Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A well-documented group of six awarded to Commissioned Boatswain D. A. Dean, Royal Navy, who saw active service during the Spanish Civil War in H.M.S. Devonshire, and served in the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Theseus in Korea

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star, clasp, France and Germany; War Medal; Korea 1950-53, 2nd issue (Cd. Bos’n. D. A. Dean. R.N.); U.N. Korea; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (JX.131664 D. A. Dean. P.O. H.M.S. Beagle.) good very fine (6) £300-£360

Dennis Albert Dean was born in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, on 10 August 1911. He was educated at Ross Grammar School and joined the Navy as a Boy in May 1928. He joined Delhi on 5 December 1929 and served in her throughout her commission on the North American, West Indies, and South Americas stations. He saw active service in the Spanish Civil War and during the last war was two years on convoys taking supplies to the Russians at Archangel and was on active service in many other theatres, including the D-Day landings. He was in the destroyer Beagle from May 1943 to November 1944, and received his L.S. & G.C. medal one month before leaving the ship. In June 1946 he was promoted to Acting Boatswain having been ‘Commended for Good Service’ by C-in-C Western Approaches on 31 January 1945. His seniority as Commissioned Boatman was 28 June 1946, and before the Korean War he was stationed at the Boom Defence Depot at Milford Haven. He was in Theseus from 9 August 1950, and saw service during the Korean War. He died on 27 February 1963, at Bishop’s Stortford, where he was a senior traffic inspector.

Sold with a quantity of original documents and photographs, including: a substantial photograph album covering his time in H.M.S. Delhi in 1929-32 during her cruise on the North American, West Indies, and South Americas stations; Diary for the first nine weeks of 1939, in which he records the events aboard H.M.S. Devonshire during part of the Spanish Civil War, including photographs of various bombing raids (extracts from this diary were sent back to his old headmaster at Ross Grammar School and published in the Ross Gazette within days of the events in the Mediterranean); ‘Log Book’ kept 6 August to 18 September, 1942, whilst on passage from Gibraltar to the Clyde, when Dean was Master of a prize, Petite Annick of Douarnenez, taken as a prize in January 1942, together with a copy of the Gibraltar Court Order; and various ‘Neptune’ and masonic certificates, photographs, etc.