Medals awarded to Royal Navy hero from both world wars are up for sale

A rare George Cross awarded to a war hero who was killed as he disarmed a mine dropped during the Blitz is going up for auction.

- by Freddie Webb

Royal Navy sailor Chief Petty Officer Reginald Vincent Ellingworth, a First World War veteran, was killed on September 21, 1940, alongside Lieutenant-Commander Richard John Hammersley Ryan, as the pair attempted to defuse a parachute mine which had fallen in Dagenham, East London.

The mine exploded and killed both men as they tried to extract its fuse. The pair were posthumously awarded the George Cross in December 1940 "for great gallantry and undaunted devotion to duty".

With the award, Ellingworth became the first naval rating - a junior enlisted sailor - to directly receive the prestigious George Cross. He is buried at Milton Cemetery in Portsmouth.