Description

British Mercantile Marine War Medal (1914 – 18) impressed named SUMAICHI FUKUNAGA. Comes with copy medal card, newspaper article and death records.

Sumaichi Fukunaga was born in Japan in 1888. During WW1 he qualified for the British Mercantile Medal and the British War Medal. A ships engineer, he was serving on the S.S. Christina Dawn, when it was driven onto a reef near Irvine Harbor (Scotland) 8/4/1949, the crew were rescued by the Troon Lifeboat, the men having to jump some 20 feet onto the lifeboat during the rescue. The ingress of salt water led to gas and, after all the crew were off, the drums of carbide exploded with tremendous force. He died in South Shields, Durham, Jul 1956.