Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Petty Officer W. Squires, Royal Navy

1914-15 Star (220262 W. Squires, L.S., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (220262 W. Squires, P.O., R.N.); Denmark, Slesvig Medal 1920, silver, very fine and better (4) £160-180

Walter Squires was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, in September 1885, and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in April 1902.

Advanced to Able Seaman in March 1905 and to Leading Seaman in March 1912, he was serving in the battleship H.M.S. Albion at the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, and remained similarly employed until coming ashore to Vivid I in mid-May 1916 - a period encompassing his advancement to Petty Officer and his ship’s part in operations off German South-West Africa and in support of the Gallipoli landings. Having then been borne on the books of the Defiance and Dido I, Squires joined the destroyer Mastiff in December 1916, in which capacity he remained actively employed in the Dover Patrol until August 1918, including employment in support of the Zeebrugge raid. And he ended the war in the Saracen, another destroyer of the Dover Patrol.

Next borne on the books of the Columbine, but actually serving in the destroyer Sea Wolf, Squires participated in the British and French operations in support of the Slesvig plebiscite in 1920 and, having been advanced to Chief Petty Officer in early 1924, was pensioned ashore in December 1926, when he enrolled in the Royal Fleet Reserve. He was briefly mobilised in 1938; sold with copied service record.