The Great War D.S.M. group of five awarded to Able Seaman F. Foreman, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his services in the H.M.S. Abdiel: according to Jellicoe, she ‘laid 6,293 mines altogether, far more than any other destroyer-minelayers’

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (194833 F. Foreman, A.B., Minelaying Opns., 1916-7); British War and Victory Medals (194833 F. Foreman, A.B., R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (194833 F. Foreman, A.B., H.M.S. Abdiel); Imperial Service Medal, G.VI.R., 1st issue (Frederick Foreman), together with related Royal Horticultural Society or gardening prize awards (5), four in silver and one in bronze, all named and dated circa 1935, and an “H.M.S. Abdiel” cap tally, generally good very fine (10) £800-1000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte.

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D.S.M. London Gazette 23 May 1917.

Frederick Foreman was born in Battersea, London in May 1882 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in July 1897. Returning to civilian life in April 1912, his 12 year engagement over, he was recalled on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914 and posted to Pembroke I, where he served until March 1916. In the latter month, however, he received his first seagoing appointment, joining the newly commissioned Abdiel under Commander B. Curtis. As it transpired, he would remain aboard her until the end of hostilities, and therefore shared in her honours as one of the busiest minelayers of the War, Jellicoe, no less, writing in his memoirs, that he wished he had more ships like her:

‘Abdiel completed her first minelaying operation in the Heligoland Bight the day after she was commissioned, and from then on she dashed back and forth across the North Sea, each time depositing a fresh load of potential destruction for the German fleet at the entrance of their harbours.

When the German fleet retreated after the Battle of Jutland, Abdiel was ordered to race ahead of it and lay a minefield between the fleet and its bases - provided this could be accomplished by daylight. At a speed of 31 knots Abdiel carried out her mission unobserved, and the battleship Ostfriesland was very nearly sunk by one of the mines.

In late 1916 the 20th (Minelaying) Destroyer Flotilla was formed with Abdiel, under the now Captain Curtis, the leader. Based at Immingham on the Humber,the Flotilla continued for the rest of the War to harass the High Seas Fleet by repeated dashes into German waters. Abdiel laid 6,293 mines altogether, far more than any other destroyer-minelayers ...’

An indication of the frequent and hazardous nature of these operations out of Immingham is to be found in Endless Story:

‘Our task, which was to lay mines in the enemy swept channels in the Heligoland Bight, took us across the North Sea sometimes twice a week, sometimes more often. We had to pick our way in at night through torturous passages left between many lines drawn in red upon the chart - here, there, and everywhere - in the wet triangle bounded to the west by the line joining the Horns Reef to the Dutch island of Terschelling. The red lines represented previously laid British minefields, and, though their positions were supposedly exact, we could never really trust them to a mile or so. Mines, however, remain at a constant height above the sea floor, so we generally selected high water for our nocturnal activities over the other side.’

Foreman was pensioned ashore in February 1919.