Orders, Decorations and Medals

An important North Russian Convoy ‘PQ 17’ D.S.O. and Lloyd’s Bravery Medal group of eight awarded to Captain Augustus Banning, Merchant Navy, Master of the Rescue Ship Rathlin which, during the course of the War, escorted 60 convoys and rescued over 600 survivors

Distinguished Service Order, G.VI.R., reverse of the lower suspension officially dated 1942; British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. A. Banning, R.N.R.); Mercantile Marine War Medal (Augustus Banning); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal; Lloyd’s Silver Medal for Bravery at Sea (Captain Augustus Banning, S.S. “Rathlin” 27th June 1942) all medals contained in their respective cases and card boxes of issue, extremely fine (8) £3000-4000

The group is accompanied by a selection of related documentation and artifacts, comprising:

(i) Warrant for the D.S.O., dated 29 September 1942.

(ii) Forwarding letter from Lloyd’s of London, together with their ‘10th List of Awards’ giving citation.

(iii) Captain Banning’s Merchant Navy uniform, comprising tunic with medal ribbons, trousers, and peaked cap, together with his WWI R.N.R. bullion cap badge.

(iv) Naval Officer’s Telescope by Heath & Co., London, used by Captain Banning but previously the property of, and named to, W. H. Wykeham-Musgrave, R.N. (Retired Lt.-Commander).

(v) Sextant, in gun metal with brass fittings and accessories, by Whyte Thomson & Co., Glasgow & S. Shields, in its mahogany case.

(vi) Captain Banning’s personal hand-written notebook diaries covering the period September 1941 to June 1945, together with a quantity of various nautical notebooks and publications.

(vii) Various letters of congratulation, other related correspondence, several photographs and a number of news cuttings.

(viii) ‘P.Q.17’ by Godfrey Winn, and ‘The Rescue Ships’ by Vice-Admiral B. B. Schofield & Lt.-Commander L. F. Martin, this signed by the authors.

D.S.O. London Gazette 29 September 1942: ‘For services during North Russian Convoy PQ17 in July 1942.’

Lloyd’s Medal for Bravery at Sea Lloyd’s List & Shipping Gazette 31 August 1943: ‘Captain Augustus Banning, Master, R.S. Rathlin, and Captain Owen Charles Morris, Master, R.S. Zamalek. These two vessels were in a North Russian convoy. Throughout numerous attacks by enemy aircraft with bombs and torpedoes the fortitude, courage and seamanship of these Masters were of the highest order, and it was due to them that both ships were brought safely through. The guns were used to such good purpose that three of the enemy were destroyed, and between them the two ships rescued over 200 survivors from other vessels.’

In the opening years of the 1939-45 war thousands of merchant seamen lost their lives through enemy action. Hospital ships could not accompany convoys-such ships had to be lighted at night, and would have betrayed the convoy positions. The solution was Rescue Ships, Merchant Navy vessels of about 1,500 gross tons, mostly from coastal trade. Their low freeboard enabled them to get men more easily over the side. They could steam at 11 or 12 knots and so work astern of a convoy and regain station afterwards.

These small ships were commanded and manned by Merchant Navy personnel; each carried a naval medical officer and a sickberth attendant, and was fitted with a hospital and operating theatre. The life-saving equipment included rescue boats, Carley floats, float nets, scrambling nets, booms grab hooks and hoists. Twenty-nine Rescue Ships were commissioned during the war. Nothing deterred them from their hazardous duty; U-boat packs, enemy aircraft and surface ships, or the worst gales, ice and snow storms of the North Atlantic and the ‘Murmansk Run’. Six of them were lost or sunk. They escorted 757 convoys and rescued 4,194. Of the many awards to the brave men of the Rescue Ships, there were only two D.S.O.’s - those awarded to Captains Banning and Morris, both for the infamous North Russian convoy PQ17.

It was to convoy PQ17, a designation that was to become world famous, that the first Rescue Ships were allocated. They were the Rathlin (Capt. A. Banning), Zaafaran (Capt. C. K. McGowan), and Zamalek (Capt. O. C. Morris), and the inclusion of three such ships in one convoy was evidence of the Admiralty’s concern for the safety of the personnel of the 35 merchant ships which it was intended should sail in it.

Captain Banning, born at Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, was a Lowlander, and being of medium build and height was known to his friends as ‘Wee Banning’. Besides being a fine seaman, he was an authority on the life and works of Robert Burns. He had been for many years with the Clyde Shipping Company, and had gained his Extra Master’s Certificate. He was in command of the company’s ship Beachy when she was bombed and sunk on 11th January 1941. He was rescued by a trawler, and could only be given first-aid for a broken leg, so he suffered thereafter from a limp.

On 1st July the convoy was sighted by a German reconnaissance aircraft and over the next two days the convoy was subjected to sporadic, but unsuccessful, attacks. On the 4th July a lone Heinkel torpedo bomber dived out of the clouds and torpedoed the U.S. ship Christopher Newport. The Zamalek was quickly on the scene and rescued 47 members of her crew of fifty, three men being killed when the torpedoes hit. All day long aircraft circled the convoy, keeping the defenders on the alert, and in the evening they struck. Doctor Wilkins was standing on the deck of the Rathlin at the time. ‘At about 1800 hours the circling German planes were suddenly joined by between thirty and forty Heinkel torpedo bombers which approached at tremendous speed a few feet above the sea on the starboard quarter. All our guns went into action and a terrific barrage was put up by the convoy, which forced the aircraft to turn to port, but did not prevent them from firing their torpedoes into the heart of the convoy. The leader pressed home the attack in a very gallant manner, passing straight down the lines of the convoy and being shot down in flames. Two torpedoes passed ahead of us, one actually under our bows, and three astern.’

Despite the determined way in which the attack was delivered, only three ships were hit. These were the British Navarino, the American William Hooper, and the Russian tanker Azerbaijan. The Zaafaran picked up thirty survivors from the Navarino, while the Rathlin recovered forty-four from the William Hooper and nineteen from the Navarino. Eleven more of the William Hooper’s crew were rescued by the Zamalek. Without the presence of the Rescue Ships there can be no doubt that all of these men would have perished in the freezing Arctic seas.

It was late that evening, just as the three Rescue Ships were rejoining the convoy on completion of their work, when a signal was received from the Admiralty ordering the convoy to scatter. The receipt of the order came as a terrible shock to the morale of the crews of the merchantmen, and especially to those in the Rescue Ships loaded with survivors. They saw the cruisers and destroyer section of their escort disappearing at high speed over the western horizon without being aware of the reasons which had prompted such drastic action. Chief among these, it later transpired, was the presence in the area of the German battleship Turpitz.

Without their Royal Navy escort the convoy had no option but to scatter and throw themselves at the mercy of marauding U-boats, as well as attacks from the surface and the air. Thus, PQ17 which on the evening of 4th July had been a coherent body of ships steaming eastward in orderly array, became thirty independent vessels engaged in what was to prove a hopeless and costly sauve qui peut. In accordance with the instructions laid down for such an emergency, the Rathlin headed north towards the ice-barrier at her best speed, while the other ships of the convoy followed the divergent courses laid down for them, before resuming the course which would take them to Archangel.

On the 6th July Rathlin encountered the United States freighter Bellingham, and the two proceeded in company, many times having to alter course to avoid running into ice. The following day the two ships encountered large formations of ice barring their path to the southward, and they were obliged to take a course which inevitably took them back into the danger area. All day long distress signals from ships and boats’ radio sets were intercepted, many from vessels sunk several hundred miles from the nearest land. It was not long before the Rathlin and her big escort were sighted by a patrolling Focke-Wolf Condor, and it attempted to bomb them. ‘The pilot must have felt sure he could deal with us himself’ wrote Captain Banning. ‘I was glad he didn’t call out the dive bombers, for they were only some twenty minutes’ flight away. He flew into the attack himself. The Rathlin opened fire, well and truly aimed, setting the plane on fire and it crashed into the water, a blazing mass.’

Later the two ships proceeded, and the following day they made a landfall at Syvatoi Noss on the Murmansk Coast, whence they were escorted by a Russian gunboat through the Gourlo and into the White Sea. They reached Archangel safely on the 9th July but it was not until 24th July, after Commodore Dowding had returned from a further search of the Novaya Zemlyan coast bringing in six more ships, that it was possible definitely to assess the losses suffered by Convoy PQ17. They amounted to twenty-three merchant ships sunk, and the Rescue Ship Zaafaran, and were the most severe suffered by any mercantile convoy during the war. Only eleven ships made Archangel.

On the return convoy, designated QP14, consisting of fifteen ships, mostly survivors from PQ17, the two Rescue Ships Rathlin and Zamalek had no less busy a time. The losses of this convoy amounted to the destroyer H.M.S. Somali, the minesweeper Leda, the R.F.A. tanker Gray Ranger, the British ship Ocean Voice, and the American ships Silver Sword and Bellingham. When Rathlin reached the Clyde on the afternoon of 27th September after an absence of over three months, she had on board two hundred and eighty-one survivors.

Both Captain Banning and Captain Morris were awarded the Distinguished Service Order, the only two such awards to the Rescue Ship service in the entire war. In addition they received Lloyd’s Medals, and several other officers and men of the Rescue Ships received decorations and awards. In the course of the war Rathlin accompanied no less than 60 convoys and rescued a total of 634 survivors, the highest total number of survivors for any Rescue Ship. Whilst Captain Banning served in Rescue Ships throughout the war, he was not always commanding the Rathlin. In November 1943, he took over the newly converted Rescue Ship Eddystone and again came to prominence during Convoy ON225 in March 1944, when he rescued sixty-one survivors from the American ship Joel R. Poinsett, which signalled that she was breaking up after the convoy became scattered in bad weather, and had dropped some ninety miles astern of the convoy. On this occasion the Eddystone received the thanks of the United States War Shipping Administration for her work.