A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners

A New Zealand Memorial Cross issued in remembrance of Fireman and Trimmer E. Slane, Merchant Navy, who lost his life when the S.S. Larpool was torpedoed and sunk in November 1941

New Zealand Memorial Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially inscribed, ‘E. Slane, (Merchant Navy)’, good very fine
£80-100

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners.

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Edward Slane, who was born in Jarrow in November 1911, was serving in the Celtic Star as a Fireman and Trimmer on the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. Having then survived the mining of the Canadian Lakes steamer Collingdoc off Southend in July 1941, he signed on to join the tramp steamer Blairnevis - but never joined her and was listed as a deserter. Given events of July 1941, he was not disciplined, but rather joined his final ship, the Geordie tramp Larpool. Bound from Loch Ewe for Barbados in convoy ONF. 27, she became a straggler, and was torpedoed and sunk by the U-208 on 2 November, Slane being among 21 resultant fatalities. He was the son of James and Elizabeth Slane of Port Chalmers, Otago, New Zealand; sold with further details, including an article from Medal News magazine, March 1994, ‘An Exact Life-Time’, by Richard Cornish, being a full account of the recipient’s wartime career.