Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Chief Petty Officer H. Rickman, Royal Navy

1914-15 Star (154320 C.P.O., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (154320 C.P.O., R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., E.VII.R. (154320 C.P.O., H.M.S. Victory); Royal Navy Meritorious Service Medal, G.V.R. (154320 C.P.O. “Torch” 1 July-11 Nov. 1918) nearly extremely fine (5) £400-450

M.S.M. London Gazette 17 March 1919.

Harry Rickman was born at Lymington, Hampshire on 30 January 1875. By occupation as Seaman, he joined the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in March 1890, aged 15 years. He gained the rank of Petty Officer 2nd Class in April 1896 and Petty Officer 1st Class in June the same year. He attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer in September 1897 and in March 1908 was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal. He spent the early years of the Great War ashore, being pensioned in January 1915 and transferred to the Royal Fleet Reserve. He then served for two months on the destroyer Tipperary which was later lost at Jutland. In March 1916 he transferred to the destroyer Opal, in which ship he was present at the battle of Jutland, being part of the 12th Flotilla. He was still on the ship, when, in company with her sister ship, the Narbrough, they were caught in a violent gale off Scapa Flow on 12 January 1918 and both were wrecked. Lucky to survive, in April 1918 he was then posted to another Grand Fleet destroyer, the Torch. It was for service on this ship in the last months of the war that Rickman was awarded his well deserved M.S.M. He was demobilised to a pension on 3 February 1920.

The group is featured in Appendix ‘S’, p. 488 in The Meritorious Service Medal by Ian McInnes.