Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Second War ‘anti-U-boat operations’ D.S.M. group of six awarded to Able Seaman A. Skea, Royal Navy, Anti-Submarine Operator in H.M.S. Croome, for his part in the sinking of the Italian submarine Baracca by gunfire and ramming in the North Atlantic in September 1941

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (P/SSX. 17827 A. Skea. A.B. H.M.S. Croome.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, 1 copy clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, the campaign medals all privately engraved ‘P/SSX.17827. Alex Skea. AB. HMS. Croome.’, good very fine (6) £1,000-£1,400

D.S.M. London Gazette 28 October 1941:
‘For skill and enterprise against Enemy Submarines.’

Alexander Skea was serving as an Able Seaman and Anti-Submarine Operator in the Type 2 Hunt-class Escort Destroyer, H.M.S. Croome (Lt. Cdr. J. D. Hayes, R.N.), with the 13th Destroyer Flotilla, escorting the convoy O.G.73 on 8 September 1941, when Croome rammed and sank the Italian submarine Maggiore Francesco Baracca 270 miles north east of the Azores. The Captain (D) afloat 13th Flotilla submitted the following report for 8 September 1941:
‘H.M.S. Croome was escorting convoy H.G.72 when ordered to join convoy O.G.73 at 0800 on the 8 September 1941, she left H.G.72 at 0200 and at 0730 sighted submarine on starboard beam at 8500 yards. The submarine dived and a search commenced, contact was obtained attack with depth charges carried out. A second attack with deeper settings was carried out, and the submarine surfaced astern. Fire was immediately opened up with all guns that would bear, full speed was ordered and course altered to ram. The submarine returned fire but the shots went wide, and the gun was quickly silenced by the Lewis guns from the wings of the bridge. The submarine’s crew started to abandon ship and impact was made just abaft the conning tower and sank by the stern almost immediately. Survivors were picked up.’

Italian accounts of the action record that the submerged Baracca was quickly surrounded with clusters of depth charges and becoming fatally damaged, was ordered to the surface by the Captain, Giorgio Viani, to fight to the end. The fight was one-sided, however, and the Italian crew began scuttling the submarine which sank and exploded underwater with the loss of 28 Italians.
32 survivors, including the Captain, were taken on board by Croome which then headed for Gibraltar for repairs while the crew shored up the flooded forward compartments damaged by its ramming.

Some other revealing and more detailed observations relating to this engagement are to be found in the unpublished memoirs of Commander A. H. L. Harvey, R.N. who was serving as an Acting Sub-Lieutenant, alongside Skea in the A/S team on board Croome. Here he takes up the story, moments after Croome’s depth charge attacks had forced the Baracca to surface:
‘Now the target was fully visible on the surface, right ahead and broadside on. The order was “Stand by to ram!” With the dome housed, the A./S. team now had nothing more to do, so I sent my yeoman, who had come up on the bridge, to fetch my cine camera, and filmed the ensuing action. The range closed rapidly but we had to take off some speed before ramming to reduce the damage to ourselves to a minimum. The U-boat’s crew were tumbling out of the conning tower hatch and whilst some leaped overboard, others under the orders of an officer trained their gun on us and opened fire.
‘A’ gun could no longer depress sufficiently to bear on the target but the port Oerlikon was scoring hits on the conning tower and along the casement. At this stage, to prevent unnecessary bloodshed, the Captain ordered the Oerlikon gunner to fire only between the conning tower and the U-boat’s gun mounting to prevent them from supplying ammunition. Abaft the conning tower a man lay on the casing with blood pouring from a groin wound, reddening the sea which continually washed over him as the U-boat wallowed in the swell. Then we struck her just forward of the conning tower. The impact threw all the U-boat’s crew on deck into the sea and they began swimming towards the nets lowered over our port side where the First Lieutenant, armed with a pistol, was preparing to rescue survivors and take prisoners.
The Captain sent me to the iron deck to assist, but the First Lieutenant and Gunner’s Mate were calmly subduing the Italians with drawn pistols, separating the wounded from the others and directing them either to the Sick Bay or forward mess deck. Two men, clinging to a piece of wreckage that was barely supporting them in the water, beat off a third who was wounded and desperately trying to gain a hold for support. He soon gave up and sank, exhausted.
The ship by now was drawn clear by going astern, and two survivors, breaking free from the small guard on the iron deck, ran up the break ladder to the forecastle shouting with anguish as the U-boat lifted her stern and slid under, carrying with her the less fortunate of their shipmates. I returned to the bridge where everyone was keeping a shocked silence. The Captain acknowledged my report of the last survivor and said he would pick him up when we were able to go ahead, so I kept my binoculars trained on him as he was difficult to spot. The chief made his report on the damage and repairs and the Captain manoeuvred the ship ahead in accordance with reports from the paint shop on the stress on the foremost watertight bulkhead. Only 30 yards from the ship the last survivor became exhausted and sank. I reported this to the Captain who looked at me with concern, I think, for my emotional state, but I was more hardened to war than he realised.’

Lieutenant-Commander J. D. Hayes, R.N., the Captain, was awarded the D.S.O. and Harvey received the D.S.C., while Skea and one other rating were awarded D.S.M.s for the action.