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Auction: 23113 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 375

The campaign group of three awarded to Stoker 1st Class C. L. Hull Royal Navy, who was killed in action aboard Indefatigable at the Battle of Jutland, when she was destroyed by the German battlecruiser Von der Tann

1914-15 Star (K.5147. C. L. Hull. Sto.1. R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (K.5147 C. L. Hull. Sto.1 R.N.), extremely fine (3)

Charles Leonard Hull was born at Studham, Bedford on 21 November 1889 and was a farm labourer when he joined the Royal Navy on 1 January 1910. Posted to Indefatigable on 24 August 1915 he was killed in action at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916.

Indefatigable was the lead ship of her class of three battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy. When the Great War began, Indefatigable was serving with the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean, where she unsuccessfully pursued the battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau of the German Imperial Navy as they fled toward the Ottoman Empire. The ship bombarded Ottoman fortifications defending the Dardanelles on 3 November 1914, then, following a refit in Malta, returned to the United Kingdom in February where she re-joined the Squadron.

Indefatigable was sunk on 31 May 1916 during the Battle of Jutland. Part of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet, she was hit several times in the first minutes of the "Run to the South", the opening phase of the battlecruiser action. Shells from the German battlecruiser Von der Tann caused an explosion ripping a hole in her hull, and a second explosion hurled large pieces of the ship 200 feet (60 m) in the air. Just three of the crew of 1,019 survived, of which Hull was not to be counted. He was discharged dead; sold together with copied service papers.


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Sold for
£380

Starting price
£140