Distinguished Service medal group (GV1) , excellent Merchant Seaman award for the action between Armed Merchant Cruiser (previously RMMV) Caernarvon Castle and the German Raider ‘Thor’, 5 December 1940. Later served Operation Pedestal , the epic Malta convoy (oil tanker Ohio) where aboard and surviving the sinking of MV Wairangi when torpedoed and sunk by enemy torpedo boats

D.S.M. (GV1) (GSR. Canarvon Castle), 1939/45 Star, Atlantic Star , Africa Star, Italy Star, War Medal.

With named Buckingham Palace forwarding slip for the DSM and 5 seaman’s cards with photographs of the recipient.

Gsr. A. Heatley

D.S.M. L.G. 6/6/1941 ‘For great courage and devotion to duty in the action against an armed German Raider.’ (On 5/12/1940)

Greaser Heatley joined Carnarvon Castle signing a T124 agreement, for service on a ship taken over by the Royal Navy as a merchant seaman under naval orders.

As Thor was operating southeast of Rio de Janeiro, one of the raider’s lookouts spotted the Carnarvon Castle, the fastest liner on the pre-war South Africa route. (Previously Union-Caste Line Mail Ship) The liner had been at Cape town at the outbreak of the war, and was requisitioned by the Royal Navy on 8 September 1939. Following conversion at the naval base at Simon’s Town which included being fitted with eight 6-inch, and two 3-inch guns she was commisioned HMS Carnarvon Castle on 9 October 1939.

Hoping to avoid the Merchant cruiser, Kähler altered course, and for a time outpaced the British ship. With three of Thor’s six 150mm guns facing aft, Kähler had decided to force Carnarvon Castle into a stern chase. By this means, he could minimize his ship’s cross section and, if necessary, take the cruiser under fire with half his main battery. The latter course of action loomed closer, when the ponderous yet faster former liner got up to full speed. Drawing nearer, Carnarvon Castle signaled the fleeing raider to identify herself, and to stop engines. When neither action occurred, Capt. (retired) Henry Noel Marryat Hardy, RN ordered his gun crews to fire a warning shot over the unknown ship’s bow. Unable to evade, Kähler ran up his battle ensign, abandoned Thor’s disguise by exposing his guns, and returned fire. As the German gunners found their target, Kähler changed course to turn the chase into a circular fight against the much less nimble Carnarvon Castle and by this means, to engage her with a full broadside.

While laying down smoke to shield his ship from the view of the British gun crews, Kähler fired two torpedoes at the cruiser. Both missed, but it hardly mattered as Thor circled and fired without pause, pounding Carnarvon Castle. But then the guns of the raider obsolete even before World War I began to malfunction as a result of the sustained action. Gun recoil systems overheated and gun barrels went out of train. Suddenly, as the possible ramifications of this catastrophe became evidente aboard Thor, the battered merchant cruiser ceased firing, turned and withdrew at top speed.

Thor emerged from the lengthy battle, in which she fired 593 rounds of 150mm ammunition, undamaged, and with no casualties. Carnarvon Castle limped into Montevideo harbour on 7 December, with a ten-degree list. She had taken twenty-three hits, suffered thirty-two killed or wounded. Repairs to her riddled hull were made using plates salvaged from the wreck of the pocket-battleship Admiral Graf Spee.

Awards for Carnarvon Castle were 2 DSC, 1 CGM, 5 DSM, 2 posthumous MID and 12 MID.

Heatley served aboard SS.. Wairangi , cargo steamer, from1/7/1942 until sunk by enemy torpedo boats during Operation Pedestal on 13/8/1942. The most famous of the Malta convoys including the tanker Ohio, which came through though with great loss from repeated enemy attacks from air and sea.

Heatedly was picked up by the destroyer ‘Eskimo’. And served aboard a succession of merchant vessels for the remainder of the war.

Having commenced his merchant service in 1924 he retired some 48 years later as mechanic on the QE 2.

A lovely DSM group