Orders, Decorations and Medals

Pair: Lieutenant A. W. Barlow, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, a Coastal Forces officer who was present at the famous Ostend raid of April 1918

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut., R.N.V.R.), mounted court-style as worn, the first with officially re-impressed naming, good very fine (2) £80-100

Andrew Walter Barlow, a native of Poole, Dorset, was appointed a Temporary Sub. Lieutenant in the “Wavy Navy” in July 1916 and, following attendance at a course at the R.N. College Greenwich, was appointed to M.L. 76 at Zaria, the Orkneys and Shetlands Auxiliary Patrol base. In early 1917, however, as a result of a ‘contused wound, left foot’, he was admitted to the R.N. Hospital Haslar, and did not return to active duty until May of the same year, when he joined M.L. 274 at Attentive III, the Dover Auxiliary Patrol base. Re-appointed to the same motor launch in the rank of Temporary Lieutenant that August, he went on to see action in the famous Ostend raid of April 1918, when 274 and her fellow M.Ls came under heavy fire:

‘In the meantime, the motor launches were making the best job they could of laying smoke. It was, of course, in the wrong place. Any doubts that the Ostend defences were well aware of what was happening are dispelled by the knowledge that they put down a heavy barrage in the area. Star shell lit the night. Pom-poms chattered angrily. The heavier salvos sent torrents of water into the air. All in all the enemy had the upper hand ... ’ (The Zeebrugge and Ostend Raids 1918, by Deborah Lake, refers).

Whether Barlow participated in the second Ostend raid on the night of 9-10 May 1918 remains unknown, but more certain is the fact he joined M.L. 89 at Shikari, the Swansea Auxiliary Patrol base, later that month. Here he remained actively employed until the end of hostilities, but, interestingly, in January 1919, was re-admitted to Haslar suffering from neurasthenia - an obsolete term for a nervous breakdown. He was invalided from the service in the following month, his service record noting that he was to be permitted to retain his rank.