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Auction: 336 - The Numismatic Collector's Series Sale
Lot: 1455

Great Britain. Mercantile Marine War Medal, 1914-1918, to Chief Refrigerator Engineer T.F. Palmer, Merchant Navy, a long-serving seadog who was killed in action when the M.V. Waimarama was attacked and sunk in dramatic fashion during Operation Pedestal. (Thomas F. Palmer). Good Very Fine.

Thomas Frederick Palmer was born at Grenoside in 1890. He served with the Merchant Navy during the Great War, with his medals being issued to his home in Southampton in 1924.

With the commencement of the Second World War, Palmer was now an experienced seaman into his late forties. His final ship would be the M.V. Waimarama, a cargo ship completed in 1938. Her fate was sealed whilst a part of 'Force F' during Operation Pedestal in the relief of the besieged island of Malta during August. In the allied attempts to get the force into Malta harbor, they would suffer at the hands of sustained attacks from below, on and above the placid Mediterranean seas. On the morning of 13 August, Waimarama and the convoy was around 120 miles from their destination. However, Axis intelligence had their position and was ready to attack.

She came under attack from ten Ju88's, with four making direct hits, disintegrating the decks and igniting her cargo- aviation fuel. Such was the ferocity of the flames and blasts that one German Ju88 was lost in the carnage. Exploding in a sheet of flame and smoke, the Waimarama went down quickly taking with her 83 of the complement. Palmer is commemorated upon the Tower Hill Memorial; sold with copied research.

Sold for
$110