A fine Second World War Bismarck action D.S.M. group of six awarded to Leading Sick Berth Attendant S. Wood, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his gallant work among the dead and dying on the Prince of Wales’ bridge after a direct hit from a 15-inch shell

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (MX. 55626 S. Wood, L.S.B.A., H.M.S. Prince of Wales); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Pacific Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, mounted as worn, the first cleaned and lacquered, otherwise very fine and better (6) £3000-3500

D.S.M. London Gazette 14 October 1941:

‘For mastery, determination and skill in action against the German battleship Bismarck.’

The original recommendation states:

‘Leading Sick Berth Attendant Wood was one of the first men to arrive on the shattered bridge of the Prince of Wales after it had taken a direct hit from a 15-inch shell. This occurred only five minutes after H.M.S. Hood had blown up in a vast eruption of flame. The bridge of the Prince of Wales was a complete shambles, every officer and man was either dead or wounded, Wood immediately set to work in rescuing and removing the wounded to a place of shelter, many of the wounded owe their lives to the courage, prompt and skilful action he took on entering the bridge and being confronted by an horrific scene of dead and dying men. He continued to work unaided for some time until he was relieved.’

Sam Wood was born in Knottingley, Yorkshire, in July 1919, and entered the Royal Navy as a Probationary Sick Berth Attendant in October 1937.

Having commenced the War with an appointment ashore, he joined H.M.S. Prince of Wales as a Leading Sick Berth Attendant in January 1941, as a result of which he was quickly in action during the famous Bismarck incident, for on 24 May of that year he won his D.S.M. for the above related deeds on the the cruiser’s crippled bridge.

On that date, in close proximity to the Hood, Prince of Wales was called to action stations in the early morning hours, Captain Leach’s address to his crew being followed by that of the ship’s chaplain - ‘O Lord thou knowest how busy we must be today. If we forget thee, do not forget us.’ Shortly afterwards, Prince of Wales witnessed one of the greatest calamities of British naval history, the appalling explosion - likened to a ‘pulsating sun’ - that tore apart Hood with a loss of over 1400 lives: in fact so close was Prince of Wales at the time that Captain Leach had to order the helm over to avoid colliding with the wreckage.

Yet an equally big shock was to follow, for immediately after the loss of the Hood, Prince of Wales attracted the full attention of Bismarck’s guns, in addition to those of her consort Prinz Eugen, Ludovic Kennedy’s Pursuit vividly describing the ensuing carnage:

‘Before the blowing up of Hood, Prinz Eugen had already been ordered to shift her fire to Prince of Wales and now Bismarck had to make only the smallest of adjustments to find the range too. On Prince of Wales’s bridge they saw the burst of black smoke from Bismarck’s cordite and the long ripple of orange flashes from her guns, and knew this time without a doubt where they were aimed, what they were capable of doing. Yet Captain Leach was not despondent. His own guns had found Bismarck with the sixth salvo, straddled and hit. If everyone kept a cool head, they might win a victory yet.

The salvo fell and then there was chaos. A 15-inch shell went clean through the bridge, exploded as it went out the other side, killing everyone except the captain and the Chief Yeoman of Signals, and the navigating officer who was wounded. Young Midshipman Ince was among the dead, aged eighteen and full of promise, at his prep school voted the boy with the best influence. On the deck below, the plotting officer, unable to distinguish between the hits from the Bismarck and the firing of Prince of Wales’s own guns, was unaware anything had happened until blood trickled down the bridge voice pipe, dripped onto his chart.

The same shell did for Esmond Knight too. He remembered hearing the salvo, ‘like a great crushing cyclone’, then everything went hazy and he was having a dream about a band playing in Hyde Park, there was a high, ringing noise in his head and he came to, thinking he was dying, feeling sad about it, nothing more. He heard the crash of another salvo and cries of “Stretcher-bearer!” and “Make way there!” [no doubt the hailing the arrival of the gallant Wood]. He was conscious of a weight of dead men on him and screams and the smell of blood, and the dreadful thin noise some men make when dying. “Get me out of here,” he shouted weakly, and strong hands pulled him to his feet. “What the hell’s happened to you?” a voice said, and Esmond turned and looked at him and saw nothing. The man whose delight in life was visual things, painting pictures, watching birds, was already among the ranks of war-blinded, would now never see the Harlequin Duck or Icelandic Falcon, or anything but dim shapes again.’

Yet, still, the enemy’s accurate salvoes arrived at an alarming rate:

‘Now the two German ships turned back, confident, assertive, weaving in and out of the Prince of Wales’s shell splashes, dancing and side-stepping like boxers who suddenly sense victory in the blood. Bismarck’s salvoes thundered out every twenty seconds, Prinz Eugen’s every ten, the shell splashes rose around Prince of Wales like clumps of whitened trees. Now the British battleship was within range of Prinz Eugen’s torpedoes; but just as Lieutenant Reimann was about to fire, she turned away.

For after only another twelve minutes of battle, Prince of Wales had had enough. She had been hit by four of Bismarck’s heavy shells and three of Prinz Eugen’s. The compass platform, echo-sounding gear, radar office, aircraft recovery crane, fore secondary armament director, all the boats and several cabins had been wrecked. The shell that hit the crane landed just as the Walrus aircraft was about to be launched to spot the fall of shot, the launching officer’s hand was in the air: the wings were peppered with splinters, pilot and observer scrambled out, the plane was ditched over the side to avoid the risk of fire. The same splinters that blinded Esmond Knight also pierced a fresh-water tank, loosed a flood of water on to survivors of the bridge and men on the signal deck below. One 15-inch and two 8-inch shells hit the ship below the waterline, let in 400 tons of sea water. Another 8-inch shell found its way into a shell handling room, whizzed about several times without going off or hitting anyone, took two men to throw it over the side.’

Captain Leach had rightly concluded that it was better to withdraw and save a valuable ship, rather than continue in an unequal contest in which his battered command was unlikely to have a telling effect on the enemy. Pursuit concludes:

‘So after having fired eighteen salvoes, Prince of Wales made smoke and disengaged to the south-east. As she turned, the shell ring of Y turret jammed, rendered four guns in it inoperable. Her casualties were two officers and eleven men killed, one officer and eight men wounded. The time was 6.13 a.m., just twenty-one minutes after Admiral Holland in Hood had so proudly led his squadron in to battle.’

Wood was awarded the D.S.M., one of four crew members of Prince of Wales so honoured, and one of just 32 men for the entire action. And he was present in Prince of Wales on the occasion she took Churchill across the Atlantic to his historic meeting with Roosevelt, from whence emerged the “Atlantic Charter”.

Coming ashore to Drake in August 1941, where he was employed at the R.N.H., Wood returned to sea with an appointment in the cruiser Newcastle in January-June 1942, in which period he would have been deployed out in the East. Other wartime seagoing appointments included service in the escort carrier Rajah in the period April-August 1944, following which he was employed at the Freetown base Eland for the remainder of the War. He was discharged in April 1946; sold with the recipient’s original Certificate of Service.