Orders, Decorations and Medals

A scarce Gallipoli Landings D.S.M. group of four awarded to Able Seaman D. S. Kerr, Royal Navy, H.M.S. Ribble

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (239816 A.B., H.M.S. Ribble); 1914-15 Star (D.S.M., A.B., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (L.S., R.N.) contact marks, therefore nearly very fine (4) £800-1000

D.S.M. London Gazette 16 August 1915: ‘In recognition of services as mentioned in the foregoing despatch - from Vice-Admiral John M. de Robeck, reporting the landing of the Army on the Gallipoli Peninsula, 25th-26th April, 1915:- Able Seaman David S. Kerr, O.N.239816, H.M.S. Ribble.’

Of the 311 D.S.Ms awarded for Gallipoli, only 24 awards were made for the original landings of 25th-26th April, this award being unique for the destroyer H.M.S. Ribble.

‘The Ribble, Lt Cdr R. W. Wilkinson (the northernmost destroyer), Usk, and Chelmer attempted a landing on the broad and open beach beside Fisherman’s Hut, standing almost in front of the perpendicular and strangely shaped cliff afterwards called the “Sphinx”. Here they suffered serious losses. This beach, afterwards known as Ocean beach, gradually broadens out until it merges into the open marshy plain which extends to Suvla and the Salt Lake... The Turks were ready to oppose a landing. For days afterwards we could see stranded boats left full of dead.’ (Ref ‘Gallipoli’ by Eric Wheeler Bush, DSO, DSC).