GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY 80
An outstanding ‘Battle of the Barents Sea’ D.S.M. group of five awarded to Stoker J. J. Colley, Royal Navy, for gallantry when H.M.S. Achates was sunk by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper on 31 December 1942, while on escort duty protecting convoy JW 51B to Murmansk; the 81 survivors included Stoker Colley, who led community singing of ‘Roll Out The Barrel’ whilst awaiting rescue from the icy waters by the trawler Northern Gem
DISTINGUISHED SERVICEMEDAL,
G.VI.R. (KX.77619 J. J. Colley,. Sto.) impressed naming, minor official correction to one letter of rate; 1939-45 STAR; ATLANTIC STAR; DEFENCE AND WAR MEDALS 1939-45, mounted as worn, nearly extremely fine (5)
£2000-2600
D.S.M. London Gazette 27 April 1943: ‘For bravery in Northern Waters.’ This list of awards included the following to H.M.S. Achates: one Posthumous D.S.O., one C.G.M., one D.S.C., seven
D.S.Ms., five mentions, and eleven Posthumous mentions.
The official recommendation for Stoker Joseph John Colley, whose award is listed first in order of merit amongst the survivors, states:
‘This man showed remarkable coolness in action, and carried out his duties in the engine room in a calm and most efficient manner. On being ordered to abandon ship he assisted a wounded shipmate out of the engine room on to the upper deck and subsequently got him on to a Carley Float.
Throughout he displayed great cheerfulness and in spite of the cold and semi-darkness led community singing while waiting to be picked up.’
On 31 December 1942, Achates was on escort duty protecting the convoy JW 51B en route from Loch Ewe to Murmansk when she was sunk in the Barents Sea. The German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, pocket battleship Lützow and six large destroyers had been ordered to attack and destroy the convoy. Despite being heavily outgunned the escort, under the command of Captain R. St. Vincent Sherbrooke in Onslow (subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross), beat off the attack and not one merchant vessel was lost.
At 11:15, Achates was laying smoke to protect the convoy when she was hit by gunfire from Admiral Hipper, killing the commanding officer, Lt Cdr Johns, and forty crew. The First Lieutenant, Lt L. E. Peyton-Jones, took over command and, despite having sustained severe damage in the shelling, Achates continued her smoke screen operation. At 13:30 she went down 135 nautical miles ESE of Bear Island. 113 seamen were lost and 81 were rescued, one of whom later died on the trawler Northern Gem which had come to the aid of Achates. In response, the light cruiser Sheffield damaged Admiral Hipper, and subsequently sank her escort, Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt.
The following poignant and harrowing account is extracted from Trawlers at War:
‘The dark morning of New Year’s Eve saw the storm abated and the ice-covered ships of the now depleted convoy pressing on under constant snow squalls. Elsewhere in the darkness, unknown to them, the enemy cruiser Hipper and pocket battleship Lutzow, together with six destroyers, had sailed out from Norway to the attack. Aboard Northern Gem, rear escort on the convoy’s starboard quarter, they saw the first gun-flashes in the blackness astern as the enemy destroyers moved in; it was 9.30 a.m. At fast speed the destroyer Achates steamed across the convoy laying a protective black smoke screen, but within minutes she was hit, partially flooded and ablaze with several fires. The fires were quickly brought under control and she carried on laying smoke as the escort’s senior officer, Captain R. St V. Sherbrooke, in Onslow, took the remainder of his destroyer flotilla to meet the enemy.
From Northern Gem they could see the faint outlines of the British destroyers and the repeated gun-flashes as they harried the Hipper. But the German cruiser scored several hits on Onslow, causing considerable damage and casualties and severely wounding Captain Sherbrooke, blinding him in one eye (for this action he was awarded the V.C.).
The blizzard came down again, but the one-sided battle went on. The minesweeper Bramble was sunk, then it was again the turn of Achates. Hipper’s guns blasted and damaged her severely, a direct hit on the bridge killing her captain. The coxswain and signalman, the only survivors on the bridge, carried on until the ship’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Loftus E. P. Jones, D.S.C., who had been controlling work against the floodings, returned and took over. He steered the crippled Achates on a zig-zag course, still valiantly making smoke to protect the merchantmen. For four hours the battle went on, until the returning British cruisers finally drove off the raiders, sinking one German destroyer.
Achates was now nearing her end. Hit again on the port side, which was like a pepper pot from shrapnel holes, and with more men killed and the boiler room flooded, still she tried to protect the convoy, reducing speed to keep afloat. But her engineers reported that they could not keep speed on her one remaining boiler, so she stopped engines and her wounded signalman flashed to the Northern Gem to stand by.
But when Gem closed the Achates it was already too late for many of the destroyer’s crew, including some thirty-five badly wounded men gathered in the captain’s day-cabin, and cared for by two volunteers who elected to stay to help them when the order was given to abandon ship. Acting-Coxswain Sid Kerslake of [Northern] Gem:
“Suddenly Achates rolled over on to her port side. In the darkness we could see the red lights on the lifebelts of the men and the red- tipped cigarettes of some ratings who were even smoking as they clambered over the rail and on to the ship’s starboard side, which in a few seconds had become the ‘deck’. Seconds later the ship’s bottom started to rise out of the water as the superstructure vanished from view on the side away from us.
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