Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Corporal A. Sherman, Royal Marine Light Infantry, who was killed in action when H.M.S. Invincible was sunk at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916

1914-15 Star (PO. 14465. Cpl. A. Sherman. R.M.L.I.); British War and Victory Medals (PO. 14465 Cpl. A. Sherman. R.M.L.I.) in named card boxes of issue with Admiralty forwarding letter, extremely fine (3) £240-£280

Arthur Sherman was born in Andover, Hampshire, in 1888 and joined the Royal Marine Light Infantry in Southampton on 29 May 1906 aged 17 years and 5 months. He served in the pre-dreadnought Battleships H.M.S. Jupiter and H.M.S. Exmouth between February 1908 and June 1911 and then in the armoured cruiser H.M.S. Minotaur from May 1912 to March 1914. He was promoted Corporal on 19 May 1913 and was posted to serve in the battlecruiser H.M.S. Invincible on 3 August 1914, one day before Great Britain declared war on Germany. Sherman would have been present at Invincible’s successes in 1914 at the battle of Heligoland Bight, where she played a minor role, and at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, where she and her sister ship, Inflexible, sank the armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau almost without loss to themselves.

Sherman was killed in action at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916, when the armour of one of Invincible’s gun turrets was penetrated, causing her to be blown in half by a magazine explosion amidships and sink within 90 seconds with the loss of all but six of her crew of 1,032 officers and ratings. Like the vast majority of the crew Sherman is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.