Auction Catalogue

25 & 26 March 2013

Starting at 12:00 PM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

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Lot

№ 985

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26 March 2013

Hammer Price:
£1,300

A rare Great War and Second World War campaign group of eight awarded to Private A. E. Dunn, Royal Marines Light Infantry, who was attached to the R.N.A.S. Armoured Car Section at Ostend and Antwerp in August-October 1914: subsequently taken P.O.W. while serving in the R.M. Brigade, Royal Naval Division, in the German Spring Offensive, further misfortune befell him as a D.E.M.S. Sergeant in his mid-50s in July 1942, when his ship the S.S. Mundra was shelled and torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-18
1914 Star, with clasp (Ply. 13938 Pte. A. E. Dunn, R.M.L.I., Armoured Cars); British War and Victory Medals (Ply. 13938 L. Sgt. A. E. Dunn, R.M.L.I.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue (Ply. 13938 A. E. Dunn, Pte., R.M.L.I.), the earlier awards with contact marks, thus generally nearly very fine, the 1939-45 awards rather better (8) £600-800

Alfred Edmund Dunn was born in Islington, London, in May 1886, and enlisted in the Royal Marines Light Infantry in February 1907. Posted to the Plymouth Division as a Private, he was similarly employed at the outbreak of hostilities and, on being transferred to the R.M. Brigade, was landed at Ostend on 27 August 1914

Subsequently attached to the R.N.A.S. Armoured Car Section, he was present at the defence of Antwerp in September-October. Indeed Dunn remained on active service with the R.M. Brigade in France and Flanders up until being taken P.O.W. on 30 March 1918, the interim period witnessing much fighting with the Royal Naval Division - his C.Os including Lieutenant-Colonel R. McN. Parsons, C.B. Repatriated in December 1918, Dunn signed on for a second tour of duty, and was awarded his L.S. & G.C. in May 1922 and discharged as a Corporal in February 1928, when he enrolled in the Royal Fleet Reserve. Recalled in his old rank on the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, he later gained advancement to the acting rank of Sergeant and was appointed to duties in Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships (D.E.M.S.), his first seagoing engagement being in the S.S.
Mantola from December 1939 until late May 1942, when he removed to the Mundra. A little over a month later, on 6 July, the Mundra was shelled, torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese submarine I-18 off St. Lucia Bay, Natal, 92 of her company being lost but Dunn being among the 150 or so survivors. This traumatic experience was to prove his last seagoing appointment and he returned to the U.K. in the Durban Castle in the following month.

Thereafter employed at D.E.M.S. bases in Cardiff, Southampton and Newport, he was involved in a train accident at the latter place in June 1943, and admitted to Royal Gwent Hospital suffering from a dislocated right hip and fractured ribs. And, as further verified by accompanying research, he died at St. Alban’s Hospital in March 1945; sold with copied research.