Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte

The Great War D.S.O. group of five awarded to Vice-Admiral H. H. Smith, Royal Navy, who, having been decorated for his services in patrol cruisers in 1916, commanded the early aircraft carriers Compania and Argus; recalled as a Commodore 2nd Class in the Royal Naval Reserve on the renewal of hostilities, he was killed in action in September 1940, when his command was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Ireland

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamel; 1914-15 Star (Capt. H. H. Smith, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. H. H. Smith, R.N.); Coronation 1911, old court-style mounting by Gieves, good very fine and better (5) £2500-3000

D.S.O. London Gazette 21 April 1917:

‘For services in the patrol cruisers under the command of Vice-Admiral Tupper during the period 1 July to 31 December 1916.’

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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Humphrey Hugh Smith was born in Putney, London in November 1875 and entered the Royal Navy as a Naval Cadet in Britannia in July 1889, and was appointed Midshipman aboard the Inflexible in December 1891. Advanced to Lieutenant in December 1897 and to Commander in December 1909, he was serving in the battleship H.M.S. Zealandia on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, then under the command of Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir) Walter Cowan - that famous “fire-eater” who won a second D.S.O. in the 1939-45 War with No. 2 Commando.

Advanced to Captain in the summer of 1915, Smith was given command of the armed merchant cruiser Virginian, in which ship, as part of the 10th Cruiser Squadron, he served on the blockade between the Shetlands and Norway. About a year later, he transferred to the Alsatian, Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Tupper’s flagship, and it was in this capacity, for the period July to December 1916, that he was awarded his D.S.O. - a period in which ‘so many ships were intercepted and so many armed guards were away from their ships that the ships became shorthanded.’

Then in February 1918, he took command of the early aircraft carrier Compania, his First Lieutenant being Richard Bell Davis, V.C., who commanded the R.N.A.S. detachment. Over the coming months, Compania’s aircraft patrolled nothern waters for U-boats, Smith moving to another aircraft carrier, the Argus, that September - a new vessel specifically built for that purpose, she carried 20 torpedo aircraft, and in the summer of 1919, Smith transported this vital cargo to Archangel. Back home, prior to his coming ashore to an appointment at the R.N.C. Greenwich in October 1920, his pilots carried out take-offs and landings for King George V. Having then served as C.O. of H.M. Naval Base Portland, and been appointed an A.D.C. to the King, Smith was placed on the Retired List as a Rear-Admiral in July 1926 - ‘I would have given my soul to return to the Active List in any capacity ... instead of being condemned to a fat pension and an idle existence.’

Unsurprisingly, therefore, and having attained the rank of Vice-Admiral on the Retired List in the interim, Smith was among that gallant band of ex-senior naval officers who volunteered for active service as Convoy Commodores come the renewal of hostilities. And it was in that capacity, as Commodore of Convoy OB-218, aboard his ship the Manchester Brigade, that he was killed in action in the early hours of 26 September 1940, his command having been torpedoed and sunk by the U-137, with a loss of 58 men - his body was washed ashore and interred in Bunbeg Church of Ireland Cemetery in County Donegal. The U-137, commanded by Herbert Wohlfarth, a future holder of the Knight’s Cross and P.O.W., also sunk the Stratford and Asgerd on the same occasion, in addition to damaging the Ashantian.

Described in his Times obituary as ‘a genial and popular officer’, he was one of 21 seagoing Commodores killed in the 1939-45 War, 12 of them ex-Admirals; sold with copies of his highly entertaining memoirs, A Yellow Admiral Remembers (London, 1932), and An Admiral Never Forgets (London, circa 1938).