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Auction: 4004 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals & Militaria
Lot: 16

A Most Interesting Second War D.S.C. Group of Six to Engineer Officer C.R. Keats, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and Malaya Police Force Distinguished Service Cross, G.VI.R., reverse dated '1941'; 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal; Colonial Police Medal For Meritorious Services, E.II.R. (Hon. Insp. Claude Keats., D.S.O. Fed. Malaya Aux. Police); Federation Of Malaya Active Service Medal 1960, good very fine or better (6) Estimate £ 1,600-1,800 D.S.C. London Gazette 2.12.1941, Temp. Acting Sub-Lieutenant (E), 'For courage and enterprise when serving in the Ocean Boarding Vessel Marsdale. Colonial Police M.S.M. London Gazette 1.6.1953, Claude Randolph Keats D.S.O. (sic), Honorary Inspector, Auxiliary Police, Federation of Malaya Claude Randolph Keats, D.S.C., Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve received a Temporary Commission 3.10.1940 under a T124X Agreement; he served in H.M.S. Mersey, and later as Engineer Officer in H.M.S. Marsdale, a merchant ship requisitioned as an Ocean Boarding Vessel from the Kaye Steamship Company in 1940; his D.S.C. is noted in Seedie's Roll for the action with the German supply ship Alstertor on 23.6.1941; the Alstertor, working with German Raiders and U-Boats, was returning from the Indian Ocean; she was forced to scuttle herself off Cape Finisterre, and her crew and 78 British prisoners from the German raider Atlantis were rescued; shortly before this episode, the Marsdale captured the German tanker Gedania 4.6.1941; the Marsdale, based mainly on Gibraltar, was allocated to trade on 14.6.1942, and finally returned to the Kaye Steamship Company on 29.3.1946. After the war Keats was Resident Manager of the Bukit Beruntong Estate, Rawang, Selangor; he served four years with the Auxiliary Police.

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£2,000