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

Four: Leading Seaman G. Griffiths, Royal Navy, who won a “mention” aboard the destroyer escort Volunteer in convoys P.Q. 16 and Q.P. 13

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (J. 98546 L.S., H.M.S. Duncan), good very fine or better (4) £200-250

George Griffiths was born at Hastings, Sussex in June 1905 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in August 1920. Advanced to Leading Seaman in November 1928, he was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in March 1938, while serving on the China Station in the destroyer H.M.S. Duncan. It is probable, therefore, that he was aboard her in August 1937, when she was present at Shanghai during the Japanese invasion and assisted in the evacuation of British women and children to Woosang.

But it was for his deeds aboard the destroyer Volunteer on the Arctic run in early 1942 that Griffiths was mentioned in despatches, ‘for distinguished services in taking convoys to and from Murmansk, through the dangers of ice and heavy seas and in the face of relentless attacks by enemy U-Boats, aircraft and surface forces’ (London Gazette 25 August 1942 refers). The convoys in question were outward bound P.Q. 16, and homeward bound Q.P. 13, but it was the former one that proved the most eventful, for Q.P. 13 was largely left in peace as the enemy set about the ill-fated P.Q. 17. In his definitive history Arctic Convoys 1941-1945, Richard Woodman states, ‘It was to be the fate of P.Q. 16 to engage the enemy in a six-day running battle during which time few of those on board, either escorts or escorted, were to get any sleep except for snatched bouts of cat-napping at Actions Stations’, so much so that it suffered its fair share of men who lost their nerve or were otherwise affected by ‘battle fatigue’. Given the Volunteer’s prominent part in this six-day running battle, we may be sure that Griffiths witnessed a good deal of action, primarily as a result of the protracted attention of enemy aircraft, guided more often than not to the convoy by high-altitude FW Condors. Indeed in order to counter the unwelcome attention of the latter, Q.P. 16 carried a small number of catapult-operated Hurricanes (a.k.a. “Hurricats”), the gallant pilot of one such aircraft being picked up by the Volunteer, after he had baled out seriously wounded.