THE medals to a Furness sailor who stopped the IRA getting 20,000 rifles and a million bullets have sold at auction for £6,000.

When Barrow pensioner William Bee died in 1940 few knew about his role in preventing Ireland being flooded with German guns and ammunition during the First World War.

Mr Bee was 79 at the time of his death on March 9 and was from 188 Salthouse Road.

The Liverpool-born sailor had chosen Barrow for his retirement after 36 years at sea.

His medals from the extraordinary events of April 21 to 22 in 1916 – including the Distinguished Service Cross – were sold by London auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb at almost double the top pre-sale estimate.

In 1916 Lt William Henry Askew Bee was in the Royal Naval Reserve and in command of the converted steam trawler Lord Heneage.

The boat played a vital part in the capture of the German auxiliary cruiser Aud, off the south-west coast of Ireland.

The Aud started life as the captured Norwegian steamer Castro and was due to meet with Irish republican Sir Roger Casement to deliver 20,000 rifles, 10 machine guns and a million rounds of ammunition to aid the imminent Easter Rising.

The arms cache never reached shore and Casement was later executed for treason.

The Admiralty had been tipped-off about the gun-running intended for Sinn Fein fighters and that Casement might be on his way to meet with the arms ship as a passenger on the German submarine U22.

The intended rendezvous was one mile north-west of Inishtooskert, an uninhabited island at the end of Tralee Bay, County Kerry.

The Aud, commanded by Lt Karl Spindler, arrived in the late afternoon of 20 April and waited in vain as U22, commanded by Lieut-Commander Weisbach, mistook it for a British destroyer and withdrew.

Casement left the submarine and was landed with two companions on the beach by a small collapsible boat. Within hours he had been captured.

Lt Bee, then aged 56, on his armed trawler gave a signal to the Aud to ‘Stop at once’.

The Aud fled with its boilers pushed beyond their safety limits to keep ahead of the Lord Heneage.

The trawler opened fire at long range and kept the Aud in sight until HMS Bluebell arrived and forced the German ship to head for Queenstown.

Before the harbour was reached, the German crew abandoned ship - leaving the Aud to explode and sink.

Lt Bee was born on April 26 in 1860 and first went to sea as a deck hand in 1884.

From 1890 he served as master on more than a dozen ships.

Following the Aud incident, Lt Bee served with Galway Trawlers in mine-sweeping and patrol and rescue operations.