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Auction: 17002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 199

Pair: Engineer Sub.-Lieutenant G. S. Griffiths, Royal Naval Reserve

British War and Victory Medals (Eng. S. Lt. G. S. Griffiths. R.N.R.), attempted erasure of 'Eng' to the first, otherwise good very fine (2)

George Samuel Griffiths was born at Marple, Cheshire in 1886. A marine engineer by trade, he was commissioned Temporary Engineer Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve in early 1918 (London Gazette 31 January 1918 refers), serving aboard the Merrimac.

Merrimac, a 105ft rescue tug boat was finished in late 1917 and immediately requisitioned for Admiralty service at her launch, 23 February 1918. Such was the need for rescue and salvage vessels, that over one hundred civilian tugs were requisitioned during the Great War. Service on these isolated vessels was draining and wearing, and the crews often finding themselves under fire and in raging seas.

Griffiths was sent to hospital with neurasthenia on 12 August 1918, one might surmise his admission being as a result of the hardships and psychological exertions of his commission. He was treated at the Royal Naval Hospital Granton, Scotland for six weeks from 13 August 1918. His final posting was to H.M.S. Sunhill, the shore establishment of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (The Navy List 1919, refers).

With the cessation of hostilities and termination of his commission on 2 February 1920 his engineering career resumed; taking him to the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, working for the Lago Oil Company.

Working on the island for many years, he would return home on leave including once at the height of the Second War in March 1941. On the account of the Lago Shipping Company, he travelled aboard the Esso tanker T. C. Mc Cobb from to New York - a vessel herself sunk soon after by an Italian submarine. Aged 60, Griffiths died at West Wirral, Cheshire on 31 July 1946, and is buried in the Landican Cemetery. Sold with cloth riband bar and copied research.



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Sold for
£30