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

Pair: First Engineer J. H. Johnston, Mercantile Marine, who lost his life on the occasion the S.S. Cairnstrath was torpedoed and sunk in February 1917

British War and Mercantile Marine War Medals 1914-18 (John H. Johnston), good very fine (2) £60-80

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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John Harle Johnston, who was born in South Shields in 1882, was serving as First Engineer of the S.S. Cairnstrath when she was torpedoed and sunk six miles S.S.W. of Ile du Pilier on 4 August 1917 - the Master and 21 of her crew were killed, including Johnston. Aged 34 years, he left a widow, Mary Elizabeth, of Thomas Street, South Shields, and is commemorated on the Merchant Navy Memorial at Tower Hill, London.