Royal Navy Blitz hero's George Cross sold for £80k

Medals awarded to a sailor who died while trying to disarm a mine during the opening nights of the Blitz, including the George Cross, have sold at auction for £80,000.

CPO Reginald Vincent Ellingworth was killed on 21 September 1940 alongside Lt Cdr Richard John Hammersley Ryan, as the pair attempted to defuse a parachute mine which had fallen onto a warehouse in Dagenham, Essex.

Both men were posthumously awarded the George Cross three months later, "for great gallantry and undaunted devotion to duty".

Ellingworth, from Wolverhampton, became the first naval rating – a junior enlisted sailor – to receive the prestigious George Cross.

Over five days in mid-September 1940 the pair had carried out "outstanding" bomb disposal work as the Luftwaffe attacked Britain's towns and cities.

The team had earned a reputation as experts in dealing with the German Type C magnetic mine.

They had neutralised six Type C's since 16 September – including one which landed in a canal and another which threatened the key RAF airfield at Hornchurch – when they were called to Dagenham, Royal Navy records show.

One eye-witness described them as both being upright men, "striding confidently" to defuse the mine which was to kill them instantly.

Ellingworth's son Donald, a soldier who had been evacuated at Dunkirk, recounted the last conversation with his father earlier in 1940.

"I talked of France while he discussed the daily dangers he encountered," he recalled.

"One thing is certain, son," he warned me. "If anything does go wrong, I won't know anything about it."

"I had never felt closer to my father and when we parted, I left with a heavy heart," he said.

"With German bombs dropping over England, I realised it was only a matter of time before his selfless courage would cost him his life. Seven weeks later he was killed.'

Ellingworth worked as an apprentice car body-maker in Coventry before joining the Royal Navy in July 1913.

He served on battleship HMS Benbow at Jutland, then the submarine service until he retired in 1938, said the Royal Navy.

With the outbreak of World War Two, he was recalled and assigned to a naval mine disposal unity, based at HMS Vernon in Portsmouth.

Described by his widow as "the best of dads", the 42-year-old was buried at Milton Cemetery in Portsmouth where his headstone bears the epitaph: In Everlasting Memory of our Beloved, Killed by Enemy Action. Duty Nobly Done.

The medals were sold at Noonan's Auction House.

Head of client liaison, Christopher Mellor-Hill, said Ellingworth had "helped render safe" parachute mines, "at a time when preferred expertise and knowledge were at a minimum".

He added: "We are delighted that this medal has been purchased by someone who has never bought a George Cross before but said he had always wanted one as he has always admired such bravery which is reflected in this being the highest award given for gallantry on par with the Victoria Cross."

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