Historical and Art Medals, Numismatic Books

British Historical Medals, The Sinking of HMS Ark Royal, 1939, an iron medal by G. Goetz, Neville Chamberlain seated, flanked by Winston Churchill and Leslie Hore-Belisha, rev. Death holding flag inscribed ark royal, German bomber above, 71mm (Engstrom 5). Extremely fine and very rare (£100-150)

Provenance:
DNW Auction 41, 3 June 1999, lot 867.

Plate 17. 20 struck. On 26 September 1939 (not the date shown on the medal), 150 miles off the Norwegian coast, a British naval squadron which included the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was attacked by a flight of German bombers. Contrary to fact, the Germans claimed that the Ark Royal had been sunk and its propaganda machine went into overdrive, with the pilot who ‘claimed’ the sinking being decorated. The star of David, located on the medal by the initials of Hore-Belisha, a politician now mostly remembered for his famous beacons, underlines the strident anti-semitic character which marked official German public sentiment at the time