Orders, Decorations and Medals

A good Second World War anti-U-boat operations D.S.M. group of seven awarded to Leading Seaman Matthew Lee, Royal Navy, for the destruction by H.M.S. Swale of the U-657 in May 1943

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (JX. 276715 M. Lee, A.B.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals, with original card forwarding box and Admiralty issuance slip for the campaign awards, good very fine and better (7) £1200-1400

D.S.M. London Gazette 7 September 1943:
‘For gallantry, skill and devotion to duty in actions against enemy submarines’.

The original recommendation states:
‘This rating was the Asdic Operator who first gained contact with the U-Boat. His coolness and efficient operating during action resulted in the destruction of the U-Boat.’

Matthew Lee was born at Browney Colliery, Durham in November 1920 and entered the Royal Navy in July 1941. Posted to Osprey at Portland for training as an Asdic Operator that November, he joined the frigate H.M.S. Swale in June 1942, aboard which ship he was quickly employed off North Africa. But it was as a result of that ship’s subsequent convoy escort work in the Battle of the Atlantic that Lee won his D.S.M., namely on 17 May 1943, when, in response to the torpedoing of the S.S. Aymeric, Swale located and sunk by depth-charge the U-657 - there were no survivors.

Lee, who had already survived SC. 122 / HX. 229 in March 1943, one of the hardest fought of Atlantic convoys in which 22 ships were lost, went on to guide Swale in further noteworthy attacks, not least that leading to the destruction of the U-302 on 6 April 1944 - having just torpedoed two Norwegian merchantmen, Kapitain Herbert Sickel and his entire crew were lost to a devastating depth-charge and hedgehog attack delivered by Swale.

Latterly employed in the East Indies, Lee departed Swale as a Leading Seaman in August 1945 and was released from the service in April 1946.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including Admiralty letter of notification for the recipient’s D.S.M., dated 9 September 1943, and related Buckingham Palace forwarding letter; his Certificate of Service; a writing pad with his pencilled account of his journey back to the U.K. from the Indian Ocean in December 1945; and several wartime photographs and newspaper cuttings, one of the latter recounting the story of Swale’s rescue of the badly damaged Port Fairy.