The Douglas-Morris Collection of Naval Medals (Part 2)

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (SS115464 C. thirkill, Sto. 1Cl, H.M.S. Julnar 24 April 1916) good very fine and rare

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Douglas-Morris Collection of Naval Medals.

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D.S.M. London Gazette 11 November 1919 ‘The following awards have been approved.’

After General Townshend captured the town of Kut-el-Amara on the River Tigris in September 1915, he went on to defeat the Turks again at Ctesiphon, only 20 miles from Baghdad. But it was a pyrrhic victory. Townshend could only retreat to Kut where, by the end of December, he and his troops were besieged by the Turks. As the months passed, the situation of the garrison in Kut deteriorated from unpromising to desperate. Several attempts were made to relieve the besieged troops. The last, in H.M.S. JULNAR, can only be described as suicidal.

H.M.S. JULNA, a river Steamer, was stripped of all non-essentials, covered with iron plates and sandbags, behind which was crammed 270 tons of badly needed supplies. As the venture was deemed to be suicidal only bachelor volunteers were allowed, and 3 Officers and 12 Men were finally selected. JULNA left Fallahiya at 8.00pm. Her departure was however well-known by the Turks and within one hour of leaving, JULNA was under heavy fire. Her hull was riddled from machine gun fire and heavy artillery near misses. JULNA somehow managed to keep going until she reached Maqasis, a spot where the river bends to the right. At this point, unknown to JULNA, the Turks had laid steel hawsers across the river, and JULNA's rudder became entangled in one of the hawsers and she ground to halt. The Turkish gunners opened up at point blank range and the bridge received a direct hit killing the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant H. O. B. Firman, R.N., and several of the crew instantly. The 1st Lieutenant C. H. Cowley, R.N.V.R., and other crew members, including Stoker C. Thurkill, were wounded.

The Turkish troops swarmed aboard taking prisoner those who had not been killed. Lieutenant Commander C. H. Cowley was separated from the other prisoners on account that he was considered by the Turks to be a traitor as he had been born of English parents in Baghdad and he and his family lived there. He spoke fluent Arabic and was employed as a River Pilot and in the eyes of the Turks he was an Ottoman subject. The Turks later reported that he had been killed whilst trying to escape but there seems little doubt that he had been executed.

Lieutenants Firman and Cowley were each posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Their names, along with the other members of the crew who lost their lives, are commemorated on the Basra War Memorial. There were strenuous efforts to invoke Rule 13 of the Victoria Cross statutes in order to reward other crew members with this ultimate honour but they proved unsuccessful. The Vice Admiral, Commander-in-Chief, Sir Rosslyn Wemyss wrote:

‘..I am of the opinion that each Officer and man has fully earned the Victoria Cross, but with the precedents before me of the award of this coveted decoration for combined efforts of this nature, I am led to believe that this will not be allotted to all...Before closing my report, I would beg to put on record my appreciation of the gallantry of each one of these officers and men in undertaking this forlorn hope. They were under no misapprehensions as to the dangers they ran, and knew that I considered it most unlikely that they would reach their destination and fulfill their task; and had it not been that I realised that it was the one and only chance of saving the garrison I would not have given my consent to such an undertaking.’

The Engineer Officer Sub Lieut W. L. Reed, R.N.R., the sole surviving officer, was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, and each of the crew members were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Of the JULNA's complement of 3 Officers and 12 Men, 2 Officers and 3 Men were killed in action or died whilst prisoners of war. Stoker Charles Thurkill was among those that died whilst in captivity on 23rd March 1917.