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

A rare Second World War B.E.M. group of six awarded to Stewardess Emma Ferguson, Merchant Navy, who was decorated - aged 63 years - for her services on the occasion the S.S. Umvuma was torpedoed and sunk in August 1943

British Empire Medal, (Civil) G.VI.R., 1st issue (Miss Emma Ferguson); British War Medal 1914-20 (Emma Ferguson); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Pacific Star; War Medal 1939-45, good very fine and better (6) £400-500

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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B.E.M. London Gazette 4 January 1944.

Emma Ferguson was born in Melbourne, Australia, in July 1880, and served in the Mercantile Marine as a Stewardess in the Great War - her single entitlement, the British War Medal, being sent to her in 1925.

Similarly employed aboard the S.S. Umvoti on the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, she removed to the Umvuma in June 1941 and quickly saw action in the following month, the ship being attacked by enemy aircraft during the course of a coastal convoy on 20 July - her Master later reported that one of the aircraft passed between the funnel and mainmast at 100 feet, its bomb causing extensive damage. The Umvuma was towed into port and underwent repairs.

However, the Umvuma’s next close encounter with the enemy was to prove her last, when she was torpedoed and sunk by the U-181 while bound from Durban to Mauritius on 7 August 1943. Several men were lost owing to the nervousness of a female passenger, who delayed the escape of one of the boats - here, perhaps, a moment for Emma Ferguson to distinguish herself? Be that as it may, she and the remaining survivors were picked up by a tug and taken to Port Louis. Of no consolation to the latter, but not without interest, is the fact that U-181’s captain, Wolfgang Luth, was awarded diamonds to his Knight’s Cross with oak leaves and swords just 48 hours after the Umvuma’s demise.

Ferguson was repatriated to the U.K. aboard the Norwegian owned Troja, arriving at Cardiff in late November, and quickly returned to sea in the Umtali. In September 1944, a certificate of discharge from the Merchant Navy was issued to her, but officialdom appears to have overlooked this since she was next subjected - aged 64 years - to a Process Sheet for National Service in its place! Fortunately, good sense prevailed, and the long served Ferguson finally came ashore at the year’s end; sold with a file of research.