Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A good Great War Ostend raid D.S.M., St. George’s Medal for Bravery group of six awarded to Petty Officer 1st Class R. C. Jeffreys, Royal Navy

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (206540 R. C. Jeffreys, P.O. 1 Cl., “Whirlwind”, Ostend 9-10 May 1918); 1914-15 Star (206540 L.S., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (206540 P.O., R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue (206540 P.O., H.M.S. Columbine); Russian St. George’s Medal for Bravery, 4th class, the reverse officially numbered ‘1272945’, contact wear, generally very fine (6) £1800-2200

D.S.M. London Gazette 28 August 1918.

Robert Charles Jeffreys was born at College Place, adjacent to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, in August 1880. His father having drowned while he was a little boy, he and his four siblings were taken into an orphanage on account of their mother not having sufficient funds to support them. When, however, she remarried, the authorities returned the five children to live with her and their step father, by all accounts an unhappy experience for young Robert, who decided to join the Royal Navy in September 1899 - the proudest day of his life according to accompanying family sources.

By the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Jeffreys was serving aboard the cruiser H.M.S. Lancaster as a Leading Seaman, in which capacity he remained employed until taking up a shore appointment in July 1915. He returned to sea, however, in March 1916, when he joined the ship’s company of the destroyer Termagant, aboard which ship he was subsequently present at Jutland and remained actively employed until January 1918.

But it was for his final wartime commission aboard the Dover Patrol destroyer Whirlwind that he was awarded the D.S.M., having already participated in the famous Zeebrugge operation prior to his D.S.M.-winning exploits for Ostend. On the former occasion, Whirlwind accompanied Vice-Admiral Keyes’ flagship Warwick, leading the port column of his force out of Dover, and assisted in the rescue of assorted men from the blockship Intrepid when they emerged from the harbour, past the mole, in a cutter. Whirlwind was again in close company to Keyes’ flagship at Ostend in the second attack launched against that port on 10 May 1918, when the latter struck a mine and had to be taken in tow. The Admiral’s memoirs state:

‘I gave directions for the Velox to be lashed alongside, the Whirlwind to take Warwick in tow, and the Trident to look out eastward, to give warning if the enemy destroyers were sighted coming from Zeebrugge. I gave orders that if they appeared, the Warwick was to be slipped at once, and the other three vessels were to engage them. As the Warwick was in considerable danger of sinking, all the rescued Vindictive’s crew - except Crutchley [who won a V.C. for his deeds that night], who thought he might be useful to act as First Lieutenant - were transferred to the Velox, and I sent Jackson, too, to help look after the wounded. He said as he left: “Is this what you call a quiet night, you told me we should probably only be spectators in the offing.”

Progress was very slow, and as the effective range of the Ostend guns was from 20,000 to 40,000 yards, it was a long time before we were out of their range. A much more unpleasant prospect, however, would have been the advent of the nine destroyers, which I had been hoping to meet in darkness, but which would have overwhelmed us in daylight.

I then sent the Velox back to Dover with the wounded. I wished afterwards that I had gone in her, but I did not like to leave my wounded Warwick. At first we made fairly good progress in tow of the Whirlwind, with another destroyer lashed alongside, but the Warwick had made so much water, that I thought it advisable to get salvage tugs with pumps alongside, in case of the other bulkheads going.’

In the event, Warwick and Whirlwind made it to Dover, and Jeffreys’ captain, Commander R. St. P. Perry, R.N., was awarded the D.S.O., the London Gazette of 29 August 1918 citing his handling of his command ‘with skill and decision, performing a most valuable service with difficult conditions.’ Lieutenant A. H. Caldwell, R.N., also of the Whirlwind, was awarded a D.S.C. and Jeffreys, among others, the D.S.M., his own award specifically reflecting his part in saving the Warwick (ADM 116/1811 refers under the general heading of awards for the Ostend raid 9-10 May 1918). Family records state that during the course of this operation he had to persuade engine-room staff to stay at their posts at the point of a revolver, and that on reaching Dover he brought a wounded officer ashore. That being the case, it seems plausible that he may actually have been transferred to the badly damaged Warwick for the voyage home. In any event, the same family records state that one officer credited Jeffreys’ actions with having saved ship and crew.

He was still aboard the Whirlwind in early August 1918, when she was charged with conveying H.M. the King to Calais from Dover, and was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in March 1921 - his service record also confirms his Great War M.I.D. but not, as is often the case, his Russian decoration. He was pensioned ashore later in the same year.

Jeffreys, who married 25 year old Lilian Dixon, ‘a widow of the sea’, at Greenwich in August 1920, found employment with the P. & O. after leaving the Navy, and was employed at Tilbury Docks during the Blitz. He died in 1968, aged 85 years; sold with several photographs copied from family albums, and a certified copy of his wedding certificate.

The recipient's Russian award is confirmed for the Battle of Jutland