Orders, Decorations and Medals

A ‘Battle of Calabria’ D.S.M. group of four awarded to Chief Petty Officer J. C. E. Horn, H.M.S. Gloucester, killed in action when his ship was sunk off Crete in May 1941

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (JX.152157 C.P.O. H.M.S. Gloucester); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; War Medal, very fine (4) £600-700

D.S.M. London Gazette 11 September 1940: ‘For courage, enterprise and devotion to duty in recent engagements: Chief Petty Officer Joseph Charles Edwin Horn, H.M.S. Gloucester.’

Chief Petty Officer Horn won the D.S.M. during the battle of Calabria on 9 July 1940, when Gloucester suffered serious damage after a hit on her bridge which killed Captain F. R. Garside and seventeen others. During 1941 Gloucester was engaged in the Mediterranean on Malta convoys, the battle of Cape Matapan, and actions off Crete. During May of that year she was part of a force of cruisers and destroyers under Admiral King charged with the duty of preventing Italian convoys running from Greece to Crete. On the morning of May 22nd, a convoy was reported south of the island of Milos and the British steamed to intercept it in face of intense bombing attacks by German dive bombers. During the afternoon Gloucester and the cruiser Fiji were sent to cover the destroyers Kandahar and Kingston, engaged in picking up survivors from the destroyer Greyhound which had been bombed and sunk. While carrying out this operation Gloucester was hit amidships by a heavy bomb and sank shortly afterwards off the island of Antikithera. Forty-nine of her 50 officers and 687 of her 755 ratings were lost. Amongst the latter was Chief Petty Officer Horn who was aged 44 years.