Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Second World War submariner’s D.S.M. and post war B.E.M. group of eight awarded to Chief Petty Officer H. G. W. Hall, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his services in the Unbending while attached to the famous “Fighting Tenth” Flotilla 1942-43

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (JX.146454) H. G. W. Hall. A/L. Smn.); British Empire Medal, (Military) E.II.R. (C.P.O. Henry G. W. Hall, D.S.M., P/JX. 156454); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, 1 clasp, North Africa 1942-43; War Medal 1939-45; Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Near East (P/JX 156454 H. G. W. Hall. D.S.M. C.P.O. R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., E.II.R., 2nd issue (JX. 156454 H. G. W. Hall. D.S.M. P.O. H.M.S. Sea Devil.) generally good very fine (8) £1,200-£1,600

D.S.M. London Gazette 27 July 1943:
‘For daring, enterprise and skill in successful patrols in H.M. Submarines.’

The original recommendation states: ‘Leading Seaman Hall has carried out the duties first as diving helmsman and breechworker of a 12-pounder gun and latterly as second Coxwain of the submarine and fore plane operator. His aggressive spirit and general efficiency have been a fine example and have contributed considerably to the success of the submarine.’

B.E.M. London Gazette 1 January 1959

Henry George William Hall who was born on 11 July 1922 entered the Royal Navy as a Boy on 10 January 1938 and was appointed an Able Seaman in June 1940. He transferred to the Submarine Branch in December 1941 and the following month joined the training submarine H-50, being aboard her for a patrol in the Bay of Biscay from 29 January 1942 until 11 February 1942.

Hall transferred to P.37 (afterwards Unbending) in April 1942, and remained similarly employed until August 1943, which period witnessed the award of his D.S.M. - he was recommended by his skipper Lieutenant Edward Talbot Stanley, D.S.C., R.N. on 12 April 1943.

During this period Unbending carried out at least nine war patrols in the Mediterranean while attached to the famous “Fighting Tenth” Flotilla, and was credited with sinking one destroyer, six merchant vessels totalling 11,850 tons, and probably sinking a further brace of merchant vessels totalling 10,500 tons, in addition to destroying one schooner and carrying out clandestine Combined Operations Pilotage Parties (C.O.P.P.) missions. On more than one occasion, the 12-pounder gun, manned by Hall, was used to persuade the crew of a target vessel to abandon ship allowing a boarding party to place demolition charges or, as was the case with a schooner in the Gulf of Sfax, to set it alight using shale oil.

Unbending’s eighth war patrol (4th in the Mediterranean) in October 1942 was particularly eventful. Ordered to patrol the southern part of the Tunisian coastline, she first sighted and sank the Italian coaster, Lupa, laden with food and wine, by gunfire and demolition charges on 8 October. Stanley recounts how in the excitement of this encounter he forgot to turn in the fore-planes while manoeuvring alongside and regretted the waste of valuable ‘provisions’:

‘We struck the target unduly hard or at a sharp angle and bent our bows, though, luckily not so badly as to mask the torpedo tubes. Demolition charges were placed, the fuse lit. Some trophies were collected, including a nice pair of binoculars. It was sad to see red wine flowing through splinter holes from two large wine casks upon the upper deck.’

Lupa finally exploded and sank. The following day they found another small vessel which was dealt with by gunfire and then burnt but this exciting patrol was far from over. The same night, Stanley recalls awaking from a nap on the bridge:

‘Putting the binoculars to my eyes, I immediately saw a ship to the northward. The night was dark and the Officer of the Watch and look-out could not see it for what seemed an interminable time. I have already thought it a classic case of extra sensory perception, which other ships captains have occasionally reported.
We closed for 20 minutes after sighting, then fired two torpedoes at an estimated range of 1500 yards. We heard no explosion, but an enormous pillar of flame flared upwards. The target was Alga, 1851 tons and was probably laden with petrol.’

Alga was still blazing the following morning as Unbending moved North towards the Tunisian island of Kuriat. After four days of quiet there was another surge of action. Stanley recalls:

‘At 1153 hrs on the 19th the mastheads and smoke haze of the convoy were sighted due north. As they approached, I could distinguish 4 merchant vessels in two columns. The first torpedo was fired at 1294 hrs at a range of about 1000 yards. I aimed one half length ahead of the leading ship of the port column and subsequent torpedoes were fired at 13 second intervals to produce a spread of two ships’ length. I hoped that the torpedoes missing ahead or astern would hit the leading ship of the further column. Explosions were heard at one minute fifteen seconds and two minute five seconds, after the first torpedo was fired. Hits were obtained on SS Belpe, 4859 tons and the Giovanni da Verzzano, a 2010 navigatori-class destroyer.’

Unbending had no more torpedoes left and returned to Malta on 21st October where Stanley, with the newly acquired nickname ‘Otto’ after the German ace Kretschmer, was delighted to learn that his hits had been confirmed, impacting enemy’s stocks of fuel and ammunition just two days before the Eighth Army struck at El-Alamain.

Excellent accounts of some of Unbending’s 1943 patrols appear in John Wingate’s definitive history The Fighting Tenth, from which the following extracts have been taken:

On enemy retaliation:
‘The single U-class submarine not in Tunisian waters at this time was P. 37/Unbending (Lieutenant E. T. Stanley). She was in the southern approaches to the Strait of Messina when, at dawn on 23 January [1943], she sighted two tugs towing an 8,000-ton ship, escorted by two E-Boats and a torpedo boat. She was the Viminale (8,500 tons), the charioteers’ victim at Palermo, patched up and on her way to the repair yards at Messina. Stanley fired three torpedoes, scoring two hits, but the counter-attack was immediate and accurate. The depth-charges having caused considerable damage in the submarine, including thirteen cracked batteries, she was forced to return to base ... ’

On a clandestine mission:
‘In mid-March Unbending sailed with a train-wrecking party, three Commandos led by Lieutenant Lee, Dorset Regiment, whose target was ‘a railway tunnel close to the beach’ on the east coast of Calabria. Lieutenant “Otto” Stanley remembers the infectious enthusiasm these men exuded, a welcome antidote to the gloom the ship’s company had been feeling since the loss of their C.O.P.P. crews earlier in the month.

Stanley writes of ‘the usual anxious moments’ before surfacing, ‘until the bridge has been manned and a search of the horizon had confirmed no ships were in sight’. But ‘reason quickly prevailed over nerves’. The Folbots and their occupants were slipped over the side and Unbending withdrew while the raiders paddled off in the dark. Stanley goes on:

‘Lee reached the shore in the planned position, but unfortunately tore the skin of his Folbot against a rock on beaching. He and his companion carried out a reconnaissance and completed their plans for entering the tunnel. Exact details of what happened at the other end of the tunnel have never been obtained; it appears that both men landed safely but the moment was too great for one of them, who lost his head and opened fire with his Sten gun, effectively alerting the guards at both ends of the tunnel. To proceed with the operation became impossible and Lee and his companion had to beat a hasty retreat ... They set out to search for a boat and were fortunate, around dawn, to find a small fishing boat which its owner was about to launch. Both were immediately commandeered. The boat put to sea, pulled by the reluctant Italian, and headed for the line 180 degrees from the west end of the tunnel, which had been agreed as the rendezvous.’

On board the submarine everyone was fearing the worst:
‘We dived at dawn and Lee’s hammock was sadly taken down from its position in the gangway, where it had been so roundly cursed by every sailor for the past three days. A diving patrol was established up and down the rendezvous line ‘just in case’. Sleep proved elusive.

It was a couple of hours after dawn when the welcome summons was passed forward: ‘Captain in the control room.’ An excited Officer of the Watch pointed out a smudge of smoke to the eastward, just visible through the high power periscope ... The convoy steamed steadily on, hugging the coast, and was soon seen to consist of three cargo ships and a small destroyer. An E-boat could also be heard.

A fresh breeze was blowing, which would satisfactorily hide torpedo tracks and any feather the periscope might make through careless handling. Altogether, attack conditions were perfect and by the time the submarine was abeam of the convoy, and within 2,000 yards range, two ships were conveniently overlapping, so that the four torpedoes fired could be spread over both targets.’

That morning of 14 March, Unbending sank both Citta di Bergamo (2,163 tons) and Cosenza (1,471 tons). It was some consolation both to the submarine, and to Lieutenant Lee who had been a witness from a distance. According to Stanley, the two soldiers and their Italian companion, after many vicissitudes, finally landed in Sicily:

‘There, unfortunately, the Italian fisherman proved a liability and, before they could put to sea again, they were captured. Lee did not remain a prisoner of war for very long, and it was a great day, some four months later, when he sought me out in a shore establishment in England and told me his side of the story.’

In addition to Hall’s D.S.M., five other ratings were similarly honoured, and eight mentioned in despatches, while Stanley added a D.S.O. to his accolades and his “Jimmy the One” a D.S.C.

Hall saw out the rest of the war in North America, at least initially with the training boat L.26, and then after the war continued to serve in a number of boats including H.M. Submarines Sportman, Truncheon, Taciturn, Sentinel, Trump, Totem and Sea Devil, joining the latter in April 1955. Later that same year he received his Naval L.S. & G.C. medal and was promoted to Chief Petty Officer. Serving in H.M.S. Trenchant during the Suez Crisis in 1956, he received the N.G.S. medal with ‘Near East’ clasp and his final sea going service was in the newly constructed H.M.S. Porpoise, which he joined in 1957. Hall was awarded the British Empire Medal (Military) in the New Year Honours List of 1959 and was finally discharged to shore on a pension on 10 July 1962.