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Auction: 24111 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 660

A superb 'Murmansk Run' group of six attributed to Boy Seaman S. T. Pim, Merchant Navy, who was seriously wounded when his vessel was torpedoed at Murmansk, later seeing service on Atlantic Convoys and during the Tobruk evacuations and Sicily landings

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; War Medal 1939-45, Russia, Republic, 60th Anniversary of the Patriotic War Medal; 65th Anniversary of the Patriotic War Medal, all unnamed as issued, sold together with a quantity of named documentation including an invitation to Buckingham Palace for the 60th Anniversary of the Second World War, good very fine (6)

Samuel Thomas 'Tom' Pim was born at Belfast in 1927 but lost his parents young and was put into the Orange Lodge Orphanage. Later growing up in a series of Barnardos homes in Southern England he volunteered at the Russell Coates Naval School, Dorset.

It was because of this last move that Pim found himself as Boy Seaman aged fifteen on a Convoy bound for Murmansk (Arctic Star). Here he survived attacks by German Condor aircraft and U-boat packs but was seriously wounded by shrapnel. Pim wrote a book on his experiences during the war called Kismet which outlines his experiences through the eyes of a former comrade named O’Dell. One excerpt relates a heavy attack on the convoy which saw him wounded:

‘O’Dell remembered afterwards he was just reaching the Bridge and thinking of poor Kemp when the first torpedo hit them.
The Usworth heaved and gave a great shudder. Just as the Captain started to give orders another torpedo struck right under the bridge, port side on.
O’Dell heard a great roar, and felt himself floating in the air. The noise around him was sheer bedlam, and the heat so intense that each breath was like sucking a flame into his mouth.’

Pim was one of few to survive the sinking of his ship and was taken to a hospital at Ekonomya, Murmansk where he again had to fight for survival in poor conditions. Despite this he managed to live on and continued to serve, earning the Russian White Beret for his services in the Arctic. He was later awarded further decorations by the Russian Government in commemoration of the war. Pim died at Gloucester Royal Hospital on 4 October 2011; sold together with a copy of Kismet by Tom Pim, a document of issue for the recipient's Russian awards in a named and addressed envelope, an arctic emblem slip of issue, unnamed and Palm Sunday order of service with the recipient listed as in attendance along with a copied death notice, medal slip of issue and typed research.

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Sold for
£210

Starting price
£80