Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Second World War anti-U-boat operations D.S.M. group of five awarded to Able Seaman J. Howard, Royal Navy

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (JX. 256531 J. Howard, A.B., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Defence and War Medals generally extremely fine (5) £600-700

D.S.M. London Gazette 5 January 1943.

‘For gallantry and enterprise in attacks on enemy submarines whilke serving in H.M. Ships Viscount, Fame, Rochester, Sandwich and Erne.’

Joseph Howard was decorated for his services in the destroyer H.M.S. Fame during her successful encounter with the U-353 in the Western Approaches in October 1942, an engagement best described by Clay Blair in his excellent history, Hitler’s U-Boat War, The Hunted 1942-1945:

‘In the afternoon of the next day, October 16, the destroyer Fame, commanded by R. Heathcote, which was sweeping ahead of the convoy [S.C. 104], got a firm sonar contact at two thousand yards. This was the new boat U-353, commanded by twenty-six-year-old Wolfgang Romer, twenty-five days out of Kiel. Romer was hovering at sixty-five feet - not deep enough to pass under the convoy and too deep to use his periscope. Before he could collect his wits and evade, Fame was on top of U-353, throwing off ten depth charges set for fifty to 140 feet. These explosions wrecked U-353. Romer ordered her to the surface to scuttle.

As Fame was coming about for a Hedgehog attack, U-353 suddenly popped up. When Romer and his crew rushed topside, Heathcote and his men opened fire with every weapon that would bear and rang up eighteen knots to ram. Fame hit U-353 a glancing blow and scraped down her starboard side, tearing a “long rent” in her own plating. When U-353 drew astern, Fame plastered her with five more depth charges set for fifty feet. Meanwhile, the entire convoy overtook the combatants and every ship in it that could bring a weapon to bear opened fire on the U-boat.

Amid this tumult, Romer and his crew jumped overboard. Heathcote sent a boarding party to ransack U-353 for intelligence documents, but the party, commanded by P. M. Jones, had only five minutes inside the sinking boat and it found nothing of value. Fame and the Norwegian-manned corvette Acanthus picked up Romer and thirty-seven survivors. Six Germans died in the sinking. Too badly damaged by the collision to provide further escort, Fame limped alone to the British Isles.’