Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte

‘The ship gave a heavy lurch forward and took an angle of about forty degrees down by the bow. Water came swirling up to the searchlight platform. The Captain said, “jump you devils jump!” The Captain and his secretary remained with the ship until the very end but somehow survived.’

Lieutenant (E.) Ernest Stallybrass, H.M.S. Pathfinder

‘I dare say Julian told you that we actually saw the “Pathfinder” explosion - a great white cloud with its foot in the sea. The St. Abb’s lifeboat came in with the most appalling accounts of the scene. There was not a piece of wood, they said, big enough to float a man - and over acres the sea was covered with fragments - human and otherwise. They brought back a sailor’s cap with half a man’s head inside it. The explosion must have been frightful. It is thought to be a German submarine that did it, or, possibly, a torpedo from one of the refitted German trawlers, which cruise all round painted with British port letters and flying the British flag.’

Aldous Huxley, the famous author, in a letter to his father dated 14 September 1914.

A fine inter-war C.B., Great War D.S.O. group of seven awarded to Vice-Admiral F. Martin-Leake, Royal Navy, elder brother of the famous “Double V.C.”: himself the victim of a Churchillian broadside during the Curragh incident, he was shortly afterwards wounded on the loss of his command of the Pathfinder in September 1914 - the first ship ever to fall victim to submarine torpedo attack - but went on to lend valuable service in the Grand Fleet as C.O. of the cruiser Achilles 1915-17 and was decorated for his part in the destruction of the German raider Leopard, in addition to gaining the rare distinction of an American D.S.M. (Navy)

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, C.B. (Military) Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel; Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R.; 1914-15 Star (Capt. F. M. Leake, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Commre. 2 Cl. F. M. Leake, R.N.); Coronation 1911; United States of America, Distinguished Service Medal (Navy), in gilt and enamels, mounted as worn where applicable, good very fine (7) £4000-5000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte.

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C.B. London Gazette 3 June 1922.

D.S.O. London Gazette 22 June 1917.

Francis Martin-Leake was born in March 1869, the son of a barrister, Stephen Martin-Leake, and his wife Isabel, of Marshalls in Hertfordshire, and of Thorpe Hall in Essex; his younger brother Arthur was to become one of just three men to be awarded the V.C. and Bar. Educated at the Grange, Stevenage, by the Rev. O. J. Seager, young Francis was appointed a Midshipman in April 1885, direct from the training ship Worcestershire. Numerous seagoing appointments having ensued in home waters and overseas, but none of an active service nature, he was advanced to Captain in June 1911.

The Curragh incident

Having then taken command of the light cruiser H.M.S. Pathfinder in October 1913, Martin-Leake was ordered to Irish waters at the time of the Curragh incident in March 1914 and, in common with so many other officers and men similarly employed, felt bound to state that in the event of hostilities with the Ulster Volunteers he would be unable to participate in subsequent operations. The recipient of his signalled message, sent from Carrickfergus on 24 March, was Rear-Admiral J. M. de Robeck:

‘It seems to me only fair to you as my Admiral to let you now that I have no intention of going against Ulster should the occasion arise.

During my stay here I have done my best to ascertain the situation on shore and find that everything is being done to keep things quiet, but undoubtedly in spite of this there exists an opinion on the part of responsible people that an outbreak might be precipitated by irresponsible people.’

News of Martin-Leake’s message quickly leaked to the press, much to the annoyance of Churchill at the Admiralty, who responded in the following terms on the 31st:

‘Please call upon the Captain of the Pathfinder for his explanation in writing of the signals which passed between him and the shore during his stay at Carrickfergus, which were published in yesterday’s newspapers. He should be asked whether he had received instructions from General Macready to make such communications.

Instructions should also be given to the commanding officers of the two Scouts now on duty in Belfast Lough that they are not to hold unnecessary communication with the shore, nor to accept from or to offer hospitality to civilians; nor to allow their men to go into Belfast unless there is a special reason for it. The discussion of political questions is not allowed on board ships, nor are the officers to enter into the discussion of such questions with civilians.’

The loss of the “Pathfinder” - first ever victim of submarine torpedo attack

By the outbreak of hostilities a few months later, the Pathfinder was based at Rosyth in the Firth of Forth with the 8th Destroyer Flotilla, but her wartime career was swiftly curtailed on 5 September 1914, when she became the first ever ship lost to submarine torpedo attack. Martin-Leake takes up the story in a letter to his mother:

‘Since my last to you these blighters have caught us with a submarine, with very disastrous results as you will have gathered from the papers, no useful results to themselves however.

It was Saturday afternoon at 3.45, we had sent the T.B.Ds off on various errands and were returning from a sweep out to sea to investigate shipping, etc. I had just left the bridge and was in my after cabin standing by the table when the screws began to stop. I started a bolt to see what it was, but before I got away from the table, she gave a veritable stagger and tremble and everything movable came tumbling down. I got up the ladder pushed the hatch cover up (it had come down), then got the boy (my valet) out, and had a look round.

Every sort of thing was in the air. Shell room forward seemed still to be going up. The torpedo got us in our forward magazine and evidently sent this up, thereby killing everyone forward. Her upper deck was flush with the water forward and it was only a question of how long she would float. Both our cutters were smashed up, the whaler was whole so all that could be done was to get this boat out and throw all floatable matter over. A badly hurt man was brought after and put on the Q.D. While this was going on she began decidedly to go down by the bows and the 1st lieutenant gave the order for jumping overboard, he judged this very well. Personally I stayed too long and found myself on the after shelter deck with the ship rapidly assuming an upright position. I decided to stand on the searchlight stand and take my chance. This soon went under and self as well, come up again ship still there, had another dive and then got shot right clear. The situation then developed, an oar came along and then a blue jacket. Then another oar and another blue jacket. Looked for ship found her still on her nose (probably on the bottom) she then fell over and disappeared, leaving a mass of wreckage all round, but I regret a very few men amongst it, for at the time they were all asleep on the mess decks and the full explosion must have caught them, for no survivors came from forward. I found one of the sailors with me had a broken leg. This prevented propelling our oars to where more wood was. So I swam away to a more plentiful supply, and met a meat safe, I knocked the end out of this and was busy at the other end when I snuffed out for a time.


On recovery I found myself being well rubbed with rum in a bunk on T.B. 26 and she was getting alongside this yacht to deliver me to the tender care of these people who have done every possible thing imaginable for me. I somehow got a cut on the head, getting clear of the ship I expect this evidently bled and accounts for loss of senses. They pumped salt and water into me until I objected. I now have normal temperature nearly healed head and drank beer for lunch and hope in a day or so to hear of a new ship. This outfit is run by Lady Beatty the wife of the Admiral! Commander! 1st Battle Cruiser Squadron. I like her very much and much appreciate her kindness. Sir Alfred Cripp is onboard with another surgeon McNair two top five nurses from Park Lane. I am the only patient here – The “Liberty” another yacht has come and some are in the hospital. You see I have the best that London can produce, it is strange how I am always coming into this. Sorry to have inflicted so much self on you, but there is little else please write to Her Ladyship and thank her also to Cripp he is a very good sort. Mail going – nurse coming, So must close up.’

While Compton-Hall’s history, Submarines and the War at Sea 1914-18, adds to the overall picture:

‘At 3.45 p.m. on 5 September 1914, on a fine sunny day one month after war had broken out, the 25-knot light cruiser H.M.S. Pathfinder suddenly blew up in her own home waters just off the Scottish coast at the entrance to the Firth of Forth.

Damage-control methods at the time were rudimentary and little practised. The explosion below the bridge touched off ammunition in the forward magazine. Most of the men forward were killed outright and there were heavy casualties elsewhere. The Captain, Martin Leake, was blasted into an upper-deck meat-safe and a sailor was blown into the aftermost funnel.

In the wardroom the ‘almighty crash’ was followed by a breathless silence for several drawn-out seconds. Then the crockery in the pantry fell to the deck, the lights went out, and the deck shuddered underfoot as bulkheads below started to give way. Boats were jammed in their crutches or shattered. In moments the base of No. 2 funnel was awash (No. 1 had gone) and the water was filthy with a scum of coal dust and oil.

Barely four minutes after the initial detonation the 2940-ton patrol leader plunged bow down. For a little while her stem rested on the seabed and her stern, cocked up at an angle of 60°, hung as if suspended above the surface. Then, slowly at first but with gathering speed as more bulkheads carried away, the whole hulk slid to the bottom.

There were many non-swimmers in the company (the Navy had been lax about instruction) and no lifejackets. Although the destroyers Stag and Express, both ’30-knotters,’ raced to the spot, only a dozen of Pathfinder’s 268 officers and men survived to relate their unprecedented experience. Leake, of course, was the last, as far as he could determine, to leave the sinking ship: his loyal Secretary or ‘Scratch,’ Assistant Paymaster Alan Bath, stopped to unlace his master’s boots before both officers jumped.

The ship was poorly prepared for underwater attack, but by no means exceptional in that. When the Fleet first heard the news by wireless, at 4 p.m., it was assumed that she had run onto a mine; but Pathfinder’s Chief Boatswain’s Mate, the ‘Buffer,’ had seen what he rightly took to be a periscope and the track of a torpedo. Indeed the latter was still faintly visible when the ship went down. His hail from the forecastle to the bridge was promptly answered by the Officer of the Watch who put the helm hard over and rang the engine telegraphs to full astern starboard and full ahead port in order to speed up his emergency turn towards the sighting. His prompt action was too late. The engine-room watchkeeper at the throttles disbelieved the port telegraph order - full astern would have been understandable - and, assuming that someone on the bridge had lost his head, did not obey. But, in any case, the engines would not have saved the ship: at the miserable economic speed of 6 knots - the best she could do on patrol for five days a week with small coal bunkers - manoeuvring was sluggish and it would have taken ten minutes to work up to full power.

Thereafter the minimum speed for H.M. ships on patrol was fixed at 15 knots, but on this occasion there was no way of avoiding the carefully aimed ‘eel’ fired from what was then considered an abnormally long range of about 1200 metres (1300 yards). It was the first time anywhere that a submarine torpedo warhead had struck home.

Some grisly details emerged. The Stag lost her main circulating water supply: a diver found the inlet blocked by a man’s leg. The Royal Navy was starkly confronted with its first glimpse of real modern warfare as opposed to peacetime simulation.’

But this harsh introduction to realities of modern warfare was not the only shock to emerge from the incident, for, in October 1914, a suspected German spy was arrested in Ireland - in fact the man who had been responsible for sending a coded message alerting the Germans to Pathfinder’s pending departure from the Firth of Forth - Carl Hans Lody was subsequently executed in the Tower of London, the first man to gain that dubious distinction since Lord Lovat of Jacobite Rebellion fame.

Grand Fleet command 1915-17 - destruction of the German raider “Leopard”

Following the loss of the Pathfinder, Martin-Leake came ashore to a training appointment in Portland, where he served until taking command of the cruiser Achilles in early 1915. Although not present at Jutland, Achilles lend valuable support to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron in the North Sea and shared in the sinking the German raider Leopard off the Shetlands in March 1917. Martin-Leake’s report takes up the story:

‘At 3.45 p.m. Dundee and the raider commenced an action simultaneously. Achilles at once joined in, at a range of 5,300 yards, the raider firing at her, but with more intensity at Dundee, whose safety was due to the prompt manner in which Commander Selwyn Mitchell Day, R.N.R., answered the raider's first hostile act, and the initial success she gained in getting raking hits; hers was the dangerous position, and she extracted herself with the utmost credit.
 
On opening fire the raider at once enveloped herself in smoke of a light colour. At 3.55 p.m. she fired a torpedo at Achilles, which broke surface off the port quarter. A submarine was reported at the same time in this direction, and speed was increased from 16 to 20 knots. Hits were now being obtained, and the raider was on fire forward. About this time she was hit in the bow (on the gripe) by a torpedo from Achilles.
 
About 4.00 p.m. fire was checked, the raider being well on fire, with occasional explosions forward. Soon after this, Dundee took station astern of Achilles, and was then ordered to steer west. At 4.23 p.m. she reported a submarine between herself and the raider. Consequently, fire was again opened on the raider and continued until, at 4.33 p.m., she listed to port and sank, more or less horizontally, a mass of flames, and red hot forward, leaving no visible survivors.’

Martin-Leake was mentioned in despatches by Admiral Sir David Beatty, who cited his sound judgement ‘in rounding up and destroying the vessel which was capable of doing so much damage to our commerce’ (London Gazette 18 April 1919 refers).

Chief of Staff and liaison with the United States Navy

Relinquishing his command of the Achilles in June 1917, Martin-Leake was awarded the D.S.O. and advanced to Commodore 2nd Class, in which rank he was next appointed Chief of Staff to the C.-in-C. Ireland at Queenstown, his duties including liaison with the U.S. Navy, and he remained similarly employed until the War’s end, gaining the American D.S.M. (Navy) (London Gazette 12 December 1919 refers).

Placed on the Retired List at his own request in November 1921, he was awarded the C.B. in the following year and died at his family seat, Marshalls in Hertfordshire, in January 1928; some of the Admiral’s papers are held in Hertfordshire Archives.