Orders, Decorations and Medals

An extremely rare Second World War clandestine operations D.S.M. group of six awarded to Leading Seaman J. D. Hallybone, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his services in the Levant Schooner Flotilla in the Aegean in 1943: as Coxswain of L.S. No. 3, he was responsible for dropping off and collecting S.B.S. and S.A.S. raiding parties, during the course of which operations he risked execution if captured

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (A.B. J. D. Hallybone, D/JX. 182709); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Pacific Star; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45, mounted as worn, minor contact marks, very fine and better (6) £3000-3500

D.S.M. London Gazette 4 April 1944:

‘For undaunted courage, determination and endurance in light coastal craft in many sweeps against enemy shipping in the Aegean under fierce and constant attack from the air, and in maintaining supplies to the islands of Kos and Leros until they fell to superior enemy forces.’

John David Hallybone, who was born in London in July 1919, appears to have commenced his wartime career in the cruiser H.M.S. Mauritius during the course of 1941, in which period she employed on convoy duties to Freetown and in the East Indies, prior to undergoing a major refit in early 1942.

Sometime, thereafter, he must have volunteered for special services, as a result of which he found himself undergoing training for clandestine operations in the Aegean, and, in early 1943, on five caiques being transferred to the Navy from the Army’s secret M.O. 4 Flotilla, operations were got underway with Lieutenant-Commander Adrian Seligman, R.N.R. - an exceptional seaman who had circumnavigated the globe in a windjammer pre-war - as newly appointed C.O. of “The Levant Schooner Flotilla”.

Over the coming months, the Flotilla grew in size to 13 caiques or schooners, and one steam yacht, the Calamara, the whole operating out of Mosquito II at Beirut. For his own part Hallybone was appointed Coxswain of Levant Schooner No. 3 and of subsequent operations and adventures, including the period of his D.S.M. exploits in September-November 1943, much is recounted in Seligman’s War in the Islands and Captain W. E. Benyon-Tinker’s Dust Upon the Sea, in both of which the gallant Coxswain is mentioned; in addition, interested parties are also recommended to A. Cecil Hampshire’s Undercover Sailors, together with more general histories of the S.B.S., S.A.S. and L.R.D.G., and related first hand accounts such as John Lodwick’s Raiders from the Sea.

Charged with dropping off and collecting S.B.S. and S.A.S. raiding parties from enemy held territory, in addition to observation parties from the Long Range Desert Group, and always in total secrecy and largely under cover of darkness, the Flotilla’s officers and ratings can have been in no doubt as to their fate if captured, news of the summary execution of a number of raiders being common knowledge. Certain, too, is the fact they soon befriended many of the raiders, among them Anders Lassen, V.C., M.C., although on the occasion of the latter’s famous “bloodbath raid” on Santorini in April 1944, his men were conveyed to the island by L.Ss 1 and 2.

As illustrated by A. Cecil Hampshire’s history Undercover Sailors, the code-name for such raids was, appropriately enough, “Fire Eater”:

‘Hardened by months of fighting in which no quarter is given, every one of them is a killer. They lack only a cutlass apiece to appear the very image of the pirates they emulate. The little ships thread their way through the maze of islands in the Aegean to lans these men on German-held territory. Then in small patrols they proceed to stalk the enemy garrison. Nine times out of ten the latter are taken completely by surprise, and the raiders have struck and are away before the Germans know what is happening. In this way wireless stations are destroyed and ammunition dumps blown up, Greek hostages released and prisoners taken. Frequently a whole German garrison is killed or captured with not one left to tell the tale when the next enemy supply ship calls at the island ... when the Germans got to know the prominent personalities in the organisation and their methods they threatened the direst penalties against them and any of their associates who might be captured.’

Although Tallybone’s D.S.M. stemmed from the operations leading to the evacuation of Kos, Leros, Samos and other islands in late 1943, when L.S. 3 and her consorts, operating out of temporary anchorages on the Turkish coast, made repeated trips into dangerous waters to rescue British troops, evidence exists to suggest he remained actively employed in the Levant Schooner Flotilla until well into 1944.

In Seligman’s War in the Islands, a chapter is devoted to an operation carried out by L.S. 3 in February 1944, when Captain Terry Bruce-Mitford and five men of the S.B.S. were dropped off in Melissa Creek on Arki Island, where they returned with a brace of recently downed R.A.F. aircrew; thence to Lipsos, where the cable station was destroyed, and, finally, after a week at sea, back to Beirut. Nor did they return empty handed, a captured caique turning out to be laden with comforts for the Germans on Leros - ‘radio sets, crates of beer, blankets, boots, four enormous packing cases filled with loo paper’, and, best of all, 48-bottle cases of champagne - Lanson 1938, but emblazoned in red on the labels, ‘Nur Fur Wehrmacht Offizieren’: Hallybone, who had been instrumental in steering L.S. 3 through stormy and dangerous waters, and getting her inshore to be camouflaged each evening, no doubt enjoyed his fair share of the spoils.

While in an article written for The Cruising Association Bulletin in 1978, Robert Ballantine, D.S.C., onetime Hallybone’s skipper, wrote:

‘One of the few vestiges of naval routine aboard L.S. 3 was the appearance of the Coxswain daily at 11.00, with the rum jar tucked under his arm, emerging from the hold to dish out generous tots. We took some gallons of the stuff with us from Beirut and were probably the only ships in the Navy not expected to account for it in detail on our return to base. My recollection is that Coxswain Hallybone kept it under his bunk! At all events I never had any trouble with rum!’

Hallybone was demobilised in November 1945.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s Buckingham Palace forwarding letter for his D.S.M., a “Crossing of the Line” certificate issued aboard H.M.S. Mauritius on 16 May 1941, his Order for Release from Naval Service, dated at Devonport, 6 November 1945, and Ministry of War Transport Continuous Certificate of Service, with entries for the period 1947, and related National Union of Seamen Member’s Book, with entries for the period 1945-47; together with several wartime photographs and silk cap tallies for H.M. Ships Implacable and Mauritius.