Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part II)

Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 3rd issue, coinage head (J. 28114 F. H. Noakes, A.B., H.M.S. Effingham) contact marks and polished, good fine £40-60

Francis Hercules Noakes entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class at the training establishment Impregnable in October 1913. The outbreak of hostilities in the following year found him serving aboard H.M.S. Ambrose but in late 1915 he came ashore to attend the torpedo school at Defiance. Then between April 1916 and August 1917, as a recently appointed Able Seaman, he appears to have served in the cruiser Leander. Noakes was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in April 1931.

He died ‘On War Service’ on 10 May 1941, while serving at the shore establishment Victory I, quite probably the victim of an enemy air raid. Aged 43 years, he was interred in Brockwood Military Cemetery, Surrey (Grave 5.F.15).