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Auction: 6025 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals & Militaria
Lot: 97

A Flag Officer´s Uniform of the Royal Navy An Admiral´s good peaked cap, by GIEVES Ltd, with QEC badge and double row of gold oakleaf embroidery to peak; a barathea reefer uniform, with anodised Flag Officer´s buttons, Rear Admiral´s rank lace to sleeves and four rows of medal-ribbons; companion pair of trousers; and a double-breasted blue civilian blazer with anodised buttons mounted with crowns (4) See illustration Note: Rear Admiral Dudley Davenport, C.B., the owner of this uniform, began his naval career in spectacular fashion, earning a Mention in Despatches while still a Midshipman serving in the battle-cruiser HMS Repulse (later sunk in the Far East) off the coast of Palestine in 1938. At the age of twenty, within weeks of the outbreak of World War II, he avoided death, as his obituary put it, "by the toss of a coin" when serving on the destroyer Blanche in the Thames estuary. He and another officer on the night watch tossed a half-crown for the first bath. Davenport won and went below; shortly afterwards the destroyer struck a magnetic mine. The other officer was killed, while Davenport was knocked unconscious with a fractured skull. The Press could not resist reporting the incident with the headline BLOODY OFFICER FOUND IN BATH. Showing remarkable powers of recovery, Davenport was fit enough by the following February to return to sea and took part in the Norwegian campaign in the spring of 1940. In 1941 his ship, the Mashona, was involved in the hunt for the Bismarck. While returning from this operation, he was once again fortunate enough to avoid death when the Luftwaffe bombed and sank the Mashona a hundred miles off the coast of Ireland, on this occasion being hauled from the sea by none other than Ludovic Kennedy, serving in the Mashona´s sister-ship Somali. Davenport´s final seagoing appointment was as captain of the aircraft carrier Victorious, from 1964-67, thereafter becoming Flag Officer Malta, where his amiability (he was sometimes known as "Cuddly Dudley") and diplomacy were instrumental in making the Navy´s final withdrawal from the island a relatively painless exercise. This was his final appointment, for which he was awarded the CB. He retired in 1969 and died in 1990. Estimate £ 180-250

Sold for
£240