Auction Catalogue

13 & 14 September 2012

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

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Lot

№ 1047 x

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14 September 2012

Hammer Price:
£4,800

A very rare Great War submariner’s D.S.M., Medal of the Order of the British Empire group of eight awarded to Chief Petty Officer R. W. Sims, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his gallantry in the E-7 in the Dardanelles in September 1915, on which occasion he became a P.O.W., his subsequent deeds behind enemy wire almost certainly resulting in the award of his Medal of the Order of the British Empire

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (179585 R. W. Sims, P.O., “E 7”, Dardanelles, 4th Sept. 1915); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 1 clasp, Natal (179585 R. W. Sims, A.B., H.M.S. Forte); 1914-15 Star (179585 R. W. Sims, P.O., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (179585 R. W. Sims, P.O., R.N.); Defence Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (179585 Robt. W. Sims, Act. C.P.O., H.M.S. Dolphin), very fine and better (8) £3000-3500

D.S.M. London Gazette 14 January 1919.

Medal of the Order of the British Empire
London Gazette 17 October 1919.

Robert Walter Sims was born in Lambeth, London, in June 1878 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class May 1894. Advanced to Able Seaman in September 1897, he joined H.M.S.
Forte in April 1899 and was subsequently deployed ashore with the Naval Brigade in Natal during the Boer War.

By the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Sims was serving as a Petty Officer in the fledgling submarine service, and he was duly ordered to the Dardanelles in the
E-7 in the summer of 1915. Commanded by Lieutenant-Commander A. D. Cochrane, the E-7 had a short but spectacular operational career, and one in which the gallant Sims had charge of the after-switchboard. By Guess and by God, by William Guy Carr, takes up the story with an account of the E-7’s first patrol:

‘Cochrane took her on her first trip through the Dardanelles on June 30. She had the usual experiences going up. She plunged deep under the minefields; staggered through the nets. Death scratched with iron fingers on her steel plates; the clang of metal striking hollow metal sounded menacingly within her. A destroyer picked up her track and diligently followed. Twice when she came up for a look she escaped ramming by scant feet. The destroyer told the shore where she could be found, and a torpedo from a shore tube passed between her wireless standards. All as requisite, she proceeded on her way until she kept her rendezvous next evening with
E-14 at the ‘town pump’ off Kalolimni.

Next day Cochrane set to work. In the morning a small steamer was captured. A boarding party was sent to sink her. A demolition charge was placed in her hold and the fuse took light but the explosion was premature. Lieutenant Halifax and one of the crew were so badly burned that neither of them was of service for the rest of the voyage. Burns under any circumstances are horrible; imagine enduring them for three July weeks in the interior of a submarine. In addition to these casualties, the other two officers and the wireless operator were stricken with dysentery.

Only one who has actually known for himself the abomination of life aboard a submarine can have any conception of what the men on
E-7 went through on their three weeks’ voyage.

Despite a truly horrible physical handicap, they carried on. In ten days they sank two sailing vessels, two steamers and a number of dhows. On July 10 they discovered the 3,000-ton
Biga alongside the pier at Mudania. Screening her were a number of sailing ships. Cochrane dived under these, came up between them and the Biga, and launched a torpedo at her. The explosion was unusually heavy.

The next adventure came a few days later. On the night of the 15th, while prowling around the entrance to the Bosphorus,
E-7 ran aground on the shoal off Leander Tower. To improve the shining hour, a torpedo with a T.N.T. head was fired into the arsenal. At the proper interval a violent explosion was heard, but there was no chance to find out its results. Freeing herself from the shoal, E-7 next moved out into the Bosphorus and shelled powder mills on the western outskirts of Constantinople.

The success of this midnight bombardment must have been the inspiration for Cochrane’s next move. On the 17th he turned up at the mouth of the gulf of Ismid where the railroad line from Scutari passes close to the sea. At one point there is a deep cut.
E-7 devoted her attentions to this spot, shelling it until the railroad line was blocked.

And then, as I remember a story I heard more than once, they lingered, hoping for a train. None appearing, impatience beset them, and they started off down the coast to find one. At Derinji they paused to examine a closed shipyard, and while there sighted a troop train bound toward Constantinople. Absurdly they set off at full speed down the gulf in a crazy race after the train. It outdistanced them of course, but they tore hopefully ahead. Within thirty minutes they were rewarded by seeing the train returning slowly. It seemed to be seeking some secluded spot where it might stop. Off shore Cochrane watched it. The train entered a stand of timber. There was a tense wait to see if it would appear at the other side. Minutes passed. Nothing happened. It appeared definitely to have stopped. The gun crew were ordered to action stations. The target hidden, there was no chance to spot their hits. But the genius of the Trade is to reach unseen objectives. After a couple of dozen rounds three ammunition cars blew up.

The flavour of this strange new game appealed strongly to
E-7. During the last week of her voyage she returned again and again to the line skirting the north shore of the Gulf of Ismid. At the scene of her first success she caught another train and gave it a sound shelling. She spent unprofitable hours shelling the viaduct that was to be the scene of amazing daring a few days later. She shelled another moving train. But, more than all else, she demonstrated the weakness of the Turk’s main line of communications with Asia Minor. Thus did each new boat to range the Sea of Marmora add to the achievements of her predecessors.

E-7 and her dysentery-weakened crew returned to their base on July 24th, after meeting with E-14, from who they learned of new nets across the Narrows, and to whom they told of the activities along the railroad.’

And of her subsequent demise on 4 September 1915, when Sims worked on the starboard main-motor amidst much smoke and molten copper,
A Damned Un-English Weapon, by Edwyn Gray states:

E.7 had been selected to go up the Dardanelles to replace Nasmith and, on the evening before he sailed, Lieutenant-Commander Cochrane told Keyes his plans for the next patrol. They were highly exciting and, according to the Commodore, ‘for ingenuity rivalled the most brilliant of his great-grandfather’s exploits.’

The submarine left Mudros in the small hours of 4 September and, in accordance with the usual routine, was escorted to the diving position by a destroyer. After submerging Cochrane took her down to eighty feet and set course for the first minefield. They nosed their way through without any undue incidents and, after rising to periscope-depth to check his bearing, the commander headed for Nagara where the next obstruction in the obstacle race was situated.

He arrived at 7.30 am and, calling for full-power, he pointed
E.7’s bows towards the net. Unknown to Cochrane the Turks had recently strengthened the obstruction and it was now an extremely formidable defence system consisting of wire-rope in twelve-foot meshes which reached right down to the bottom of the sea-bed.

E.7 was running at a depth of one hundred feet and she charged into the net under full-power. There was a sharp clang as the wire ropes burst under the impact and Cochrane began forcing his boat through the gap. For a few minutes success seemed assured but, suddenly, a length of wire fouled the starboard propeller and had wound itself tightly around the shaft before the motor could be shut off.

The hum of the motors died away and the submarine rolled gently in the current, the frayed wires of the net scraping against her steel sides like branches clawing at a window in the wind. The Chief E.R.A. bustled into the control room.

‘Starboard motor’s burned out sir.’

Cochrane shrugged.

‘Well we’ll have to make it on the other, Chief. See if your lads can fix anything.’

The engineer nodded, ducked through the narrow opening of the bulkhead door, and went back to the motor-compartment. Cochrane moved over to the chart, studied it intensely for a few seconds, and then straightened up.

‘It’s now or never, Number One. Full ahead port.’

‘Full ahead port, sir.’

E.7 vibrated gently as the power surged into the motor and she shifted slightly. It was impossible to tell which way she was moving except by means of the compass. Suddenly the needle swung 90 degrees and the grating sound of the net came, this time, from aft. The submarine had swung broadside and was now lying with her full length against the net trapped at both bow and stern! At 8.30 am there was a violent explosion. The Turks had dropped their first depth charge.

A line of marker-buoys floated on the surface above the net and the enemy were patrolling in small boats. Each time the submarine tried to wriggle free the buoys dragged beneath the water and it was a simple matter to locate her position with clinical exactitude. A launch bustled out from the shore carrying a large black canister in the stern-sheets. Stopping at the point indicated by the patrols, the canister was dropped into the water. For fifteen seconds there was silence. Then, suddenly, there was a dull roar deep beneath the surface and the blast of the explosion threw a great white gusher of water into the air.

Inside
E.7 everything was calm. The depth charge had caused no major damage and the First Officer, having checked the hull for leaks, reported everything still tight. Chancing that the explosion had done more damage to the nets than it had to the submarine Cochrane called for full power again. E.7 threshed wildly against the heavy steel net but she did not move. By now the port motor was overheating too and the captain had to call off the attempt.

Two hours later another depth-charge swirled towards the bottom, considerably closer than the first, and flakes of cork-packing sprinkled down like snow as the submarine took the full blast of the explosion. But the hull held firm and Cochrane gave the motor another quick burst of power to try and break free.

For the next three hours, at regular intervals,
E.7 strained and threshed against the net but her exertions only seemed to entangle her more tightly. By now the batteries were running down and her captain decided to lie low for a while. The crew rested quietly but they noted with ominous pessimism that Cochrane was carefully destroying the boat’s confidential records and secret papers.

On shore the news that a submarine was trapped in the net spread like wildfire. Korvetten Kapitan Heino von Heimburg, commander of the German submarine
UB-15, was resting in his cabin when he was given the news. Heimburg had once been trapped in a British net and he had evolved his own method of destroying an ensnared submarine. UB-15 was lying at anchor at Chanak, only a short distance from the net defence, and the German officer immediately decided to take a hand in the proceedings. So taking his cook, Herzig, with him they threw some equipment into a dinghy and rowed over to the Turkish patrol boats. The crew of a gunboat pointed out where they thought the submarine was lying and Herzig, a professional fisherman by trade, swung a plumbline over the side while Heimburg rowed gently along the line of buoys.

After half-an-hour the cook let out a yell as he located the trapped submarine and the two men carefully prepared amine. They lit the fuse and then lowered it down to the depths. Black diesel oil leaked up to the surface after the explosion and the U-boat captain now knew he had fatally wounded his prey.

The fierce detonation of the mine had shattered every light bulb in
E.7 and the crew clattered through the debris in pitch darkness as Cochrane called for diving stations.

‘Close main vents. Blow all tanks.’

There was a hiss of compressed air which drowned the sullen gurgling of sea-water leaking into the hull and the submarine began to rise to the surface. The hatch was thrown open and the crew climbed out on deck with their arms raised while Cochrane and the other two officers quickly set the scuttling charges which they had placed ready for use a few hours earlier. Then, reluctantly, they clambered up through the hatch to join the crew lined up on deck. Cochrane, in fact, only just made it in time according to Heimburg’s eye-witness account: ‘The water was closing over the conning-tower and into the water and swam over to the boat. It was the captain, the last man to abandon ship.’ ’

An early glimpse of the captured submariners experiences of Turkish hospitality appears in
Beneath the Waves, by A. S. Evans:

‘For the first few days following their capture, the submariners were treated quite well. Then came a move to Constantinople and with it a rude introduction to the more unsavoury aspects of Turkish prison life. For three weeks they were confined to the capital’s prison with five hundred criminals for company. Angora (now Ankara, the Turkish capital) was their next destination. Five months were spent at Angora before a move south to the small township of Afion Kara Hissar was ordered ... ’

Following his repatriation, Sims was awarded the D.S.M. and Medal of the Order of the British Empire (
London Gazette 17 October 1919 refers), and he was demobilised in October 1919; sold with copied service record and other research.