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Auction: 25112 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 416

A Great War campaign and long service group of four awarded to Petty Officer 1st Class F. Freemantle, Royal Navy, who saw action in the destroyer H.M.S. Sparrowhawk at the Battle of Jutland

1914-15 Star (169985 F. Freemantle, P.O. 1, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (169985 F. Freemantle, P.O. 1, R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., E.VII.R. (169985 Frank Freemantle, P.O. 2 Cl., H.M.S. Vernon), good very fine (4)

Frank Freemantle was born at Scholing, near Southampton, Hampshire on 10 January 1877 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in October 1892.

A Petty Officer 1st Class aboard the destroyer H.M.S. Sparrowhawk on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he remained similarly employed until June 1916 and therefore shred in her honours at the Battle of Jutland, when she formed part of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla.

Shortly before midnight on 31 May, Sparrowhawk and her consorts faced a positive storm of close-range gunfire from enemy cruisers and battleships, and her flotilla leader Tipperary was reduced to a burning wreck. A few minutes later, when they encountered the German battleship Westfalen, Broke collided with Sparrowhawk and while the two destroyers were locked together, amidst clouds of hissing steam, Contest also collided with Sparrowhawk. Luckily the Westfalen moved on, and all three destroyers lived to fight another day. Broke's losses amounted to 50 officers and ratings, whilst Sparrowhawk had six killed.

Freemantle, who had been awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in March 1910, went on to serve aboard another destroyer, the Medina, in the North Sea, from June 1916 until the end of the war, and was demobilised in October 1919; sold with his original parchment Certificate of Service.

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Sold for
£160

Starting price
£100