duration of the War. The scheme prospered: 1530 were sent to Canada; 577 to Australia; 353 to South Africa; and 202 to New Zealand. After the loss of the City of Benares there were no more Childrens’ Overseas Resettlement ships; the sailing of Llandaff Castle scheduled to sail for Cape Town on 20 September was cancelled.’

As evidenced by Burwood’s private diary (see below), the Hurricane continued her relentless brief of convoy escort duties in the new year, his entries including several references to attacks on U-Boats, one apparently successful (‘Oil on surface’), and enemy aircraft, in addition to the rescuing of numerous personnel from torpedoed vessels, among them 478 survivors from the City of Nagpore in April 1941. In the same month she also escorted the badly holed armed merchant cruiser Worcestershire back to port. But in May 1941, after a bomb hit her port-side-aft during a Luftwaffe raid on Liverpool docks, the Hurricane was withdrawn from frontline duty for major repairs. Barwood went on leave and joined the newly commissioned Lamerton a month or two later. Another destroyer, the Lamerton won no less than eight Battle Honours during Barwood’s time in her.

Following assorted exercises, gunnery practice and a general period of “working up” at Scapa in August and September 1941, the Lamerton sailed for Londonderry and thence to join OG75, a convoy that had its fair share of alerts on passage to Gibraltar. By October, as the convoy continued on its way, Lamerton was participating in regular anti-submarine patrols, and on the 25th, she chased, engaged and sunk the Italian submarine Ferraris, picking up 44 survivors. The enemy submarine had two days earlier sunk the Cossack, and both incidents are recorded in a copy of Lamerton Lines, one of a series of typed verses included in the accompanying archive.

Lamerton went on to see action off Norway and added “Arctic 1942” to her honours before returning to the Mediterranean, where she served with distinction for over two years, and was present at the North Africa, Sicily and Salerno landings. By 1944, the year in which Barwood departed her, she was operating in the Adriatic. He transferred to an appointment in Fabing (Brindisi) in March 1944 and ended the War at the shore establishment Pembroke. He was released in September 1945.

Sold with a fine supporting archive of original documentation and photographs, the former including the recipient’s parchment certificate of service and a large format diary for 1941, the latter uncensored and accordingy an interesting account of active service, including Lamerton’s successful encounter with the Italian submarine Ferraris, and to all intents and purposes representing an official “Ship’s Log” for the period in question; a pencilled intelligence report reporting on the destruction of the Ferraris, 2pp., a report that bears all the hallmarks of being Lamerton’s captain’s original report on the incident; and the photographic archive covering the period 1935-43, with previously unpublished images of the German airship Hindenburg in flight over the Bay of Biscay in 1935 and, more significantly, women and children from the City of Benares aboard the Hurricane following their rescue in September 1940, in addition to survivors from the Ferraris being greeted by rather a ferocious looking “reception committee”.