Beschreibung:

Four: Gunner C. Ratcliff, Royal Artillery, a Far East P.O.W. who won a “mention” for saving several comrades in a collapsed mine in Japan 1939-45 Star, the reverse privately inscribed, ‘1771864 Gnr. C. Ratcliffe, R.A., L.A.A.; Pacific Star; Defence and War Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf, mounted as worn, extremely fine £250-300 Footnote Mention in despatches London Gazette 23 January 1947. An award reflecting gallant service as a P.O.W. in the Far East, the background to which is revealed in the original recommendation of the B.E.M. to a fellow captive, Gunner H. Davies, R.A.: ‘This man while a prisoner of war working in a coal mine undoubtedly saved his own and 13 other lives by giving orders and advice when they were trapped for 48 hours on a collapsed coal conveyor face, at Ohama, Honsha, Japan in June 1943. The conveyor face was about 1.5 miles under the sea at approximately 80 metres depth and the coal face 75 yards in length with height varying from 2ft. 6 ins. to 4ft. 6ins. at extreme with a blank end to the face. The first 60 yards were worked by Japanese and Koreans and the remainder by Gunner Davies and five other British prisoners of war [Ratcliff among them]. The accident was a complete collapse of the face and old workings to the rear, from 10 yards in, to within 20 yards of the blank end, due to the continual dripping of water, old workings nearby and the lack of sound timbering to support. The result was that the six British, five Japanese and three Koreans were trapped at the blank end, with no timber, slight air through a collapsed air pipe, and one lamp. Davies organised the building of a wall of “sandstone” to take the brunt of further inevitable squeeze on the remainder of the coal face, saving further collapse and thereby the lives of the entombed party. After 48 hours, 24 of which were spent without light, release came through a tunnel built under the collapsed sandstone and coal 45 yards in length approximately and in no place wider or higher than 2ft. 6ins. The whole workings collapsed 30 minutes after release.’ Clifford “Jimmy” Ratcliff was born in April 1906 and enlisted in the Royal Artillery in February 1941. Captured by the Japanese in Java in 1942, while serving as a Gunner in 48th Battery, 21st Light A.A. Regiment, R.A., he was repatriated at the end of the War and demobilised with an ‘Exemplary’ rating in January 1946. Then, as late as January 1947, while resident in Lyminster, near Littlehampton, he received official notification of his “mention”, no doubt as a result of his debriefing by Lieutenant W. R. Bennett, R.N.V.R., during which ‘meritorious actions’ - and war crimes - were on the agenda, and with a Major of M.I. 9 on 18 October 1945 (accompanying documentation refers). Sold with the recipient’s I.D. tags and a large quantity of original wartime documentation, including M.I.D. certificate and associated correspondence; R.A. Record Office correspondence with the recipient’s mother regarding his “missing in action” status; a wartime photograph of Japanese P.O.W. guards; hand written menus for “Freedom Dinner 1945” and “Jimmy Ratcliff Farewell Dinner, 5th February 1945”; and Soldier’s Release Book; together with an H.M.S. Implacable pennant, presumably the ship aboard which he finally returned home, and a minute set of dominoes, the latter undoubtedly dating from his P.O.W. days.