Auction Catalogue

19 September 2003

Starting at 11:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. To coincide with the OMRS Convention

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

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Lot

№ 893

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19 September 2003

Hammer Price:
£70

Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 3rd issue, coinage head (J. 6115 G. Allen, A.B., H.M.S. Achates) edge bruising and contact marks, about very fine £80-100

George Allen (alias Koch) was born in Islington in January 1894 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in November 1909. Advanced to Ordinary Seaman in January 1912 and to Able Seaman in October 1913, the advent of hostilities found him serving in the battle cruiser H.M.S. Lion. And other than a brief period ashore between June and November 1915, he remained in Admiral Sir David Beatty’s flagship until September 1917, thereby sharing in her honours at Jutland.

Aside from those ships that were actually sunk at Jutland, none accrued more casualties than the
Lion, suffering as she did 6 Officers and 93 ratings killed, and another 43 wounded. Nor, too, did many survive such punishment, her main deck, funnel and port side all being liberally peppered with ‘great black splashes’ where the enemy’s gunfire had found its mark - no better evidence of this damage can be found than in the photographs that appear in Fawcett’s and Hooper’s The Fighting at Jutland. She was also an extremely lucky ship, one enemy shell penetrating her ‘Q’ turret and causing a cordite fire. But for the quick reactions of the sole surviving Officer in the turret, who closed and flooded the nearby magazine, there can be little doubt that the ship’s complement would have suffered a similar fate as that of the Queen Mary. Remarkably, given such statistics, the Lion’s guns were continuously in action, few accounts of the battle failing to mention the good effect she had on all who saw her, a reflection, too, on the aggressive tactics of Sir David Beatty, who was anxious to get to grips with the enemy.

Allen’s final wartime appointment was aboard the cruiser
Diana, which ship he joined in October 1917.