A good Great War D.S.M. awarded to Able Seaman H. F. John, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (Welsh Division), a Defensively Armed Merchant Ship (D.A.M.S.) Gunner

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (WZ 3300 H. F. John, A.B., R.N.V.R., Atlantic Ocean, 19 Nov. 1917), very fine
£400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Small Collection of Medals to the Merchant Navy.

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D.S.M. London Gazette 22 February 1918.

Harold Freeman John enlisted in the Welsh Division of the “Wavy Navy” in June 1916 and was decorated for his gallant deeds as a D.A.M.S. Gunner aboard the Marie Suzanne in an engagement with two enemy submarines in the Atlantic in November 1917. Hurd’s history of the Mercantile Marine in the Great War takes up the story:

‘The Marie Suzanne (3,106 tons) had on the 19th fallen some distance astern of her convoy owing to her lack of speed, and she was attacked in quick succession by two submarines. She forced both of them to submerge, firing ten rounds at the first one, and thirty at the second. The Master, Mr. P. E. George, who afterwards received the D.S.C., gave high praise to his gunners for their coolness and good shooting, by which the ship was saved.’

John was demobilised in February 1919; sold with research.