Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Second World War D.S.M. group of eight awarded to Chief Stoker John Piper, H.M. Submarine Parthian

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (KX.85068 L.Sto. H.M.S. Parthian); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; War Medal; Coronation 1953; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 2nd issue (D.S.M. Ch. Sto. M. H.M.S. Dolphin) contact marks, therefore nearly very fine (8) £1000-1200

D.S.M. London Gazette 7 October 1941: ‘For courage, enterprise and devotion to duty in successful submarine patrols.’

One of seven D.S.M.’s announced in this gazette for the submarine Parthian in recognition of seven Mediterranean Patrols, in which she sank the French submarine Souffleur off Beirut on 25 June 1941 as well as a tanker and supply ship. Remarkably this was the second submarine sunk by Parthian for she had previously bagged the Italian submarine Diamante off Libya in June 1940. Parthian continued to operate successfully in the Mediterranean until she was sunk by a mine between Malta and Beirut on 10 August 1943. However, Piper had evidently moved on to another submarine and finished the war as a Chief Stoker Mechanic.