Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family Group:

Three: Engine Room Artificer 4th Class R. Hobbs, Royal Navy, killed in action when H.M.S. Hood, the pride of the Royal Navy, was sunk by the German battleship Bismark and the battle cruiser Prinz Eugen in the Denmark Strait, 24 May 1941; of the Hood’s 1,418 crew, only three men survived
1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, with named Admiralty enclosure, in card box of issue, addressed to ‘Mrs. M. E. Hobbs, No. 2 Cottage, Morice Yard, H. M. Dockyard Devonport’, extremely fine

Imperial Service Medal, E.II.R., 2nd issue (Keith Hobbs) in Royal Mint case of issue, extremely fine (4) £140-180

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to Second World War Casualties.

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Robert Hobbs was born in Guildford, Surrey, on 4 March 1919, and served during the Second World War in H.M.S. Hood. He was killed in action during the Battle of the Denmark Strait, when the Hood, together with the battleship H.M.S. Prince of Wales, fought the German battleship Bismark and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, both of which were attempting to break out into the North Atlantic to destroy Allied merchant shipping. The Hood, the pride of the Royal Navy, opened fire at 5:52 a.m. on 24 May 1941, and having received a direct hit from the Bismark at 6:00 a.m. sank beneath the waves within three minutes, after a total combat lifespan of less than quarter of an hour. Of the 1,418 Officers and crew on board, only three men, Ordinary Seaman Ted Briggs, Able Seaman Robert Tilburn, and Midshipman William Dundas survived. Hobbs was aged 22 at the time of his death. He is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.