An impressive and early Second World War minesweeping operations D.S.M. group of nine awarded to Engineman P. Clark, Royal Naval Reserve, who was decorated for services in H.M. Trawler Seamist in 1940

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (262 E.U. P. Clark, Engn., R.N.R.); 1914-15 Star (E.S. 3460 Engn., R.N.R.); British War Medal 1914-20 (3460 E.S. Engn., R.N.R.); Victory Medal 1914-19, erased naming; 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star, clasp, France and Germany; Defence and War Medals; Royal Naval Reserve L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (262 E.U. Engmn., R.N.R.), generally good very fine (9) £1200-1400

D.S.M. London Gazette 11 July 1940:

‘For good services in the Royal Navy since the outbreak of war.’

Peter Clark, who was born in Ianstown, Buckie, Banffshire in August 1893, joined the Royal Naval Reserve in May 1915, when he was placed on the books of H.M. Drifter Prosperity. He served thereafter as an Engineman in the White Oak (May-June 1915), Dreel Castle (July 1915 to April 1916), Margarita (April to October 1916), and Admirable (October 1916 to September 1918), the latter appointment being of special interest in lieu of that vessel’s part in the gallant action fought by our drifters in the Otranto Straits on 15 May 1917.

Demobilised at the Granton base Gunner in February 1919, Clark re-enrolled in the Royal Naval Reserve in May 1925 and joined the Royal Naval Patrol Service on the renewal of hostilities, initially serving in the Grimsby base Beaver and the Lowestoft base Europa. In May 1940, however, he joined H.M. Trawler Seamist, in which vessel he won his D.S.M. later that year, and was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal that June. Then between February and July 1941 he served in another trawler, the Star of the Wave, and from July 1941 to July 1943 in the Shaw. Thereafter, for more or less the remainder of the War, he was on the books of H.M.S. Pleiades, the Scapa Flow Drifter Pool, and he was demobilised in September 1945.