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

A quite superb B.E.M. group of nine awarded to Master at Arms C. B. Brennan, Royal Navy, whose active service spanned the Korea War through to the Falklands War - via Suez and the Malay Peninsula

British Empire Medal, (Military) E.II.R. (M.A.A. Cecil B. Brennan, M816593F); Korea 1950-53 (L/SFX. 816593 E.M. (Air 1) R.N.); U.N. Korea; Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Near East (P/MX. 816593 L.P.M., R.N.); General Service 1962, 1 clasp, Malay Peninsula (MX. 816593 M.A.A., R.N.); South Atlantic 1982, with rosette (M.A.A., B.E.M., M816593F, H.M.S. Endurance); Jubilee 1977; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., E.II.R., with Bar (MX. 816593 R.P.O., H.M.S. Osprey); Royal Navy Meritorious Service Medal, E.II.R. (M.A.A., B.E.M., M. 816593F, H.M.S. Dryad), surname on the last spelt ‘Brennon’, mounted as worn, good very fine or better and undoubtedly unique (9) £4000-5000

B.E.M. London Gazette 31 December 1977.

Cecil Barry Brennan first saw active service in the Korea War, most likely aboard one of several aircraft carriers employed in that conflict, but in exactly what capacity he was employed during the Suez crisis and off the Malay Peninsula in the mid-1960’s remains unknown. He had, meanwhile, in September 1962, been awarded the Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., while serving at Osprey, the A./S. School at Pentland.

In terms of adding further ribands to his already impressive array of awards, 1977 proved a busy year, witnessing as it did the gazetting of Brennan’s B.E.M. (listed under M.O.D. Navy Department), the award of his Jubilee Medal (official records confirm) and of his Royal Navy Meritorious Service Medal, the latter as one of the first of the “new issues” (see O.M.R.S. Journal, Spring 1980). Extraordinary it is then to relate that yet another campaign award was to follow, namely his South Atlantic 1982 for services as Master at Arms aboard H.M.S. Endurance.

As the ‘sole regular bearer of the White Ensign south of the Equator’, the Endurance represented the only visible trace of British interests in the Falkland Islands being taken seriously, so when news was received that she was to be withdrawn and scrapped, her C.O., Captain N. Barker, took up the offensive with Whitehall. Fortuitously for British interests, he won a reprieve, and, as a consequence, his ship and his crew were able to play a crucial part in the capture of South Georgia and at the retaking of the outlying dependency of South Thule - and in associated S.B.S. operations.

Barker, ‘who had a swashbuckling disregard of rules and regulations which was bound to annoy bureaucrats’, paid a heavy price for his intuitive and determined intervention into the world of diplomacy and politics, any promise of flag rank being effectively curtailed before the War even started. Equally upsetting was the fact that his C.B.E. was not announced until the October following the main Falklands Honours List, but by then his respect for such accolades had clearly dwindled. As he later remarked, on hearing that a formal Falklands inquiry was to be established, “Most of those who might be found culpable [for the invasion having taken place] have been knighted, promoted or decorated - or all three.”

The full story of the Endurance’s significant role in the South Atlantic campaign is related in his memoirs Beyond Endurance: An Epic of Whitehall and the South Atlantic, but also see Roger Perkins’ definitive history Operation Paraquat.