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Auction: 25113 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 365

The campaign group of four awarded to Leading Stoker R. Dean, Royal Navy, a Jutland Veteran who was fortunate to survive the tragic sinking of the aircraft carrier Courageous, the first British warship sunk during the Second World War, which went down with 518 hands in September 1939

1914-15 Star (K.18815 R. Dean. A/L. Sto. R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (K.18815 R. Dean. A/L.Sto. R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R. (K.18815 R. Dean. L. Sto. H.M.S. Eagle.), minor pitting, very fine (4)

Robert Dean was born at Liverpool on 12 April 1894 and enlisted with the Royal Navy on 8 April 1913 as Stoker Class II. His first posting afloat was with the battlecruiser Ajax and he was still serving with her in 1914 when the Great War began.

Dean saw service at the Battle of Jutland where Ajax was part of the High Seas Fleet under Admiral Jellicoe. She was the second ship in the line but only fired one volley before a cruiser squadron obscured their view.

Remaining with Ajax he was not to see action for the rest of the war, being advanced Leading Stoker on 30 January 1919. He served for some time in that role between the war, finally being pensioned on 7 April 1935.

Tensions around the outbreak of the Second World War saw him returned to service, taking up his old role of Leading Stoker with the aircraft carrier Courageous on 31 July 1939. When the war began The Admiralty pressed ahead with a pre-war strategy which was to have disastrous consequences, sending Aircraft Carriers out on U-boat hunting patrols.

Courageous was one of these ill-fated vessels and on 17 September she was 190 miles from the southern tip of Ireland with her destroyer escort. An emergency message from a merchant ship saw two of the destroyers detached and that weakening of the screen around her gave U-29 the opening it needed.

She immediately took on a heavy list and began to sink with the crew taken by surprise. Several interviews from the survivors were re-printed in The War Illustrated in October 1939, one particularly detailed one by a Naval Writer named Hughes captures the atmosphere of the moment, stating:

'Hughes said in one of his vivid recollections was that as he was in the water he caught a glimpse of the commander of the "Courageous", Capt. Makeig-Jones, standing at the salute on the bridge as the vessel took her final plunge.

"As for myself, I just swam and swam. Those three hours in the water seemed much longer. I must pay tribute to the handling of the destroyer that saved us. She was so navigated that the swell created by her progress helped us to swim towards her.

"As I got fairly near her a fellow swam alongside me and said 'Help me'. I gripped him by the hair and when a man off the destroyer caught me to pull me aboard I was still hanging on. That chap's long absence from the barber's saved his life.

"Another impression which will live in my memory is that of a Royal Marine sergeant who seemed to cover an enormous distance swimming from man to man and making such remarks as 'Keep going, my lad, and you will be all right. Keep your heart and your head up.' There were heroes in plenty, but that sergeant was the greatest I saw".'

After recovering from his experience Dean was posted to the Shore Base Drake I and transferred aboard the submarine tender Elfin in June 1940, transferring to Titania in July that same year. He was discharged from Titania on 13 August 1945, suggesting that he served the rest of the war with that vessel.

Further entitled to the 1939-45 Star, Atlantic Star, War and Defence Medal 1939-45.

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Estimate

Starting price
£60