Beschreibung:

A fine C.G.M. group of five awarded to Stoker Petty Officer Jack 'Spud' Yates, Royal Navy, for gallantry during the last destroyer action of the Second World War, against the Japanese Navy in the Malacca Straits CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY MEDAL, G.VI.R. (Sto. P. 0. J. Yates, PIKX. 95334); 1939-45 STAR; ATLANTIC STAR, clasp, France and Germany; BURMA STAR; WAR MEDAL, MID., sold with original MID. certificate, Admiralty letter advising of the award of the G.C.M., and a handwritten account of the action by Yates, nearly very fine and rare (5) Footnote M.I.D., London Gazette, 1 January, 1943: H.M.S. Halcyon. C.G.M., London Gazette, 18 September, 1945 '... for great gallantry and outstanding devotion to duty while serving in H.M.S. Saumarez on the East Indies Station in operations on 15/16 May, 1945, in which a Japanese heavy cruiser and probably a destroyer were sunk' (ref Admiralty letter). ‘No. 1 Boiler of H.M.S. Saumarez was hit by an enemy shell. Stoker Petty Officer Yates, the sole survivor from the boiler room although badly burnt and in great pain, at once shut the steam off from the oil fuel pump and heaters, and would not allow himself to be treated for his hurts until he had reported the damage. This most gallant action did much to limit the damage to his ship.’ The Last Destroyer action of World War Two Early on 10 May, 1945, two days after the end of the war in Europe, Allied intelligence sources revealed that the Japanese were mounting a naval operation to relieve their garrisons on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Under Operation Sho, the Japanese intended to send the formidable 13,380 ton heavy cruiser Haguro and the destroyer Kamikaze to the Andamans, and the auxiliary supply vessel Kuroshiyo Maru No 2 and submarine chaser No 57 to the Nicobars. In response, Vice-Admiral H. T. C. Walker R.N., at Trincomalee, Ceylon, rapidly assembled Force 61, which included the 26th Destroyer Flotilla, recently returned from the Rangoon landings and under the command of Captain Manley Power, C.B.E., D.S.O., R.N., in the Saurnarez. Force 61 sailed at 0600hrs. on the 10th shaping a course almost due east towards the Ten Degree Channel between the two island groups. That evening Force 61 received a sighting report of the Haguro from the British submarine Subtle patrolling in the Malacca Straits. Haguro's northwesterly course and speed of 17 knots indicated that interception would be made on 12 May. Accordingly Walker took the precaution of forming and detaching Group 3, comprising the French capital ship Richelieu, the heavy cruiser Cumberland and the 26th Destroyer Flotilla, to take up a position in the Six Degree Channel between the Nicobars and Sumatra Island, in case the Haguro abandoned her mission and ran for Singapore. However on 11 May Japanese aircraft reported the presence of Force 61 to the Haguro, and she promptly altered course and made for the Six Degree Channel, but Group 3 missed her. She was next encountered by Subtle in the Malacca Straits whose sighting confirmed that she had eluded Walker's trap. Walker now decided to stand off to the south in order to tempt the Haguro into making another dash to the Andamans. Meanwhile the ships of the 26th Destroyer Flotilla refuelled on the 13th from Force 61's escort carriers. On the 14th a Liberator from 222 Group, R.A.F. Ceylon, sighted the Kuroshiyo Maru and her sub-chaser escort leaving Nancowry Island in the Nicobars. Acting on this information, Walker implemented Operation Mitre - the air and sea sweep through the Andaman Sea to seek and destroy Japanese shipping - and detached Cumberland, Royalist, four escort carriers from the 21st Aircraft Carrier Squadron and the 26th Destroyer Flotilla. Unknown to all the net was closing not on Kuroshiyo Maru but on the Haguro. Steaming ahead of 3 Group's heavy ships, the destroyers Venus, Virago, Verulam, Vigilant and Saumarez, under Capt Power, (Captain [D)), soon came within range of the Japanese airfields in Sum