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WW2 medals won by Royal Navy Volunteer Reservist to be auctioned
19 February 2025
Medals awarded to a Royal Navy bomb disposal expert - known as ‘the man who saved Charing Cross’ - are to be auctioned next month.
Acting Lieutenant Commander Ernest Oliver ‘Mick’ Gidden, of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, was the first person to be awarded both the George Cross and George Medal for his actions in dealing with a German parachute mine in April 1941.
Lt Cdr Gidden arrived at Hungerford Bridge, just outside Charing Cross Station, shortly before dawn and discovered the explosive lying across a live electric wire at the foot of the main signal gantry. Both the bomb’s fuse and primer release mechanism were facing the ground.
Turning the mine was likely to detonate it, with disastrous results for railway communications and important buildings. To control the operation with accuracy, Lt Cdr Gidden stood only 50yards from the mine.
He then attempted to remove the remains of the screw threaded ring (which holds the fuse in place) with a hammer and chisel.
At the first blow the clockwork in the fuse started to run. Lt Cdr Gidden, who had kept his head close to the fuse, heard the ticking, and made off as best he could, but as it was necessary to jump from sleeper to sleeper, with a ten-foot drop below, there was little chance of escape.
As it happened the makeshift ‘gag’ he fitted to prevent detonation held, and Lt Cdr Gidden returned with a drill. He succeeded in removing the ring, but then found it necessary to prise the fuse out with a chisel. This he successfully did despite its dangerous condition. This operation took six hours to complete.
His ‘London Blitz’ medals, including the George Cross, the George Medal and an OBE, are to be sold by Noonans in Mayfair on March 11 and are estimated to fetch between £100,000 to £130,000.
After the war, Lt Cdr Gidden, who was born in Hampstead, returned to civilian life, working for the family saddlery firm W&H Gidden of Mayfair, but he died suddenly in December 1961 at the age of 51.
The medals are from the second part of the Collection of Naval Medals amassed by the late Jason Pilalas, an American pharmaceutical analyst, who served in the United States Navy and collected nautical mementos.
The auction will also include a posthumous Victoria Cross from the Great War given to the family of Lt Cdr Charles Henry Cowley. It is estimated to sell for between £180,000 to £220,000.
Cowley, born in Baghdad, was ideally suited to act as an intelligence agent for the British. He joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and worked as river pilot before being taken prisoner in April 1916 and murdered by his Turkish captors.
Eighteen months before his death, Cowley commanded the Mejidieh and went from Basra to Baghdad to evacuate all British nationals who wished to leave. He then carried British troops back and forth on the Euphrates and Tigris.