Three: Stoker 1st Class F. H. Green, Royal Navy

1914-15 Star (K.9794 Sto. 1, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (K.9794 Sto. 1, R.N.) good very fine (3) £80-100

Stoker Francis Henry Green (!891-1970) from Bristol and a Collier by occupation, enlisted into the Royal Navy in 1911. He remained in the Navy until his discharge into the R.F.R. in 1923. During the Great War he served in the old battleship H.M.S. Canopus, July 1914-May 1916. In late 1914 she was despatched to augment Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock’s force that was searching for Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee’s German Far Eastern Squadron. Deemed too slow to accompany his squadron, the Canopus was left behind when the two squadrons clashed and Cradock’s force defeated at the battle of Coronel, 1 November 1914. Left dangerously isolated, H.M.S. Canopus made her way back to Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands. Expecting the port to be attacked by von Spee, the Canopus was beached in the harbour. Welcome reinforcements arrived on 7 December 1914, in the form of two battlecruisers under Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee. The next day von Spee’s squadron was sighted and H.M.S. Canopus fired the first shot of the battle of the Falklands, an indirect shot hitting one of the enemy armoured cruisers. This and the unwelcome sighting of the battlecruisers in harbour caused the Far Eastern Squadron to turn from their intention to bombard the port and steam away hoping to escape. At length the battle cruisers and attendant vessels were able to run down the fleeing German squadron and two armoured cruisers and two light cruisers were sunk.

With copied service papers and notes.