Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An unusual Great War D.S.M. awarded to Captain R. Langmaid, Mercantile Marine, decorated for fending off an enemy submarine attack on his three-masted topsail schooner - and believed to be one of just two recipients of said decoration named to a Captain

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (Capt. R. Langmaid, M.M., Atlantic, 28th April 1918), good very fine £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Small Collection of Medals to the Merchant Navy.

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D.S.M. London Gazette 14 September 1918.

Richard Langmaid was decorated for his gallant command of the schooner Alert during an engagement with an enemy submarine. The Alert, a topsail schooner with a crew of eight, sailed from Runcorn on 22 April 1918, loaded with a typical cargo of coal and salt destined for the Cornish port of Par.

Carefully following the route instructions of the Liverpool Shipping Intelligence Officer, Langmaid stayed close to the Welsh coast as he made his way down to the mouth of the Bristol Channel. Six days after leaving Runcorn, however, the Alert was barely making two knots in very light winds on a south-westerly course with Langmaid at the wheel when, in hazy conditions and limited visibility, what appearred to be the lug of sail of a fishing boat was sighted off Pendeen. It was in fact an enemy submarine, which dropped the sail and opened fire. Altering course to close land, the Alert was subjected to around 25 rounds of fire from the submarine, all of which luckily dropped short of their target, while for her own part she engaged the enemy with her 12-pounder, one shot being seen to fall very close indeed. Meanwhile, an airship and a seaplane appeared on the scene, Langmaid being able to direct them and a pair of Motor Launches to the last known position of the enemy submarine, which had given up the fight.

On finally arriving back in Liverpool after discharging the Alert’s cargo at Par, Langmaid was interviewed by Captain G. C. Frederick, R.N., the Intelligence Officer, and submitted a ‘Report of Attack’ form, Frederick concluding that the schooner’s skipper had ‘carried out all his instructions and behaved in a cool and gallant manner, deserving great credit for having beaten off the attack of the submarine’.

The Mercantile Marine Awards Committee having then approved Langmaid’s D.S.M., the Admiralty wrote to Thomas Waters, the head of Waters & Son - the owners of the Alert - to inform him of his employee’s pending award, a communication that attracted a bitter response: ‘As managing owner of the Alert I feel constrained to say that Richard Langmaid who was Master of the Alert on 28 April cannot be relied on as a truthful man. From evidence of the Mate and others I fear the Master was anything but brave but they speak very highly of the Chief Gunner William Thomson ... As an old shipmaster, please excuse me saying that Richard Langmaid cannot worthily wear the noble decoration mentioned without bringing it into contempt.’ Be that as it may, Their Lordships begged to differ, seeing no grounds for withdrawing the original recommendation, even after interviewing the Mate, who witnessed the action from aloft, while spotting for the Alert’s guns; sold with further research, including copied photographs of the Alert.