Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Able Seaman R. Tabard, Royal Navy

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star, 1 clasp, France and Germany, traces of verdigris; Arctic Star; War Medal 1939-45; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Jubilee Medal for the 40th Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1985, bronze, with enclosure and related MOD letter to recipient, generally very fine (5) £200-£300

Rex Tabbard was born in Manningtree in 1895, and joined the Royal Navy aged 18, and served with the sloop H.M.S. Wildgoose from March 1943. He served with her on her first anti-submarine mission escorting Atlantic Convoy ONS 8, 22 May 1943, and records in his diary various contacts with enemy U-Boats and German aircraft. The latter including, 24 June 1943, ‘Contact Sub at 0915 Sub surfaces and is engaged by gunfire. Sub then rammed by Starling and plastered with D.C.s Wreckage picked up confirms certain sinking. Second Sub contacted at 11.30. Attacked with D.C.s until 1800hrs. Contact lost and wreckage etc picked up confirms 2nd sinking. Splice the main brace. Starling badly damaged by ramming Sub...’

Sold with the following related items and documents: cloth insignia, including riband bar for first two awards; recipient’s Royal Navy Pocket Diary (3 March 1943 - 29 September 1943); photograph of recipient in uniform, with several others from later in life and a VHS on H.M.S. Wildgoose.

Also sold with a good annotated photograph album relating to South African Air Force, Motor Boat Wing, MTB training in South Africa 1941-43, with a S.A.A.F. and S.A.L.M. Christmas Card signed from ‘Vic, Gordons Bay 1941’.