Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Second World War withdrawal from Greece operations D.S.M. group of seven awarded to Commissioned Engineer L. F. Bartlett, Royal Navy

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (L. F. Bartlett, Ch. Engn. Room Art., H.M.S. Hero); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 3rd issue, coinage bust (M. 34517 E.R.A. 1, H.M.S. Courageous), this last with minor official correction to ship’s name, generally good very fine and better (7) £800-1000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals for Services at Sea from the Collection of the Late Oliver Stirling Lee.

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D.S.M. London Gazette 11 November 1941: ‘For gallantry and distinguished services in operations in Greek waters.’

Leslie Francis Bartlett received his D.S.M. at an investiture on 28 April 1942.

Born in Weymouth, Dorset in December 1903, he entered the Royal Navy as a Boy Artificer in January 1919 and was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in December 1936. His exact date of joining the ship’s company of the destroyer Hero remains unknown, but in all liklihood it was after her refit at Portsmouth in early 1940. If so, he would have been aboard her during the greater part of a period that witnessed her winning no less than 10 Battle Honours, “Narvik 1940”, “Norway 1940”, “Calabria 1940”, “Spada 1940”, “Greece 1941”, “Crete 1941”, “Mediterranean 1941” and “Malta Convoys 1941-42” among them.

Appointed a Temporary Warrant Engineer in August 1941, Bartlett joined the minesweeping sloop Fraserburgh in September of the same year, and, in July 1943, another sloop, the Folkstone. He subsequently came ashore to Victory in September 1945, shortly after having been advanced to Commissioned Engineer, and ended his career on attachment to the U.S.N’s Advance Amphibious Base at Appledore, from which establishment he was released in April 1946.