Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Great War battle of Jutland D.S.M. group of five awarded to Chief Sick Berth Steward C. Purchase, Royal Navy, who was among those wounded when an enemy shell penetrated H.M.S. Calliope’s upper deck and burst in the after dressing station - he was one of just four Sick Berth Ratings to be awarded a D.S.M. for the battle

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (355019 C. Purchase, S.B.S., H.M.S. Calliope, 31 May - 1 June 1916); 1914-15 Star (355019 S.B.S., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (355019 Ch. S.B.S., R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (355019 S.B.S., H.M.S. Calliope), minor contact wear and edge bruising, generally good very fine or better (5) £1600-1800

D.S.M. London Gazette 15 September 1916:

‘The following awards have been approved in connection with the recommendations of the Commander-in-Chief for services rendered by Petty Officers and men of the Grand Fleet in the action in the North Sea on 31 May-1 June 1916.’

Charles Purchase was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire in January 1877 and entered the Royal Navy as a Domestic 3rd Class in July 1896. Appointed a Probationary Sick Berth Attendant a little over two years later, he was serving as a Sick Berth Steward in the cruiser H.M.S. Royal Arthur on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, in which ship he would have been employed on the northern patrol prior to coming ashore to Pembroke I that December. Then in May 1915 he joined the cruiser Calliope, aboard which ship he served until April 1917, and won his D.S.M. at Jutland. As stated above, he was among those wounded when an enemy shell penetrated the upper deck and burst in the ship’s after dressing station, killing and wounding many including the Staff Surgeon. In fact, the Calliope found herself in a ‘boil of splashes’ during a close-range ten minute enagagement, took five serious hits from the Markgraf, and suffered casualties of 10 killed and 29 wounded.

Purchase, who was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in January 1916, was employed at Chatham Hospital for the remainder of the War and, having been advanced to Chief Sick Berth Steward in April 1918, was pensioned ashore in November 1920; sold with an old handwritten note from his widow, which states that he never claimed the awards due him for subsequent service in the 1939-45 War - ‘He would not do it’.