Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A scarce Murmansk 1919 operations O.B.E. group of four awarded to Paymaster Captain G. J. Rapkin, Royal Navy

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt; 1914-15 Star (Payr., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Payr. Lt. Cr., R.N.), mounted as worn, together with silver and enamel R.N. sweetheart’s brooch and a related set of dress miniatures, the B.W.M. with clasps for ‘Mediterranean 1914’, ‘Gallipoli’, ‘Dardanelles’, ‘Mediterranean 1915’, ‘Mediterranean 1916’, ‘Mediterranean 1917’ and ‘North Russia 1918-19’, nearly extremely fine (9) £350-400

O.B.E. London Gazette 8 March 1920: ‘For valuable services as Secretary to the Divisional Naval Transport Officer, Murmansk.’

The recommendation states:

‘This Officer has been of the greatest assistance to me by his untiring work and tactful manner. The work of evacuation has been carried out without any delay or friction. He is a very able Officer and has been completely responsible to me for all the embarkation arrangements and I cannot speak too highly of the way in which he has carried out all the duties which have been required of him in his present appointment.’

Geoffrey Jennings Rapkin was born in December 1882 and entered the Royal Navy as an Assistant Clerk in July 1900. The outbreak of hostilities found him serving as an Assistant Paymaster in H.M.S. Defence, part of the Mediterranean cruiser squadron, but in March 1915, after two more seagoing appointments, he joined the Queen Elizabeth in the Dardanelles, as Secretary to Vice-Admiral J. M. de Robeck.

Of all the capital ships employed in that theatre, the Queen Elizabeth was one of the most actively engaged. Carrying out a successful bombardment with her 15-inch guns of the Turkish Narrows forts from a position off Gabe Tepe in early March 1915, she went on to witness the famous landings in the following month, when Sir Ian Hamilton used her as his ‘mobile H.Q.’ off the beacheads. Off Helles, as evidenced by Hamilton’s own account, one of her shells saved an advancing British unit:

‘At a trot they came on ... their bayonets glittering and their officer yards in front waving his sword, Crash! and the Queen Elizabeth let fly a shrapnel [shell], range 1200 yards, a lovely shot; we followed it through the air with our eyes. Range and fuse - perfect! The huge projectile exploded fifty yards from the Turkish right and vomited its contents of 10,000 bullets clean across the stretch whereon the Turkish company was making its last effort. When the dust and smoke cleared away nothing stirred on the whole of that piece of ground.’

A superb painting depicting the Queen Elizabeth bombarding the Turkish Narrows forts in March 1915, by Norman Wilkinson, forms part of the Imperial War Museum’s collection.

Rapkin returned home towards the end of the same year, was advanced to Paymaster, and, following an appointment in the Liverpool, took up appointment as Secretary to Rear-Admiral Greatorex. Then in May 1919, he sailed for Russia, where he served as Secretary to the Divisional Naval Transport Officer at Murmansk until the end of the year. Awarded the O.B.E., which he received at an investiture at Buckingham Palace a few days after it was gazetted, Rapkin was advanced to Paymaster Commander March 1922.

He remained a regular R.N. Officer until being placed on the Retired List as a Paymaster Captain in December 1932, but was recalled for service in the Second World War, when he served at Caradoc I and Caradoc II from October 1939 until January 1946.