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Auction: 22002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 76

(x) Six: Master at Arms C. Townsend, Royal Navy, who served in the Doris during the Great War, which saw her participate in raids in and around Turkish occupied Alexandretta, Syria

1914-15 Star (M. 7599, C. Townsend, Sh. Cpl. 1, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (M. 7599 C. Townsend. Sh. Cpl. 1 R.N.); Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R. (M. 7599 C. Townsend, Sh's Cpl. 1Cl. H.M.S. Ambrose.), mounted as worn, very fine (6)

Claude Townsend was born in Landport, Portsmouth on 4 December 1884. On leaving school he first worked as a brewer's bottler, perhaps a surprising occupation for a youth who listed his religion as 'Baptist'. In May 1900 in Plymouth, he enlisted in the Royal Marine Light Infantry as a Drummer. At that time, still only fifteen years of age, he was just under five feet tall, with a fair complexion, light brown hair and grey eyes.

Townsend embarked in the Cambrian in March 1901. She was a second-class cruiser of 4,360 tons, launched in 1893, and was stationed on the east coast of South America. Whilst serving in this ship he reached the age of eighteen and was advanced Private. He returned to the Plymouth depot in July 1904. He served in his next ship, the Roxburgh, from December 1907 to August 1909; she was an armoured cruiser of 10,850 tons, launched in 1904. She was part of the Channel Squadron but in December 1908 she went into the Devonport Dockyard for a refit. He married in November 1908. When he returned to Plymouth, Townsend was employed with the Garrison Military Police. He was promoted Corporal in May 1910, and was then employed as a 'type cutter'. In those days the Royal Marines had its own printing branch which provided printing services to naval bases and the larger ships.

On 1 July 1913 Townsend embarked in the Warrior, an armoured cruiser in the Mediterranean Fleet. She was the name ship of a class of four laid down in 1903-04 and completed in 1907. She had a displacement of 13,550 tons, a complement of 704, and a length of 480 feet. Her main armament consisted of six 9.2 inch guns and four 7.5 inch guns. Her coal-fired, triple expansion engines gave her a speed of 22 knots. According to Jane's Fighting Ships:

'These ships are singularly successful sea boats and are held by all who have served in them to be the best cruisers ever turned out.'

On 13 December 1913 Townsend transferred to the Royal Navy's Regulating Branch, and became Ship's Corporal. The ship's police were responsible for enforcing discipline and were known as 'crushers'. It is hardly to be expected that men with this role would ever be popular but the ship's police were hated, and with good reason. There was considerable corruption in the Edwardian Navy with the crushers in the thick of it:

'Small wonder that within a few weeks of joining the RN an absolute loathing developed for this particular branch of the Service. It was well-deserved too, as there was no avenue closed to them for exploiting the sailor, from graft to crime. The reign of bribery, blackmail and corruption … remains vivid. It is not going too far to say that the Ship's Police extracted thousands of pounds yearly from the sailors' meagre pay; every conceivable quarter was infested with bribery … men were terrorized, victimized. Even if no offence had been committed they saw to it that one was created … rations were bought and sold, rum was diluted, 'comfortable billets' were auctioned: so, too, a few days or a month's leave. Gambling schools existed on a large scale, and were systematically encouraged for they were a prolific source of revenue.' (Henry Baynham, Men From The Dreadnoughts, refers)

It is only fair to add that not all members of the Ship's Police were corrupt blackguards; Baynham records one old sailor who recalled how the Master at Arms turned a blind eye when a bullying Petty Officer was assaulted, and one Ship's Corporal was described as 'an exceedingly decent chap in his way.'

Townsend left the Warrior in January 1914, was posted back to Plymouth and, on 30 July 1914, he was drafted to the Doris, an Eclipse-class, second-class cruiser of 5,600 tons launched in 1896. She was armed with eleven 6-inch guns, three 12-pounders and three torpedo tubes and had a top speed of nineteen and a half knots. She had a complement of 450 and in 1914 she was commanded by Captain Frank Larken. On the outbreak of the Great War she was part of the 11th Cruiser Squadron, carrying out trade protection patrols west of Ireland.

On 5 November 1914 the United Kingdom and France declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Responsibility for the defence of the Suez Canal and Egypt was transferred to Rear Admiral Peirse, Commander in Chief of the East Indies station, who then proceeded to Suez. The Doris, which had just been equipped with a seaplane, was redeployed to Port Said, where the Turks were preparing to attack the canal.

Early in December 1914 Peirse tasked the Doris to steam up the Syrian coast to harass the Turks in the Gulf of Alexandretta (today Iskenderun, at the south-east of modern Turkey). Peirse sent an intelligence officer from his staff, Lieutenant Pirie Gordon RNVR, to investigate landing sites in the area with a view to large-scale landings. On the way Doris destroyed an enemy observation post at Ascalon (today Ashkelon, in Israel) on 15 December. After a short bombardment, a landing party went ashore, occupied the post and removed 'certain objects of military value or antiquarian interest'. A little further north, her seaplane carried out a reconnaissance over Jaffa and Haifa. According to an account of one of the ship's offficers (Naval Review No. 4 of 1915):

'...the arrival of the seaplane caused terror and affright; the Kaimakam, a notorious prosecutor of enemy non-combatants, fled headlong from the Serail and concealed himself in a foreigner's cellar. His Excellency emerged only when seaplane and ship were alike out of sight. He then blustered forth and sought to divert attention from his own unimpressive conduct by ordering the arrest of a number of old women, who, not having cellars in which to hide, had innocently put up umbrellas or parasols to fend off the anticipated shower of bombs. These unfortunate ladies were soundly beaten by the unchivalrous Kaimakam for having "signalled" with these umbrellas to the seaplane.'

On 18 December another party landed about four miles south of Sidon (Saida in Lebanon) and destroyed the telegraph line. The line was removed for a distance of about three-quarters of a mile and all the posts cut down and sawed in three. There was no fighting and a number of local inhabitants left their ploughs to come over and converse with members of the party. One of the officers, Bimbashi Herbert (late of the Egyptian Army), took the opportunity to capture some tortoises and rare frogs which he later presented to the Cairo Zoological Gardens. Shortly afterwards, Larken encountered a neutral United States ship anchored off the coast, and was informed by her officers that the Turks were 'in a mortal funk waiting for your landing.'

The Doris then proceeded to Alexandretta. This was an area of the greatest strategic importance for the Turks; the road and railway connecting Constantinople with the two southern military fronts, Palestine/Egypt and Mesopotamia, passed through the area and, for a distance of about thirty miles, ran close to the coast where they were vulnerable to attacks from the sea.

The ship arrived after nightfall. A fierce squall struck and, at first, no boat could be launched but at 23.15 hrs the weather moderated sufficiently for a landing party, consisting of five officers and twenty-four seamen and stokers, to land about eight miles north of the town. The railway ran only a few yards above the high-water mark. Working in darkness and as silently as possible, the party loosened the rails and cut the telegraph wires. Less than an hour after their return to the ship, a train was observed approaching from the north, and many of the ship's company assembled in anticipation of a spectacular fireworks display. To their disappointment there was no explosion; the locomotive jumped the damaged section and headed towards Alexandretta 'with terrified trumpetings', the train was derailed and caught fire. Many of the wagons contained live camels and the sailors were distressed to see one immense tethered camel writhing in the flames. Their attempts to shoot the beast were unsuccessful, but the camel apparently managed to gnaw through the rope which tied it and escape. At dawn another train approached and then tried to escape from the scene of the disaster. The ship first opened fire on the Payas railway bridge and, having damaged the bridge sufficiently to cut off its retreat, then put a couple of 12-pounder shells into the engine.

In the afternoon of the same day, Pirie-Gordon served an ultimatum to the town's Governor, demanding the surrender, for purposes of immediate destruction, of all railway engines and munitions then in Alexandretta; otherwise, the ship would bombard the railway and harbour works and principal government buildings. He was informed that a reply was required by 09.00 the next day. Next morning, the Commander-in-Chief in Syria, Djemal Pasha, rejected the demands and threatened to execute hostages drawn from the many British subjects detained in Syria should any Turk be killed in the proposed bombardment. Captain Larken replied that if he did so, then Djemal personally, his staff and all who obeyed the orders would answer for it on conclusion of the war. The United States Consul assisted with the negotiations. It was learned that most of the strategic stores had already been removed from the town but two locomotives remained, and their surrender was demanded by 0900 the next morning.

In the meantime, the Doris steamed north and landed a party of seven officers and fifty-seven seamen near 'Deurt Yol' (today's Dörtyol). The party landed unopposed but soon came under fire from some Turks in a trench. Assisted by fire from the ship, the landing party swept them aside, advanced inland and blew up a large steel girder railway bridge crossing a river. One detachment occupied the nearby railway station where the stationmaster and his two clerks, all Armenians, willingly joined in smashing electric batteries and opened the safe. The Intelligence Officer seized the telegraph instruments and a sum of cash, and also took away some railway notice-boards as souvenirs. The three Armenians insisted on being taken away as prisoners, claiming that the Turks had hanged two stationmasters the previous day following the derailment of the train. They were taken on board and provided valuable information about Turkish supplies and reinforcements which had passed through the town.The ship's chronicler recorded, 'Before retiring, a good many shots were fired into the station water tank, from which the water squirted in a most diverting manner through the bullet holes.'

Next morning the Turks agreed to the destruction of two locomotives but, for reasons of national prestige, insisted on carrying out the task themselves. However, they requested the Doris to provide the dynamite. Captain Larken regretted that he had no dynamite to spare but offered gun-cotton instead. Lieutenant Edwards was sent to oversee the operation with a party of torpedo men, specially selected for their impressive beards. The Turks had relied on a German railway engineer to carry out the demolition but he refused 'with almost vulgar emphasis' and the Kaimakam confessed that he had no-one else who dared, or even knew how to, handle the gun-cotton. A creative solution to the impasse was found when Edwards was commissioned into the Ottoman Navy for a day, and carried out the explosions in his capacity as an officer of the Sultan.

Next morning the Doris continued her work of harassing Turkish lines of transport. She destroyed a road bridge with fifteen 6-inch shells, then exchanged fire with a battery of field guns, without casualties on either side. She encountered the German merchant ship Odessa, which was promptly scuttled by her crew. Although there was a chance of salvage - she was a new ship, and had been sunk in shallow water - it was considered that the time could not be spared, and so she was stripped of 'much that was useful or ornamental' and blown up.

Doris put into Famagusta, Cyprus, on 26 December to embark Lieutenant Lukach as an Ottoman interpreter. The ship then cruised off Beirut where Pirie Gordon obtained intelligence from some French friars, then went to Port Said to take on coal. She also embarked the sea plane, which made a long flight over Gaza and Beersheba. The sea-plane was left ashore in Egypt, and Doris returned to Famagusta, where Lukach finally joined the ship.

On 5 January 1915 the Commander led a large party, consisting of over 150 men, to destroy another railway bridge at Mersin, about four miles from Alexandretta. However, as their boats approached the shore they came under fire from enemy patrols and field guns. In the face of such opposition an advance so far inland would have been unduly costly, so the expedition was abandoned and the ship bombarded the bridge instead. Sixty-two shells were fired and, despite the long range (7,200 yards) and the motion of the sea, the bridge was badly damaged.

Next day two parties landed near a feature known as Jonah's Pillar. Both parties were fired upon while rowing towards the shore from Turks esconsed in the ruins of a Crusader Castle. They were dislodged by shell-fire from the ship - the chronicler noted approvingly that very little damage was done to the castle. They destroyed the telegraph line as far as possible, and set fire to a quantity of timber which had been brought to repair the road bridge damaged on 23 December. Using a technique developed in the American Civil War, the sailors loosened one rail, heated it until it was red hot and then twisted it. Turkish resistance was now hardening and both parties were subjected to vigorous sniping. Stoker P. Joyce engaged the enemy while up a telegraph pole, firing his revolver with one hand while smashing insulators and cutting wires with the other, winning himself the D.S.M. The Acting Gunner cruised up and down in one of the ship's boats, firing on the enemy with a maxim gun.

Larken received wireless orders to prevent the Turks from sending troops and supplies to Alexandretta and thence to Aleppo. He observed that the Turks were bypassing one of the destroyed bridges using a temporary road and the next day, 7 January, he sent another party to blow up another railway bridge just 100 yards to the south. The bridge spanned a deep ravine which provided good cover for the Turks, who sniped the landing party at close range, then emerged to attack with a series of short rushes across the open ground. The Turks were so close that the ship was unable to support the landing party for fear of hitting their own people, and the landing party was forced to withdraw. One marine was killed and another man wounded. Four men were decorated with the D.S.M. for this little battle. As soon as the party had re-embarked, the ship's forecastle gun opened fire on the bridge and a railway culvert, and completely destroyed them.

Instead of landing men, the ship sometimes pursued her campaign against Turkish communications by gunfire. An element of competition entered into it; the record was set by the Gunnery Lieutenant who, on 6 March 1915, destroyed five telegraph poles with seven consecutive shots at a range from 1,200 to 1,500 yards, using 6-inch shells. Despite the Doris's depredations, the Turkish telegraph system was often back in service within a day or two and the ship's company soon became familiar with the Turkish telegraph man in a yellow canvas jacket, and his mate with a ladder; 'by his energy and courage (he) won so much respect that a tacit convention was almost at once established, in virtue of which he was only shot at while actually repairing the line, and was allowed to move about on the road unmolested.'

Other landings continued. On 24 January a party of about fifty officers and men carried out a reconnaissance of the marsh lying to the north-east of Alexandretta. They came under fire at close range and had to advance through the swamp on their stomachs, trusting to the prickly reeds for cover. They found the wrecks of the two locomotives and an attempt was made to detach the name and number-plates as souvenirs, but no-one had a screw-driver and they were fastened too securely.

On 30 January there was an unsuccessful attempt to capture the German railway engineer when he was seen travelling down the line on a trolley. He managed to reach the shelter of some caves and blazed away at the landing party with a Mauser pistol. The echoes were so confusing that it was impossible to locate him; one officer who took shelter behind a large rock had a lucky escape when the German's next shot showed that he was on the wrong side of the rock! Turkish railway patrols then attacked from both flanks but were driven off by gunfire from the ship. Several of the Turks were taken prisoner.

An Egyptian spy was transferred to Doris from a French ship, to be landed on the Syrian coast. Another French ship delivered a proclamation to be distributed ashore. The contents of the proclamation were unrecorded but it was likely to have been an appeal to the Arabs and Armenians inciting them to insurrection and promising them British assistance and arms.

In all the Doris spent three months in the vicinity of Alexandretta, and put ashore thirteen landing parties. Most likely Townsend, with his long experience in the R.M.L.I., took part in most of these. Her last hostile act was also the bloodiest; on 10 March she bombarded the Turkish barracks at Duert Yol. According to later information the Turkish casualties amounted to 450 killed and wounded. She was then relieved by a French ship and started south in the evening of 11 March.

The Doris achieved results out of all proportion to the duration and scale of her operations. By early 1915 the Syrian coast had almost been denuded of troops and the Turks were seriously alarmed by this demonstration of the vulnerability of their lines of communication. Three divisions, amounting to seven per cent of their operational forces, were redeployed to the area and remained there throughout the war. The British never proceeded with their plans for a landing at Alexandretta and so these forces were wasted. Secondly, the Turks noted that Armenians in the area were cooperative with the British and resolved on a large-scale operation to relocate them away from the coast. This cost the Turks a great deal of trouble and resources, although attended with tragic consequences for the Armenians. Edward J. Erickson observed (Middle Eastern Studies):

'Larken's activities were so actively consistent and aggressive that the Ottomans came to believe that a British amphibious landing was being coordinated with and supported by an Armenian insurrection in the vicinity of Dörtyol. Unintentionally Larken played a key role in driving the Turks to some very poor decisions … there is no question that Larken and HMS Doris helped convince the Turks to make strategic decisions that diverted valuable and scarce resources away from the war effort.'

Doris then became involved with the preparations for the Gallipoli campaign. In April she was based at Port Trebuki on Skyros, guarding troop convoys. On the 16th she came to the assistance of a transport, Manitou, after she was attacked by a Turkish torpedo boat. On the 25th, the first day of the landings, she was part of a force sent to attack Bulair, to divert enemy troops from the main landings. Later on the same day she moved south to support the landings at Anzac Cove. On the 27th her sea-plane reporteded the Goeben and a Turkish battleship firing on the British forces; the Queen Elizabeth opened fire on them, driving them off.

The Doris was then used for a number of detached duties. In May, following U-boat attacks on the ships off Gallipoli, she was sent to check the area around Smyrna for possible U-boat anchorages. On 1 October she proceeded to Salonika to provide a radio link for the landings there. On 21 October she led a squadron which bombarded the coast of Bulgaria around Dedeagatch, and - returning to her specialty - attacked the railway linking Salonika to Constantinople. On 11 February 1916 Admiral de Robeck, commanding the East Mediterranean Squadron, wrote to the First Sea Lord:

'The transport of the army to Egypt is now practically complete, and that the transports have not been attacked by submarines speaks well for the vigilance of our patrols under Captain Larken of Doris, and it looks as if they had frightened the enemy's submarines away from that portion of the coast adjacent to Rhodes and Samos'.

Townsend left the Doris in January 1917 and was in Devonport until December, when he was drafted to the Ambrose. This ship had been built as a liner in 1910. She was requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1914, converted to an armed merchant cruiser and deployed with the 10th Cruiser Squadron on the Northern Patrol. The Admiralty then purchased the ship and converted her to a depot ship for submarines. During the time Townsend served in her she was based at Berehaven, Portsmouth, Falmouth and Plymouth. Throughout his service Townsend's character had been rated 'Very Good' and was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in December 1917. In April 1919 his job title changed to Regulating Petty Officer.

In October 1920 Townsend began a one year's posting to the Briton. She was launched in 1883 as the screw-corvette Calypso; in 1902 she was assigned to the Newfoundland government as a training ship. He returned to Vivid, the Devonport Barracks, in September 1921. The following year he was promoted to Master At Arms (a position known as the Jaunty), equivalent to Chief Petty Officer. Townsend had one more draft at sea from January 1923-September 1924 in the battleship Valiant, deployed in the Atlantic Fleet. He retired in December 1924.

Townsend, by then fifty-six years old, rejoined the Royal Navy in February 1941 as a Master At Arms (pensioner) and was assigned to Raleigh, a training establishment for special reservists at Torpoint, Cornwall. He retired from the service as an invalid in August 1943.


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Sold for
£240

Starting price
£160