Orders, Decorations and Medals

A rare Great War Q-ship action D.S.C. group of eight awarded to Lieutenant-Commander G. G. D. Salmon, Royal Navy, who commanded the P. 62 on the occasion she rammed the Penshurst’s old adversary U-84 in the Irish Sea in January 1918 - there were no survivors, the latter having been struck at 17 knots ‘with bows sharp as a razor’

Distinguished Service Cross, G.V.R., hallmarks for London 1917, the reverse privately engraved, ‘G. G. D. Salmon’; 1914-15 Star (Lieut., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals, generally good very fine (8) £3000-3500

D.S.C. London Gazette 8 March 1918:

‘For services in action with enemy submarines.’

George Gordon Dustan Salmon was born in Southsea, Hampshire in May 1889, the son of a Staff Engineer, R.N., and entered the Royal Navy as a Cadet in Britannia in September 1904. Appointed a Midshipman in H.M.S. Black Prince in May 1906, he was advanced to Sub. Lieutenant in February 1910 and to Lieutenant in October 1912, and was serving in the battleship Superb on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914. He was subsequently present at the Battle of Jutland, when the Superb used her 12-inch guns to good effect, claiming hits on the Wiesbaden and Derfflinger.

Coming ashore to attend a course at the gunnery establishment Excellent in March 1917, Salmon was appointed to the command of the Q-ship P. 62 (a.k.a. Kingsnake and Mornington) that July, and it was in this latter capacity that he was awarded his D.S.C., following a successful engagement against the U-84, an old adversary of the famous Penshurst - and a ‘very up-to-date submarine which had a surface speed of 16 knots ... armed with a 4.1-inch gun and a 22-pounder, and a dozen torpedoes which could be fired from six tubes.’ On that occasion, in the early morning hours of 26 January 1918, while patrolling across the Irish Sea in a position between the Smalls and the Tuskar, P. 62, ‘a low-lying craft with bows sharp as a razor for ramming’, dealt the U-84 a mortal blow, hitting the enemy submarine ‘good and heartily at right angles’ at a speed of 17 knots:

‘She smote the enemy just abaft the conning tower and was brought up all standing in the darkness of night. A magnificent occasion! Down disappeared the U-84, and when dawn came it showed a sea smooth, with large quantities of oil; but a depth-charge, set at 200 feet, was dropped as a final stop.’

Salmon received his D.S.C. at an investiture held aboard the Queen Elizabeth on 22 July 1918, and ended the War with an appointment in the Temeraire. In late 1919, however, while serving in the Dauntless, he was charged with ‘Improperly forsaking his station’, and sentenced to be dismissed from the Service, a sentence subsequently annulled by Their Lordships but on the condition that Salmon was placed on the Retired List - in the pension-boosting rank of Lieutenant-Commander. Recalled in this rank on the renewal of hostilities, he held a succession of shore appointments, including lengthy service in North Africa and Palestine.