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Auction: 22001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 294

Seven: Acting Leading Telegraphist H. D. George, Royal Fleet Reserve, late Royal Navy

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Pacific Star, clasp, Burma; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Royal Fleet Reserve L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (J. 106689 (Dev. B. 16246) M. D. George, Tel., R.F.R.), very fine (7)

Herbert Delville George was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire on 26 July 1907 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in January 1923. Having then come ashore in the summer of 1937, he enrolled in the Royal Fleet Reserve.

Recalled on the outbreak of hostilities, he served as a Telegraphist in H.M.S. Wivern until January 1940, when he removed to another destroyer, the Vansittart (a.k.a. H.M.S. Fancy Tart).

He remained likewise employed until September 1941, in which period he witnessed action off Norway in May 1940, when Vansittart was bombed off Narvik on the 10th, with a loss of two of her officers.

Having then lent valuable service in Operation "Ordnance" - the evacuations from Rotterdam and the Hook of Holland - Vansittart depth charged and sunk the U-102 south-west of Ireland on 1 July 1940.

On that occasion, she responded to a distress signal from the torpedoed merchantman S.S. Clearton, and an hour after arriving on the scene, established a strong Asdic contact and made two runs over the target, dropping 11 depth charges set for 350-500 feet. A large oil slick was observed. In the interim, she had picked up 26 survivors from the S.S. Clearton. Her C.O., Lieutenant-Commander Walter Evershed, R.N., was awarded the D.S.O.

In October 1942, following a spell ashore, George joined the monitor Roberts in October 1942 and served in that capacity until March 1943. In consequence he was present in the North Africa landings, when Roberts was attacked by enemy aircraft and hit by two 500lb. bombs, the detonation of which killed 17 of her ship's company.

His final wartime appointment, in which he was advanced to Acting Leading Telegraphist, was in the escort carrier Shah, from November 1943 to July 1945.

Equipped with Fleet Air Arm Wildcats and Avengers, Shah lent valuable service in the Indian Ocean and, on joining the East Indies Fleet, off Burma.

George was released 'Class A' in November 1945.

Today, outside the Imperial War Museum, it is possible to view one of the 15-inch guns used aboard the monitor Roberts during the Second World War, not least in support of the Allied landings in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Normandy.

The 15-inch gun fired a 1,938 lb. shell at a muzzle velocity of 2,640 ft. a second, up to a range of over 16 miles.

Such facts would have been well known to the likes of Herbert George, who had seen the very same gun in action off North Africa in November 1942.



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Sold for
£170

Starting price
£110