Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part II)

An extensive and interesting archive of wartime photographs and documentation appertaining to Lieutenant A. G. J. Hollick, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, who was present at the Bismarck action and afterwards served in Coastal Forces, including his first letter home to his mother following the Bismarck action, dated 31 May 1941, which ends with a sketch of the enemy battleship ‘on fire, before we torpedoed her’, and the closing comment, ‘I’ve got one of the German survivors lifebelts!’; together with a more detailed account of the action in a 5pp. typed memoir, as seen from close quarters from his ship H.M.S. Dorsetshire, and a post-war file containing correspondence between Hollick and the German Ambassador in London, among others, circa 1970, regarding this famous episode and the return of the aforementioned lifebelt to the German Navy; a quantity of certificates, including his R.N. Certificate of Service (1939-41); a photograph of the naval airmen who attended the “Rodney” Pilots Course at St. Vincent, from December 1939 to January 1940, with numerous signatures of those depicted on the surround mount; a “secret” report on the activities of Japanese “suicide boats”, dated 30 June 1945, with related photographs; a scrap album (1945-46) with numerous photographs, letters, newspaper cuttings, etc.; and a more recently compiled album containing similar but mainly earlier wartime memorabilia, and also (cut-down) cap tallies for H.M. Ships Mauritius and Dorsetshire, watercolours, and sets of G.VI.R. stamps from Ceylon, Gambia, and Gibraltar; together with a quantity of postcards, other assorted documentation and at least another 50 wartime period photographs, the whole comprising a most unusual archive and well worthy of further research, generally in good condition (Lot) £200-300

Aubrey Gordon Joseph Hollick was born at Stoneleigh, Warwickshire in October 1921 and originally entered the Royal Navy as a Naval Airman II in the Fleet Air Arm in December 1939.

In September 1941, after service in H.M.S. Mauritius (which carried a Walrus aircraft), and being present at the Bismarck action - having joined the Dorsetshire for a passage home - he was appointed a Midshipman in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. And, in common with many other successful graduates of the “Wavy Navy’s” officers’ course at King Alfred, he was allocated to Coastal Forces, being posted to the training establishment St. Christopher at Fort William, and thence to the Gosport Coastal Forces’ base Hornet, where he joined M.T.B. 60.

In 1942, having transferred to M.T.B. 202, he moved to the Dover Coastal Forces’ base Wasp, where he remained on active service until the end of 1943, latterly in M.T.B. 25, a vessel that had been modified for Naval Intelligence Department operations. Then in the following year he returned to Hornet with an appointment in M.T.B. 334, but went overseas to the Simon’s Town base Afrikander to take command of an M.L. in the 38th Flotilla in November 1944. Finally, in 1945, from the Ceylon base Lanka, Hollick commanded M.L. 837 in operations against the Japanese. He was released from the R.N.V.R. in April 1946.