Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The group of seven miniature dress medals worn by Boatswain H. V. Moreton, Royal Research Vessel Discovery II

British Empire Medal, (Civil) E.II.R.; British War and Victory Medals; 1939-45 Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Polar Medal 1904, G.VI.R., bronze, 1 clasp, Antarctic 1929-35, good very fine (7) £300-£400

One of only 6 Polar Medals awarded with the clasp ‘Antarctic 1929-35’.

B.E.M. London Gazette 1 January 1969.

Polar Medal London Gazette 7 October 1941.

Harold Vale Moreton was born in Lydd, Kent, on 29 July 1901, and joined the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class on 30 November 1916. Advanced Signaller Boy on 23 May 1917, he served during the Great War in H.M.S. Temeraire from 22 September 1917. Advanced Ordinary Signaller on 29 July 1919, he was shore invalided on 3 March 1926, and subsequently joined the National Institute of Oceanography’s research ship Discovery, as a Quartermaster, in 1929. He sailed for the Institute for the next four decades, and was awarded the Polar Medal for his Antarctic Research in Discovery II, as an Able Seaman during 1929-31, and as a Boatswain’s Mate from 1931-35.

The Antarctic 1929-35 - Discovery II
At 234 feet long, and displacing 2,100 tons, Discovery II was the largest research ship ever to explore the Southern Ocean and both the scientists and crew had to take time to get used to a new ship under conditions of intense cold, storm and pack ice. In addition, working the instruments and winches required constant practice, and the surveys, biological collections and hydrographic work were more comprehensive that ever before attempted in southern waters. Departing London in December 1929, she spent six years in the Southern Ocean, during which she became the fourth vessel to circumnavigate Antarctica - and the first to accomplish this feat in winter.

In January 1932, Discovery II was on her first voyage deep into the Weddell Sea, the first steel ship to penetrate those waters, when, near the position Shackleton had first met ice back in 1916, she became entrapped, her hull and rudder sustaining damage, including a leak in her starboard fuel tank. At one point, on 26 January, her captain wrote, ‘Scientific staff and all spare hands employed this day poling ice floes clear of rudder and propeller’, and it was only with great difficultly that the ship was extricated from her perilous situation. In spite of such danger, the surroundings never failed to make a marked impression on the senses, one crewman recalling that it was ‘impossible to describe the stillness and the quietness in the Antarctic, not a sound to be heard.’ Years later, upon receiving his B.E.M., Moreton recalled that his worst moment was ‘being trapped in the ice in the Antarctic in the winter.’

Another notable chapter in Discovery II’s Antarctic sojourn occurred when she was able to lend vital assistance to Admiral Byrd's Second Antarctic Expedition. For, on 5 February 1934, the latter was faced with a severe crisis, his only doctor being taken ill with high blood pressure, a condition that necessitated his return home on the support ship Jacob Ruppert, leaving only a medical student with the expedition. Byrd, who could not even consider keeping 95 men in the Antarctic without a doctor, later wrote, ‘I determined then to get a doctor, or else cancel the expedition.’ The previous month, he had been surprised to hear Discovery II's radio operator tapping out Morse messages on the airwaves - not that far from each other, the expeditions exchanged greetings. So he now sent a radiogram to the captain of Discovery II, then at Auckland replenishing her supplies, requesting assistance, as a direct result of which Dr. Louis Potaka, a New Zealander, sailed on the ship to rendezvous with Byrd's Bear of Oakland in the Ross Sea on 22 February - the American expedition was saved.

Moreton was invested with his Polar Medal by H.M. King George VI at Buckingham Palace on 12 May 1942, and served during the Second World War as a gunner with 532 Coast Regiment, Royal Artillery. Returning to the National Institute of Oceanography following the cessation of hostilities, he was promoted Boatswain in 1950, and in 1969, was awarded the British Empire Medal for his services with the GLORIA (Geological LOng-Range Inclined Asdic) project, which allowed for the probing and mapping of the ocean depths. He was presented with his B.E.M. by Mrs. Shirley Williams, Minister of State for Education and Science, on board the Royal Research Vessel Discovery as she arrived back at Southampton in 1969. Moreton retired the following year- asked why he had continued to serve the Institute so long when many other men would have retired, he replied: ‘Patriotism.’

For the recipient’s related full-size awards, see Lot 179.