NAVAL GENERAL SERVICE MEDAL WITH PALESTINE 1946-48 CLASP TO A.B. W.P.J. ROSS, H.M.S. SAUMAREZ (K.I.A. 1946)

William Philip James Ross was born in Pontypridd on 2 Mar 1926, the son of Philip Alexander and Mary Edith Ross of Ely, Glamorgan.

Ross was serving as Able Seaman aboard H.M.S. Saumarez on the afternoon of 22 Oct 1946. The destroyer was off the coast of Corfu accompanied by destroyer Volage and cruisers Mauritius and Leander. At 14.53hrs there was a sudden explosion on Suamarez as she struck a mine, and the ship caught fire forward. At 16.31 an explosion blew off the bows of Volage who was trying to tow Saumarez to Corfu.

26 of the crew of the Saumarez were killed in the explosion, including Ross.

In the House of Commons in Oct 1946, Churchill asked whether the incident occurred in the same channel where Royal Navy cruisers were fired upon by Albanian batteries. Contemporary evidence indicates that mines had been deliberately laid by the Albanians.

Ross is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.