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Auction: 23001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 138

A Great War and Second World War campaign group of six awarded to 2nd Engineer T. R. Blellock, Merchant Navy, late Engineer Sub. Lieutenant, Royal Naval Reserve

A veteran of the battle of the Coronel, he was taken P.O.W. on the occasion of the loss of the troop transport Orama off Norway on 8 June 1940, when she ran into the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and four enemy destroyers: in common with her consorts H.M.T. Juniper and the tanker Oil Pioneer, she never stood a chance

Later that fateful day, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank the carrier Glorious and the destroyers Acasta and Ardent, the resultant casualties amounting to one of the worst disasters in the annals of the Royal Navy, a disaster that continues to attract controversy to this day

Embarked German propaganda teams had a field day, the fate of Orama - and her fellow victims - being captured on film:

https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/143579100-hms-orama-1940

1914-15 Star (Eng. S. Lt. T. R. Blellock, R.N.R.); British War and Victory Medals (Eng. S. Lt. T. R. Blellock, R.N.R.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, the third with officially re-impressed naming, good very fine (6)

Thomas Robertson Blellock was born in Plaistow, Essex on 20 July 1892 and was serving as an Assistant Engineer for the Orient Line on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914.

Appointed an Engineer Sub. Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve in the same month, he joined the armed merchant cruiser H.M.S. Otranto and quickly saw action in the South Atlantic.

On 27 October 1914, as part of Admiral Cradock's squadron off the Coronel, Otranto came under heavy fire from the enemy cruisers Dresden and Gneisenau. With an inferior armament and a speed of just 15 knots, she pulled clear of the line and headed west, thereby becoming one of just two British ships to survive the disastrous encounter.

Otranto next acted as guard ship to the Falklands, before returning to the U.K. in March 1915 for a refit. And Blellock remained in her employ until removing to the Ophir in February 1918. Having then resigned his commission in the Royal Naval Reserve at the war's end, he returned to the employ of the Orient Line.

Disaster off Norway

By the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, Blellock was serving as a 2nd Engineer in the Orient Line's Orama, which ship was requisitioned by the Admiralty as a troop transport, and he was consequently aboard her at the time of her loss off Norway.

On the evacuation of the Norwegian Expeditionary Force, the Kriegsmarine launched Operation "Juno", the capital ships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, and a flotilla of destroyers setting forth from Kiel to attack our forces in the vicinity of Narvik. As cited above, what followed - on 8 June 1940 - amounted to little short of a massacre.

First up, on the morning of the 8th, was Otranto, en route to Harstad to evacuate troops. Accompanied by H.M.T. Juniper and the tanker Oil Pioneer, she was intercepted by the Admiral Hipper and four enemy destroyers. Her consorts were quickly engaged, Oil Pioneer being reduced to a blazing pyre, before being torpedoed; 28 of her crew were picked up. Juniper took a heavy calibre hit and disintegrated, leaving a sole survivor.

Admiral Hipper then turned her guns on Otranto, gaining several hits. Ablaze and abandoned, she was finished off by a torpedo from the enemy destroyer Z-10, with a loss of 19 killed, her fate being captured on film.

Later that day, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau completed the massacre, sinking the carrier Glorious and her destroyer escorts Acasta and Ardent. Their fate, too, was captured on film.

Blellock was among those to be picked up by the Germans and was landed at Trondheim, from whence he endured an uncomfortable railway journey in a cattle truck to Oslo. Initially interned at Ilag XIII at Wulzsburg in Bavaria, he was later moved to Marlag und Milag Nord.

He died at Benfleet, Essex on 17 December 1972.

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Sold for
£170

Starting price
£100