Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War minelaying operations D.S.M. group of four awarded to Leading Stoker H. Wright, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his gallant services in H.M.S. Abdiel

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (K. 5000 H. Wright, Lg. Sto., H.M.S. Abdiel, 1917); 1914-15 Star (K. 5000 H. Wright, L. Sto., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (K. 5000 H. Wright, L. Sto., R.N.), good very fine (4) £600-800

D.S.M. London Gazette 12 October 1917.

Harold Wright was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire in November 1891 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in January 1910. Appointed to the destroyer H.M.S. Nith in August 1914, he was advanced to Leading Stoker and remained similarly employed until coming ashore to Pembroke II in December 1915, in which period Nith served in the Dover and Humber patrols.

In March 1916, Wright joined another destroyer, the newly commissioned Abdiel, which had been converted for employment in minelaying operations, and it was in this capacity that he was awarded the D.S.M. and mentioned in despatches (Admiralty Order dated 25 May 1917). He remained employed in the Abdiel until the war’s end.

Commanded by Berwick Curtis, Abdiel’s operational career commenced with a stint of service with the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, from whence she carried out daring, solo minelaying operations in the Heligoland Bight and off Horns Reef. Abdiel also accompanied the Grand Fleet at Jutland, where Jellicoe ordered Curtis to lay a minefield in the expected path of the retreating German fleet, a successful enterprise that resulted in serious damage being inflicted on the battleship Ostfriesland.

In early 1918 the Abdiel became flotilla leader to the 20th Destroyer Flotilla at Immingham on the Humber, from whence - with her new consorts - she continued to carry out extensive minelaying operations. In fact by the war’s end she had laid no less than 6290 mines. As described by Taffrail in Endless Story, such operations were perilous in the extreme:

‘The German minefields were an unknown quantity. We knew that many had been laid, some for the express purpose of putting a stop to our excursions. Many times we saw enemy “floaters”. On several occasions yellow painted monstrosities, bristling with horns, came to the surface in the wake of one of us after its mooring wire had been cut by a fast-moving propeller. We simply had to take our chance, trusting to luck and the Almighty. I must confess, however, that when I saw the chart of the German minefields which was delivered up after the Armistice, I had an attack of cold shivering. Much of the water that we had considered innocuous, and had gaily careered over at 25 knots, teemed with explosive abominations.

There were other things to be considered, besides mines, and these were the patrols of German destroyers at sea in the Bight. As at Dover, we were not allowed to fight with mines on board unless first attacked, for the simple reason that one shell striking in among primed mines would bring about an explosion more spectacular than any firework display. We frequently sighted enemy patrols, but our main task was to lay the mines, and hence to evade anything we saw. If chased, we had to trust to our superior speed to escape.

The work at the time was considered very “hush-hush” and secret, and, in order that it should not be known what we were doing, the large white numbers painted on our bows were frequently altered to mystify anyone who might sight us at sea. For the same reason it was desirable to conceal the rows of mines on deck, which was done with canvas camouflage screens spread over the after part of the ship and painted with a gun, torpedo-tubes, and deck-fittings against a background of sky. One artist even ran riot and painted in a few seagulls and some men on deck. But the camouflage screens certainly served their purpose. At a few hundred yards, unless one suspected, it was impossible to tell that we were not ordinary destroyers.’

On the night of 1-2 August 1918, Abdiel and her consorts did indeed steam into an enemy minefield. Taffrail takes up the story:

‘We, in the Telemachus, were following the Abdiel, and, looking aft, we saw a brilliant gout of ruby and orange flame mingled with smoke and water standing out of the sea to a height of quite 200 feet. It was an unnerving sight. No British mines were in the vicinity. We were on top of a German minefield. The fifth ship in the line, the Vehement, had struck a mine. On exploding, it had detonated her foremost magazine.

For a moment there was dead silence, followed by splashing in the water as debris came raining down from the sky. Then the roaring below of escaping steam, and the sound of men's voices, some shouting, others, injured and in the water, calling piteously for help. The Abdiel and Telemachus, signalling to the others to stop engines, circled round to help the Vehement. She was still afloat, her bows deep in the water and her stern well in the air. But the bows, from abaft the bridge to the stern, had almost completely disappeared. All that remained was a tangle of twisted steel plating, in which the oil fuel and cordite blazed in a sickly yellow glare, and clouds of black smoke went drifting slowly to leeward. It was a clear night. That flaming beacon must have been visible for many miles. The Abdiel, going ahead, took what remained of the Vehement in tow, stern first. The rest of us, lowering boats, searched for survivors in the water.

Several, blown through the air, owed their lives to a series of miracles. One, with a broken thigh, managed to swim a hundred yards before he collapsed in the rescuing boat. But Hammersley-Heenan, the commanding officer, had the most wonderful escape of all. Standing on his bridge when the explosion came, he was stunned and hurled through space, recovering his senses to find himself in the water a full 400 yards from the wreck of his burning ship. Though severely injured, he set about blowing up his life-saving waist-coat, and then succeeded in saving a drowning shipmate, an act of gallantry for which he subsequently received the life-saving medal of the Royal Humane Society.

But fate had not played its last trick, for at seven minutes past midnight, while the Abdiel was still busy with her preparations for towing, there came another roar and the flash of an explosion as the Ariel fouled a mine a quarter of a mile from the first. A ship at once hurried to help her and rescued some survivors, but again a magazine had exploded, and a quarter of an hour later the Ariel flung her bows skywards and disappeared. The grey dawn was breaking in the east when the remains of the Vehement still blazing furiously, and with an occasional shell or cartridge exploding in the beat of the fire, were finally in tow. Even so, the position was still one of horrible uncertainty, for we could not know which way to steer. The minefield might be laid in any direction. North, south, east, or west - all might be equally dangerous. We steered north, trusting to Providence. And Providence was kind. It was not until afterwards that I discovered the German minefield stretched twenty miles north and south.

But we were not out of the wood. An hour later a bulkhead collapsed in the Vehement, her bow portion dipped deeper in the water, and her stern lifted in the air, until rudder and propellers were out of the water. The wind was freshening, and the sea had started to rise. Further towing was impossible. The survivors, many of them badly wounded, were rescued from the wreck, and the guns of my ship and a couple of depth-charges sent the remains of the Vehement to her doom. She sank quietly, to leave a pitiful little collection of flotsam in the midst of an ever-widening patch of oil floating on the surface of the sea.

We turned our bows to the westward and steamed away. We had left our base 9 strong and returned 7. In the brief space of twenty-two minutes over 100 of our flotilla-mates had gone to their death.

But we carried on, because we had to. Less than a week afterwards we were laying mines within seven miles of Zeebrugge.’

Wright was invalided ashore in April 1922; sold with copied service record.