Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine royal yacht M.V.O. group of fourteen awarded to Captain E. C. Denison, Royal Naval Reserve, late Royal Navy, who was mentioned in despatches for his gallant services as a Commodore of Convoys in the 1939-45 War

The Royal Victorian Order, M.V.O., Member’s 4th Class breast badge, the reverse officially numbered ‘1305’; 1914-15 Star (Lieut. E. C. Denison, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Lt. Commr. E. C. Denison, R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star, clasp, France and Germany; Africa Star; Burma Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf; Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; Spain, Naval Life Saving Medal, silver, all but the last mounted court-style, generally very fine or better (14) £800-1000

M.V.O. London Gazette 10 August 1931.

Edward Conyngham Denison was born in September 1888, the only son of Captain Hon. Henry Denison and grandson of the 1st Lord Londesborough. Passing out of Britannia in September 1904, he joined H.M.S. Drake in the following year, and appears to have been awarded his Spanish Medal for Lifesaving while employed in one of her boats in the rescue of some men off Algeciras in February 1906. Advanced to Sub. Lieutenant in February 1908 and to Lieutenant in October 1910, he then held several commands after his promotion to Lieutenant-Commander in October 1917.

Between the Wars he served in the royal yacht Victoria and Albert and was awarded the M.V.O. 4th Class, in addition to gaining advancement to Captain and being appointed S.N.O. of the naval establishments at Bermuda and Malta. Officially placed on the Retired List in July 1941, he was actually retained as a Commodore of Convoys, R.N.R., in which capacity he lent valuable and gallant service in the Mediterranean, in addition to commanding assorted convoys on the Atlantic and Arctic run, JW54B being a case in point - Richard Woodman’s Arctic Convoys takes up the story:

‘Watching from the bridge of Daldorch, Commodore Dennison kept his six columns in formation. It was bitterly cold and snow showers caused drifts to form on deck, so that his M.R.A. and D.E.M.S. gunners were alternately digging out their gun pits or traversing and elevating their guns, an exercise that had to be carried out frequently to avoid their freezing up. This was more than a routine precaution, as his gunners well knew, for they, though not the merchant seamen, had had the benefit of a briefing at Loch Ewe. Mustered ashore, all the merchant ships' gunners had been marched under naval escort to a large Nissen hut and addressed by naval officers. The gist of the briefing was that they 'were in a convoy to Russia and would be sailing fairly close to the Norwegian coast - the object being to draw out the Scharnhorst'. They were then marched back to their boats, their guards making them feel rather like prisoners, evidence of the secrecy of the imparted information.

It is not difficult to imagine how this news was received aboard by the merchant seamen from whom it was impossible to keep such scuttlebutt. It was a common belief among them that they were being used as bait, an opinion current a year earlier in the homeward-bound RASl, and which lost nothing as time passed and circumstances changed. Given all their experience of the naval establishment, and their self-perception as underdogs and victims of a careless bureaucracy, it was both plausible and credible. To what extent the British Admiralty actively pursued this policy of setting bait, it is now difficult to say with absolute certainty. The departure of Lutzow and the incapacity of Tirpitz were certainly known in London, the Royal Navy had a tradition of seeking an enemy, and circumstances were hardly likely to be more propitious.

In late June 1943, the new Commander-in-Chief, Sir Bruce Fraser, had expressed the view that the Soviet Union was no longer so dependent upon the Arctic supply route, those via the Pacific and Persian Gulf being adequate. The resumption of the convoys could therefore have only one real purpose, to ‘enable the German surface forces to be brought successfully to action’. While this may well have been the private desire of many naval officers, the continuing use of the northern route owed much to political considerations and the maintenance of British credibility which made its abandonment impossible. Nevertheless, in naval circles the temptation to entice Scharnhorst out and strike her must have been well nigh irresistible and second only to the conviction that the Germans would hardly waste the dark nights and thick weather. Moreover, the overriding principle of the safe and timely arrival of the convoy need not suffer if the supporting operation was properly and carefully conducted.

There were equally pressing political as well as material reasons for the Germans to act aggressively. Interdicting the Arctic convoys would aggravate already strained relations between Stalin and the Western leaders, and it was inconceivable that Hitler would let such an opportunity pass.

In fact British naval planners overestimated the effectiveness of German radar at this time, wrongly believing it to be nearly as advanced as their own. They were not wrong in their strategic thinking, however. It was simply that with JW54B they were premature.

Commodore Dennison was thus a relieved man when, on 2 December, he watched his Vice-Commodore, the Master of the Fort McMurray, lead the Murmansk section towards Kildin Island and into Kola. Fortunately, he had had no need of the rescue ship Rathlin, for like the others that month the convoy was unscathed, though not completely undetected.’

Denison was duly mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 3 October 1944 refers), the original recommendation stating, ‘This officer has completed three years as Ocean Commodore for all but two months, and now he is leaving Liverpool Pool, his name is forwarded in view of his good services as Commodore.’

The Commodore died in November 1960.