Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte

The Second World War C.B. group of seven awarded to Rear-Admiral P. K. Kekewich, Royal Navy, who enjoyed a colourful career spanning service as Navigating Officer in the cruiser Galatea at Jutland, actions against the Bolsheviks in the Baltic in 1919 and command of Coastal Forces 1940-43

The Most Honourable Order of The Bath, C.B. (Military) Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, in its Garrard & Co. case of issue; 1914-15 Star (Lieut. P. K. Kekewich, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Lt. Commr. P. K. Kekewich, R.N.); Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; Coronation 1953, these mounted court-style as worn, very fine and better (7) £1800-2200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte.

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C.B. London Gazette 1 January 1946.


Piers Keane Kekewich was born in Elstree, Hertfordshire in January 1889 and entered the Royal Navy as a Naval Cadet in Britannia in September 1903. Appointed a Midshipman in the battleship Victorious in the Atlantic Squadron in February 1905, and advanced to Lieutenant in October 1909, he qualified in navigation in December of the following year - so, too, for a reprimand from Their Lordships for his arrest by the civil powers ashore in Vigo. Having then collected another black mark for some dodgy navigation work in the Hussar, he was serving ashore at the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914.

Kekewich returned to sea with appointment as Navigating Officer in the cruiser Galatea in February 1915, and was present in her at Jutland, when she was flying the broad pennant of Commodore Alexander-Sinclair, of the First Cruiser Squadron - indeed it was Galatea who first spotted the enemy, the Commodore signalling “Enemy in sight, consisting one destroyer”, which message prompted Beatty to send up a reconnaissance seaplane from Engadine. Shortly afterwards, however, or certainly from Galatea’s perspective, no further confirmation of the enemy’s whereabouts or early intention was required, the S.M.S. Ebling hitting Galatea just below her bridge with a 5.9-inch shell - mercifully, it failed to explode. Later in the day she received some splinter damage, too.

Removing to another cruiser, the recently launched Cardiff in the summer of 1917, and still in his earlier capacity as Navigating Officer, Kekewich was next engaged at Heligoland Bight on 17 November, when his ship took hits on her forecastle, the superstructure and in the torpedo department, an unhappy encounter that was not improved by Their Lordships subsequent criticism of his imprudent navigation, although on this occasion the resultant broadside was dutifully accepted by his old captain, Commodore Alexander-Sinclair. Such mishaps aside, Kekewich was still similarly employed at the War’s end, Cardiff escorting the German High Seas Fleet between two immense columns of British ships in the Firth of Forth on 21 November 1918. And he went on to win a commendation for his navigational and pilotage work in her during anti-Bolshevik operations in the Baltic in 1919.

Advanced to Commander in December 1922, and to Captain in December 1928, he served in the Far East as Chief Staff Officer to the Rear-Admiral, Yangtze 1929-31, a period of unrest and flood, and one too in which he briefly commanded the Bee. Command of the Frobisher followed in the mid-1930s, and on the renewal of hostilities he joined Max Horton’s Northern Patrol.

Advanced to Rear-Admiral in January 1940, he assumed command of Coastal Forces that October, in which capacity he undertook the vital task of overseeing the expansion of our light coastal craft - his Chief Staff Officer was Captain A. W. S. Agar, V.C., of Kronstadt fame. And for more than two years, until early 1943, Kekewich directed the development of every aspect of Coastal Forces, from personnel to technical, but excluding operational matters, initially from his H.Q. at Portland, and subsequently from Wendover Court, a converted block of flats in Golder’s Green. Nor was it an easy period of command, for he experienced continual frustration in dealing with C.-in-Cs who were reluctant to surrender the autonomy of their commands, and from Admiralty departments too moulded in the preservation of established rules and regulations. Here, then, the probable reasons for his remarkable achievements going unrewarded.

He was, however, subsequently awarded the C.B. for his services as Naval Superintendent of Malta Dockyard 1943-45. The Admiral, who was also entitled to wear the insignia of a Knight of Grace of the Order of St. John (London Gazette 3 June 1924 refers), died in October 1967.