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Auction: 24111 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 646

'For the better part of 1942, Zulu was attached to Force H at Gibraltar, striking against Axis supply convoys. H.M.S. Zulu and H.M.S. Sikh's final operation together was the attack on Tobruk, Libya on 13-14 September 1942. As a result of shelling from coastal batteries, Zulu was hit but she could still make 30 knots. Her crew had been at full watch since dusk on the 13th and daylight on the 14th did not bring any rest. In spite of surviving multiple bomb attacks during that day, Zulu was mortally wounded at 1600 hours. A bomb from an enemy aircraft had pierced her side and exploded in the engine room, thus flooding it along with No. 3 Boiler Room and the Gear Room. She stopped dead in the water and settled two feet deeper. H.M.S. Croome came along side to take off any remaining personnel except for a towing party. Zulu was taken in tow by H.M.S. Hursley. By 1900 hours, and only a hundred miles from Alexandria, Egypt, she was sinking fast. The towing party was rescued after a strafing pass by an enemy aircraft. Suddenly, Zulu rolled to starboard and sank. In both attacks, 12 men had been killed, 27 went missing and one was wounded … '

The B.B.C.'s WW2 People's War website refers.

A well-documented Second World War campaign group of five awarded to Able Seaman N. J. Parsons, Royal Navy, who survived the loss of the destroyer H.M.S. Zulu off Tobruk in Operation "Agreement" in September 1942

1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, in their original O.H.M.S. card forwarding box, addressed to the recipient at Exton, near Exeter, extremely fine (5)

Norman John Parsons was born at Marystow, Devonshire on 25 May 1905 and entered the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman in July 1941. Embarked for the Middle East, he joined the training establishment H.M.S. Canopus in Egypt and remained likewise employed until removing to the fleet repair ship Resource in January 1942.

At the end of May 1942, however, he joined the destroyer Zulu, and he was to remain likewise employed up until her loss to enemy aircraft during the ill-fated assault on Tobruk on 14 September 1942.

Zulu had had a distinguished war record, having played a significant role in the Bismarck action and in Malta convoy Operation "Vigorous". And she added to her accolades under Commander R. T. White, D.S.O., R.N., shortly after Parsons joined her, when, on 4 August 1942, with her consorts Crome and Tetcott, she sank the U-372 off Haifa.

Subsequently allocated to Operation "Agreement", Zulu carried out gallant rescue work as disaster struck off Tobruk on 13-14 September 1942, picking up survivors from her consorts Sikh and Coventry, but she too fell victim to swathes of Ju. 87s and 88s on the 14th and sank with considerable loss of life.

Among her survivors, Parsons was subsequently borne on the books of the shore establishment Phoenix in Egypt (September 1942-August 1943), and the Algiers' bases Hannibal (August 1943-December 1943) and Bysra (January-May 1944). He returned to the U.K. in the latter month and was discharged as 'physically unfit for naval service' in December 1944.

He died in Exeter in December 1985, aged 80; sold with the recipient's original Certificate of Service, together with three wartime portrait photographs, in uniform, one of them depicting him as a motor-cycle dispatch rider.


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Sold for
£95

Starting price
£60