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Auction: 24111 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 626

'The Red Sea patrol-ships were the fairy-godmothers of the Revolt. They carried our food, our arms, our ammunition, our stores, our animals. They built our piers, armed our defences, served as our coast artillery, lent us seaplanes, provided all our wireless communication, landed landing parties, mended and made everything. I couldn't spend the time writing down a tenth of their services … '

Revolt in the Desert, by T. E. Lawrence, refers.

A Persian Gulf and Great War campaign group of five awarded to Chief Stoker J. Hawkins, Royal Navy, who served in the armed boarding vessel Lama 1915-16, acting in support of Lawrence of Arabia's operations and himself being among the 'landed landing parties'

Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Persian Gulf 1909-15 (279462 J. Hawkins, Ch. Sto., H.M.S. Fox); 1914-15 Star (279462 J. Hawkins, Ch. Sto., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (279462 J. Hawkins, Ch. Sto., R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., E.VII.R. (279462 John Hawkins, Stoker P.O., H.M.S. Hermes), very fine (5)

John Hawkins was born at Powderham, Devon on 26 September 1875 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in April 1895. By the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, and having been awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in May 1910, he was serving as a Chief Stoker in H.M.S. Fox in the Persian Gulf.

Red Sea Patrol

In October 1915, however, he removed to the armed boarding vessel Lama, the commencement of his period of service in support of T. E. Lawrence's operations, for the Lama was a vessel of the Red Sea Patrol. Moreover, his service record confirms that he was on occasion actively employed in land operations, likely a welcome respite from the unbearable temperatures he would have endured in the Lama's engine and boiler rooms.

Landing parties aside, the same period witnessed the Lama intercepting or engaging numerous dhows, in addition to firing on enemy fortifications. Other duties included the conveyance of political officers, such as George Wyman Bury, the explorer, who was transferred from the Lama to the R.I.M.S. Hardinge in mid-May 1916.

In fact, as recounted by T. E. Lawrence in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom, he, too, was subject to the hospitality of Lama's ship's company, journeying in her from Suez to Jidda in mid-October 1916, together with Ronald Storrs of the Arab Bureau:

'Such short voyages on warships were delicious interludes for us passengers. On this occasion, however, there was some embarrassment. Our mixed party seemed to disturb the ship's company in their own element. The juniors had turned out of their berths to give us night space, and by Jidda we filled their living rooms with irregular talk … We had the accustomed calm run to Jidda, in the delightful Red Sea climate, never too hot while the ship was moving. By day we lay in shadow; and for the great part of the glorious nights we would tramp up and down the wet decks under the stars in the streaming breath of the southern wind. But when at last we anchored in the outer harbour, off the white town hung between the blazing sky and its reflection in the mirage which swept and rolled over the wide lagoon, then the heat of Arabia came out like a drawn sword and struck us speechless … '

Robert Storrs also wrote an entertaining account of his time aboard the Lama in his memoirs, commenting on the use of a loud gramophone, 'a gift of the ladies of Bombay'. Whether Hawkins heard its dulcet tones from the depths of the stokehold remains unknown, but he was surely aware of the bursting of two boiler tubes on the eve of their departure from Suez.

Further in-voyage entertainment was provided by 'revolver practice on deck at bottles', and 'a climax provided by the discharge of black powder rounds from a Turkish rifle, a detonation about equal to that of an 18-pounder cannon.'

The Lama was subsequently present at the defence of the port of Rabegh, as the Turks pushed back an Arab force under Sherif Ali from Medina. It appears she was also among those ships sent to the defence of the port of Yenbo, an operation rated by Lawrence as one of the Red Sea Patrol's greatest achievements, for, as he would recall, when the Turks turned back, they sealed ultimate victory for the Arab Revolt:

'Afterwards we heard the Turks' hearts had failed them at the silence and the blaze of lighted ships from end to end of the harbour, with the eerie beams of the searchlights revealing the bleakness of the glacis they would have to cross. So they turned back: and that night, I believe, they lost their war. Personally, I was on the Suva, to be undisturbed, and sleeping splendidly at last; so I was grateful to the prudence of the enemy.'

Postscript

Having departed the Lama on 15 December 1916, Hawkins' final wartime appointment was in the repair ship Sandhurst.

Demobbed in February 1919, he found employment as a mechanical engineer for H.M. Customs and was living in Bexley, Kent at the time of the 1939 census.


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Sold for
£480

Starting price
£130