Orders, Decorations and Medals

Three: Able Seaman C. J. Marshall, Royal Navy

1914-15 Star (365230 A.B., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (365230 A.B., R.N.), together with related H.M.S. Natal Medal 1915, silver, obverse, Arms of Natal, enclosed by two branches of oak, and ‘From the People of Natal’ above, reverse, the cruiser at sea with ‘Presented to H.M.S. Natal’ above and ‘1915’ below (Cecil J. Marshall), 26mm., integral loop for suspension, generally good very fine (4) £80-100

Cecil John Marshall was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in October 1890 and entered the Royal Navy as a boy rating in October 1906. Having then joined the cruiser H.M.S. Natal as an Able Seaman in March 1913, he was still similarly employed when she mysteriously blew up in the Cromarty Firth on 30 December 1915 - the exact number of resultant casualities is still a matter of debate, but most probably amounted to some 400 officers and men.

The Royal Navy lost four ships to internal explosions in the Great War, and at the time there was much speculation that these losses were due to sabotage by enemy agents. More certain is the fact Natal’s upturned hull remained visible at low water for many years, and right up until the 1939-45 War it was R.N. practice on entering and leaving Cromarty for every warship to sound “Still” and for officers and men to come to attention as they passed the wreck.

Lucky indeed to be among the survivors, Marshall took up shore appointments in Pembroke I in January 1916 and the Sherness torpedo school Actaeon in August of the same year. But he returned to seagoing duties in the cruiser Blanche from February 1917 to July 1918 before being discharged ashore in December 1920.