An extremely rare Great War relief of Kut operations D.S.M. group of five awarded to Leading Stoker G. W. Forshaw, Royal Navy, one of 15 men who volunteered to man the river steamer Julnar on a suicidal attempt to get supplies through to Kut in April 1916, an extraordinary endeavour that resulted in the award of two posthumous V.Cs, three C.G.Ms and ten D.S.Ms - and the cold blooded murder of Lieutenant-Commander C. H. Cowley, R.N.V.R., the “Pirate of Basra

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (K18513 G. W. Forshaw, Sto. 1 Cl., H.M.S. Julnar, 24 April 1916); 1914-15 Star (K. 18513 G. W. Forshaw, Sto. 1, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (K. 18513 G. W. Forshaw, Sto. 1, R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue (K. 18513 G. W. Forshaw,A./L. Sto., H.M.S. Vivid), mounted as worn, the first four with contact marks and polished, thus fine, the last very fine (5) £4000-5000

D.S.M. London Gazette 11 November 1919.

Back on 2 February 1917, the London Gazette had announced the award of posthumous V.Cs to Lieutenant H. O. B. Firman, R.N., and Lieutenant-Commander C. H. Cowley, R.N.V.R., for their conspicuous gallantry in an attempt to re-provision the force besieged in Kut-el-Amara. The circumstances behind the awards were reported by the G.O.C., Indian Expeditionary Force, in the following terms:

‘At 8 p.m. on 24 April 1916, with a crew from the Royal Navy under Lieutenant Firman, R.N., assisted by Lieutenant-Commander Cowley, R.N.V.R., the Julnar, carrying 270 tons of supplies, left Falahiyah in an attempt to reach Kut.

Her departure was covered by all artillery and machine-gun fire that could be brought to bear, in the hope of distracting the enemy’s attention. She was, however, discovered and shelled on her passage up the river. At 1 a.m. on the 25th, General Townshend reported that she had not arrived, and that at midnight a burst of heavy firing had been heard at Magasis, some eight and a half miles from Kut by river, which had suddenly ceased. There could be but little doubt that the enterprise had failed, and the next day the air service reported the Julnar in the hands of the Turks at Magasis.

The leaders of this brave attempt, Lieutenant H. O. B. Firman, R.N., and his assistant, Lieutenant-Commander C. H. Cowley, R.N.V.R. - the latter of whom throughout the campaign in Mesopotamia performed magnificent service in command of the Mejidieh - have been reported by the Turks to have been killed; the remainder of the gallant crew, including five wounded, are prisoners of war.

Knowing well the chances against them, all the gallant officers and men who manned the Julnar for the occasion were volunteers. I trust that the services in connection of Lieutenant H. O. B. Firman, R.N., and Lieutenant-Commander C. H. Cowley, R.N.V.R., his assistant, both of whom were unfortunately killed, may be recognised by the posthumous grant of some suitable honour.’

The remainder of the crew had to wait until November 1919 before suitable Honours & Awards were granted, these comprising the D.S.O. to the Engineer Officer, Sub. Lieutenant W. L. Reed, R.N.R., the sole surviving officer, and three C.G.Ms and 10 D.S.Ms between the remaining crew. Interestingly, in the interim, there had been strenuous efforts to invoke Rule 13 of the Victoria Cross statutes in order to reward other crew members with this ultimate honour, but they proved unsuccessful. The Vice-Admiral, Commander-in-Chief, Sir Rosslyn Wemyss wrote:

‘I am of the opinion that each Officer and man has fully earned the Victoria Cross, but with the precedents before me of the award of this coveted decoration for combined efforts of this nature, I am led to believe that this will not be allotted to all ... Before closing my report, I would beg to put on record my appreciation of the gallantry of each one of these officers and men in undertaking this forlorn hope. They were under no misapprehensions as to the dangers they ran, and knew that I considered it most unlikely that they would reach their destination and fulfil their task; and had it not been that I realised that it was the one and only chance of saving the garrison I would not have given my consent to such an undertaking.’

George William Forshaw was born in Salford, Lancashire in July 1893 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in March 1913. A Stoker 1st Class aboard the cruiser H.M.S. Foresight on the outbreak of hostilities, he served off the Belgian coast and in the Dardanelles prior to removing to the gunboat Greenfly (Lieutenant H. O. B. Firman, R.N.) off Mesopotamia in November 1915, and he was still serving in that capacity when he volunteered for the Julnar’s desperate enterprise in April 1916.

A river steamer, the Julnar was stripped of all non-essentials and covered with iron plates and sandbags, while her volunteer crew of 15 officers and men were all bachelors, the forthcoming operation being construed as a suicidal one. As stated, she departed Falahiyah on the evening of 24 April, and her subsequent demise was rapid. In fact within one hour of leaving, Julnar was under heavy fire, her hull being riddled by machine-gun fire and shrapnel from heavy artillery near misses - some heavier incoming projectiles did find their mark, however, a direct hit on the bridge killing the C.O., Lieutenant Humphrey Fireman. Yet somehow she managed to keep going until she reached Magasis, a spot where the river bends to the right and where, unbeknown to Julnar’s gallant crew, the Turks had laid steel hawsers across the river - at this point, with her rudder entangled, she ground to a halt and became a sitting duck. VCs of the First World War: The Naval VCs, by Stephen Snelling, takes up the story:

‘With shells reducing her superstructure to matchwood, Cowley and Williams took cover for almost three-quarters of an hour while the bombardment continued unabated. Bullets by the score tore through the ship’s hull to carpet the engine room. By the time the fire slackened, Julnar resembled a sieve. Her upper decks were ‘absolutely riddled’, her crankshafts were wrecked and the bridge was scorched and scarred by fire. But her Colours were never struck. Instead, remembered Able Seaman Bond, ‘we watched them burn down.’ Their fate no longer in doubt, Cowley ordered a white lamp hoisted as a sign of surrender, only to see it shot away. A red lamp was raised in its place, and, soon after, the firing ceased ... all hands were mustered on deck and taken ashore, to be greeted with the comment: “You are very brave fools; we knew you were coming 48 hours ago!” ’

The following day, Lieutenant-Commander C. H. Cowley, known to the Turks as the “Pirate of Basra”, and already condemned to death in his absence by a Baghdad military court, on account of his pre-war employment in Basra and subsequent “offences” in command of the Mejidieh, was separated from his comrades. He was never seen again, the Turks reporting that he had been killed whilst trying to escape, but there is little doubt that he was shot down in cold blood after arguing with his interrogator.

Snelling continues:

‘At the end of the war survivors of the Julnar emerged from an ordeal even more harrowing than the desperate mission to bring succour to Kut’s defenders. Three men, Stokers Thornhill and Fox and Able Seaman Veale, died in captivity, the victims of callous Turkish neglect.’

For his own part, Forshaw was repatriated in early 1919, and was still serving as a Leading Stoker in the late 1920s.