Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Second World War D.S.M. awarded to Engineman S. W. E. Rice, Royal Naval Patrol Service, late Royal Navy, an ex-North Russia hand and trawler man who was decorated for his gallantry in minesweeping operations - aged 52 years

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (LT/KX 116115 S. W. E. Rice, R.N.P.S.), in its case of issue, extremely fine £600-800

D.S.M. London Gazette 1 January 1942.

Samuel William Edward Rice was born in Portsea, Hampshire in January 1889 and entered the Royal Navy as Stoker 2nd Class in August 1907. A Stoker Petty Officer aboard the cruiser H.M.S. Attentive by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he served with the Dover Patrol and was present in operations off the Belgian coast, including the action off Ostend in September 1915, when the Attentive was bombed by enemy aircraft and suffered several casualties.

Having then come ashore to an appointment in Victory in January 1917, he returned to sea in the cruiser Cardiff in the period June-November 1917 and was present in the action in Heligoland Bight in the latter month. And, following further time ashore, he was embarked for Archangel in July 1918, where he was borne on the books of Glory IV and the monitor M. 25 from March 1919, in which latter capacity he witnessed extensive action in the Dwina river operations. He returned home in the M. 26 in October 1919 and was demobilised at the year’s end.

Between the Wars Rice most likely served as a trawler man, for, in October 1940, he joined the Royal Naval Patrol Service, and it was in this capacity that he won his D.S.M. in respect of his services aboard H.M. Trawler Belton, a Strath-class trawler armed with a 3-inch gun and crewed by 18 men. Most probably operating out of Grimsby, the Belton would have been employed on hazardous minesweeping operations off the East Coast.