Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War anti-U-boat operations D.S.M. awarded to 2nd Hand W. Butler, Royal Naval Reserve, who saw service in Q-Ships

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (D.A. 778 W. Butler, 2nd Hd., R.N.R., “Corrie Roy”, North Channel, 1 Mar. 1918), date officially corrected, very fine £500-600

D.S.M. London Gazette 26 April 1918:

‘For services in action with enemy submarines.’

William Henry Coulson Butler, who was born in Hull in February 1892, enrolled in the Royal Naval Reserve as a 2nd Hand in August 1914. Having then served in the trawlers Good Hope, Gunner and Auk, all three vessels at one time employed as Q-Ships, he removed to the Corrie Roy in October 1917, and was noted for good services in rescuing the survivors from the torpedoed S.S. Tuscania on 5 February 1918, among them U.S. troops (his service record refers).

Later that day, the Corrie Roy was called to a position at which an enemy submarine had been sighted, and dropped a depth charge which ‘caused oil of a very thick nature to rise to the surface in considerable volume’ (official report of the Commodore Larne Harbour refers). Here then a possible background to the award of Butler’s decoration, though it should be noted that the date and location of his decoration may well apply to rescue operations in respect of the armed merchant cruiser Calgarian, torpedoed and sunk by the U-19 off Rathlin Island - in the North Channel on 1 March 1918.

Be that as it may, he lived but a short while to enjoy his distinction, for he was ‘accidentally drowned on 1 July 1918 whilst punting a dinghy with sails set over the mud flats’ (his service record refers). Aged 27 years, he was buried in Larne New Cemetery.