George Cross awarded to Maidenhead man could fetch £120k

Sub. Lieutenant Jack Maynard Cholmondeley Easton was buried alive when an enemy parachute mine exploded in London’s East End during the Blitz in October 1940.

The Lieutenant, from Maidenhead, lay alone for hours on end with a fractured skull, broken back, and two broken legs before he was eventually pulled from the debris.

His brave assistant Bennett Southwell, an Ordinary Seaman, wasn’t so lucky – with his decapitated body discovered six weeks later.

Before the incident, Easton, a member of the Admiralty’s secretive Land Incident Section, had saved lives by defusing 16 explosives.

This included one which had crashed through the roof of the Russell Hotel in Bloomsbury and ended up hanging from a chandelier. But Easton had no way of knowing that the fateful assignment in the East End would be his last.

As he explained in his book Wavy Navy: By Some Who Served: “Of course, I did not know this would be my last assignment in mines disposal work when I left the Admiralty before breakfast that morning and was carried by car to Hoxton.

“At the back of the minds of us who did this work was an acceptance that there probably would be a ‘last.’

“But in defence of our sanity, and perhaps to stop us leaping from the cars that carried us to each assignment, we did not dwell on this probability.

“It was there but suppressed. If and when the ‘last’ mine came ... well it came.

“Several of our section had found it; some, less fortunate than I, did not live to tell the story.”     

Miraculously, Easton made a full recovery after a year in plaster – and was awarded a George Cross, the civilian version of a Victoria Cross, for his service in WW2.  

The Admiralty sent three cases of champagne to his hospital and told him to listen to the 6pm news, during which the medal was announced.  

He was invested by King George VI at Buckingham Palace on September 23, 1941. 

Now, his medal is to be offered at auction on April 10, where it is predicted to fetch between £80,000 and £120,000.  

It is being sold by Noonans Mayfair on behalf of a deceased estate.  

Nimrod Dix, Deputy Chairman of Noonans, commented: “The Second World War was really the first war where civilians were on the frontline in the cities that were being attacked.  

“As a result of this, it was decided that there was a need for a new gallantry award and the George Cross was introduced by George VI in 1940.”  

Easton was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire on May 28, 1906 and was educated at Brighton College and Pangbourne Nautical College.  

He later trained as a solicitor and joined his grandfather’s law firm in the City of London.  

The war hero later served as First Lieutenant of the motor minesweepers MMS 6 between June and August 1942, and MMS 66 between August 1942 and February 1943. 

In June 1944, Easton led a minesweeping flotilla off Normandy, when a new type of German oyster mine detonated under his ship and wounded him for a second time.  

He managed to survive the war and returned to his family’s law firm in the City, where he was a committee member of – and legal adviser to – the V.C. and G.C. Association from 1957 to 1994.  

Easton died at the age of 88 in Chichester, Sussex in December 1994, with his obituary notice in The Daily Telegraph describing him as "a witty extrovert" who "was highly attractive to women".