Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Second World War submariner’s group of six awarded to Leading Signalman L. G. Fanthorpe, Royal Navy, who won a “mention” for his services in the P. 31 and the “Fighting Tenth” during assorted Mediterranean war patrols 1941-42

Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1936-1939 (J. 112235 Sig., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; War Medal, M.I.D. oak leaf; Royal Fleet Reserve L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (J. 112235 PO.B. 19854 L. Sig., R.F.R.), this last with officially corrected rate, otherwise good very fine or better (6) £500-600

Mention in despatches London Gazette 21 July 1942. The original recommendation states:

‘P. 31 was commissioned in March 1941 and joined the 8th Submarine Flotilla based at Dundee. After working up patrols, operations were carried out on the Norwegian Coast but no targets were sighted.

P. 31 arrived at Malta on 20 October 1941, and whilst on patrol in the Gulf of Taranto on 29 November, in foul weather, attacked three southbound cruisers escorted by destroyers, scoring three hits on the second cruiser in line, which it is considered sank.

On 5 March 1942, an attack on a 6000-ton fully laden fast merchant ship, bound for Tripoli, and escorted by two destroyers and two aircraft, was carried out in calm weather using asdic data and firing blind. This resulted in all four torpedoes hitting and the ship was destroyed. An unnerving depth-charging followed whilst P. 31 lay on the sea bottom.

Leading Signalman Fanthorpe is a good signalman and a first class lookout. His calm bearing has been an inspiration to the younger members of the crew during depth-charging and other moments of stress.’

Leslie George Fanthorpe, who was born in April 1908 and entered the Royal Navy in April 1926, volunteered for submarines in September 1928, and was present in operations off Palestine in H.M. Submarine Severn in 1936-37.

Commencing his wartime career in the Otway, in which he served until March 1940, he joined the P. 31 (Lieutenant J. B. de B. Kershaw, R.N.) in March 1941. As cited above, following some working up patrols off Norway, she joined the famous “Fighting Tenth” Flotilla at Malta in October 1941, and Fanthorpe remained similarly employed until P. 31’s return to the U.K. towards the end of 1942.

This, then, a period of intense activity, which witnessed the P. 31 collecting two dozen splinter holes in her pressurised hull as a result of accurate Luftwaffe bombing while alongside Malta’s Lazaretto Creek, and high drama off Tripoli when sea water cascaded into the control room following an ‘involuntary dive’ - Lieutenant Kershaw was knocked out and two crew members thrown over the side, one of whom was lost. We may be sure this was one of those ‘moments of stress’ in which Fanthorpe proved an ‘inspiration to the younger members of crew’, so, too, during the depth-charge attack on P. 31 after she torpedoed the Marin Sanudo off the island of Lampione on 5 March 1942, an incident best summarised in John Wingate’s definitive history, The Fighting Tenth:

‘Six minutes later the submarine was counter-attacked. After nine depth-charges had exploded uncomfortably close, Kershaw decided to bottom P. 31 gently in the 180 feet shown on the chart. Taking her down ‘dead slow’, she actually touched the bottom with 240 feet on the gauges. While P. 31 lay bottomed at this extreme depth, the two destroyers, apparently in contact overhead, dropped another thirty charges extremely close to the submarine. It was some hours before the harassed P. 31 was able to return to the surface ... ’

Kershaw was awarded the D.S.O., his “Jimmy the One” a D.S.C., and four crew members the D.S.M., while Fanthorpe received one of three “mentions”.

Fanthorpe was admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar on his return to the U.K., but he returned to active service with an appointment in the Sunfish, July 1943 to May 1944. Thereafter, he appears to have held appointments at Dolphin and elsewhere in the U.K., following which he was released from the Submarine Service in November 1945.