Auction Catalogue

23 June 2005

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

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Lot

№ 958

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23 June 2005

Hammer Price:
£850

An emotive Battle of Jutland group of four awarded to Leading Stoker C. Andrews, Royal Navy, who was among those lucky enough to be picked up and taken P.O.W. following the spectacular point-blank engagement fought by the destroyers Nestor and Nomad: Andrews was aboard the latter, which resembled a ‘Gruyere cheese’ by the time a dozen or so enemy super-Dreadnoughts had finished with her

1914-15 Star
(K. 23931 Sto. 1, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (K. 23931 Sto. 1, R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue, fixed suspension (K. 23931 L. Sto., H.M.S. Kent), mounted as worn, contact marks, edge bruising and polished, thus fine (4) £400-500

Charles Andrews was born at Braintree, Essex in July 1896 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in January 1915. Advanced to Stoker 1st Class during the course of his first seagoing appointment in the cruiser H.M.S. Duke of Edinburgh later that year, he removed to the destroyer Nomad in April 1916. The Fighting at Jutland takes up the story:

‘H.M.S.
Nestor and H.M.S. Nomad were sunk by the concentrated fire of the German High Seas Fleet. Their end was gallant. Damaged in their attack on the German battle cruisers, they were both lying stopped unable to steam in the track of the German High Seas Fleet as the latter ‘came up in an apparently endless procession from the south, apparently about 20 capital ships with light cruisers and masses of destroyers’. There was no possible reply for two destroyers to the broadsides of a dozen super-Dreadnoughts. ‘A whole German battle squadron,’ an officer of Nomad wrote, ‘was apparently using us as a target for practice firing, and the Nomad was rapidly being turned into something remarkably like a Gruyere cheese.’ But before they were put down Nestor and Nomad fired their torpedoes. ‘We were about 2000 yards, as far as I can remember, from the leading German battleship when we fired our last torpedo, and so we were at practically point-blank range from their 11-inch and 12-inch guns. The ship started sinking by the stern with a great rattle from the loose gear tumbling about in her, and then gradually disappeared, but all the men were got clear just before she sank, and after a short swim in the sea a life-saving apparatus in the form of a German torpedo boat, so small we could almost have taken it on with our fists, came up and picked us up out of the water. She was a single-funnel craft, with one pop-gun on the foc’sle, one torpedo tube mounted on the rails, and her decks piled high with coal. However, one doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and in her we were taken back to Germany, and, as you probably know, were were the “Kaiser’s guests” for the next two and a half years!” ’

The Fighting at Jutland also contains an account of the action by Commander Hon. Barry Bingham, the captain of the Nestor, who was awarded a V.C. for his gallant deeds that day. In it he makes direct reference to the Nomad’s spectacular demise:

‘While lying helpless and broken down, we saw the opposing forces of battle cruisers retracing their tracks to the north-west fighting on parallel courses. The rival squadrons quickly disappeared behind the horizon, engaged furiously, and we were now left with the ocean to ourselves. But it was not to be for long. Fifteen minutes later my yeoman-of-signals reported, “German battleships on the horizon, shaping course in our direction.” This was more than I had ever bargained for, and, using my own glasses, I was dumbfounded to see that it was in truth the main body of the German High Sea Fleet, steaming at top speed in a N.W. direction, and following the wake of their own battle cruisers.

Their course necessarily led them first past the
Nomad, and in another ten minutes the slaughter began. They literally smothered the destroyer with salvoes. Of my divisional mate nothing could be seen: great columns of spray and smoke gave an indication of her whereabouts. I shall never forget the sight, and mercifully it was a matter of a few minutes before the ship sank; at the same time it seemed impossible that anyone on board could have survived ...’

But, as recounted above, some had survived, Stoker 1st Class Andrews among them, and in company with other shipmates fortunate enough to be picked up by the above described enemy torpedo boat, was taken into captivity. Repatriated from a P.O.W. camp at Dulmer at the end of the War, he resumed his career, gaining advancement to Leading Stoker in October 1928 and the L.S. & G.C. Medal in April 1930.