Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An early Second World War minesweeping operations D.S.M. group of four awarded to Chief Engineman G. W. Sanderson, Royal Naval Patrol Service

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (LT/KX. 101750 Ch. Engn. G. W. Sanderson); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, extremely fine (4) £600-800

D.S.M. London Gazette 3 September 1940:

‘For bravery, skill and enterprise in minesweeping operations off the coasts of Holland, Belgium and France.’

George William Sanderson, almost certainly a pre-war Lowestoft trawlerman, was decorated for services in H.M. Trawler Asama in 1940, her operational agenda having included sweeps outside St. Nazaire when that port was evacuated in mid-June, an operation that took several days and nights, with our ships being regularly subjected to heavy and accurate bombing - thus, famously, the loss of the S.S. Lancastria. Indeed it was the Asama, and another trawler, who “swept” the way out of St. Nazaire when the final convoy of 10 merchantmen and a destroyer departed the scene at the end of the operation, the whole laden with thousands of troops.

But the plucky trawler’s luck ran out in March 1941, when she was sunk by enemy aircraft off Plymouth with a loss of at least six of her crew - ‘ship was struck on starboard side, near funnel and sank immediately. Presume bomb detonated on the ship’s bottom. 17 survivors were picked up’ (Admiralty report refers). If aboard her at the time, Sanderson survived, and was invested with his D.S.M. at Buckingham Palace on 5 April 1941.