Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Royal Fleet Reserve L.S., G.V.R., 1st issue (292141 Dev. A. 6671 A. J. Webb, Ch. Sto., R.F.R.) good very fine £80-100

Alfred James Webb was born at Plymouth in May 1881 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in May 1899. A Stoker Petty Officer by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he served for the entire duration of the War in the battle cruiser H.M.S. Lion and was consequently present in her at Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914, when she was hit by enemy fire on three occasions, Dogger Bank on 24 January 1915, when she was so badly damaged by the combined fire of the Blucher, Moltke and Seydlitz that she had to be towed back to port by the Indomitable, and again at Jutland on 31 May 1916, when she suffered serious casualties.

Aside from those ships that were actually sunk at Jutland, none sustained more casualties than the Lion, suffering as she did 6 Officers and 93 ratings killed, and another 43 wounded. Nor, too, did many ships survive such punishment, her main deck, funnel and port side all being liberally peppered with ‘great black splashes’ where enemy 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, of the aggressive tactics of Sir David Beatty, who was anxious to get to grips with the enemy.

For his good deeds at Jutland, as evidenced by his service record, Webb was commended and promoted to Chief Stoker (w.e.f. 31 May 1916). He was pensioned ashore in July 1921 and enrolled in the Royal Fleet Reserve.