Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte

The Second World War M.B.E. group of seven awarded to Warrant Engineer W. G. Rockey, Royal Navy, an ex-submariner who went on to witness the destruction of at least two U-Boats in the destroyer Wolverine - one of them the command of Gunther Prien of Royal Oak fame

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Military) Member’s 2nd type breast badge, in its Royal Mint case of issue; British War Medal 1914-20 (M. 26972 W. G. Rockey, B. Art., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., coinage bust (M. 26972 E.R.A. 2, H.M.S. Dolphin), these last six mounted as worn, very fine and better (7) £600-800

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

View
Collection

M.B.E. London Gazette 11 June 1942.

Walter Gage Rockey was born in Tavistock, Devonshire in May 1901 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy Artificer in July 1917 at the training establishment Indus. His first seagoing appointment was not until February 1922, when he joined the battleship Resolution, but in February 1924 he volunteered for submarines. Thus employed until the end of 1934, he served variously in H.M. Submarines H. 23, L. 1, L. 53 and Olympus, was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in June 1934 and gained advancement to Engine Room Artificer in January of the following year.

Rockey had been recommended for Warrant Rank back in 1927, an intention which appears to have been fulfilled by the renewal of hostilities, for it was in the rank of Temporary Warrant Engineer that he was gazetted for the M.B.E. in June 1942. The award, which he received at an investiture in May 1943, was in recognition of services aboard Wolverine, a destroyer whose Battle Honours included “Dunkirk 1940” and “Malta Convoys 1942”. The latter would certainly have been pertinent to his time aboard, and it is quite probable his distinction also recognised a successful encounter with the U-47 in March 1941. The latter, commanded by Kapitain Gunther Prien of Royal Oak fame, succumbed to a full pattern of depth charges dropped by Wolverine:

‘Their explosion threw a great cascade of water into the sky and they were counted in the Wolverine as they went off. A few seconds after the last of them went off there was another dull underwater explosion, and after another three or four minutes some wreckage floated to the surface and a slowly widening patch of oil showed that another U-Boat would trouble the convoys no more. It was U-47, Prien’s boat. There were no survivors’ (H.M. Destroyers by Lieutenant-Commander P. K. Kemp, refers).

In March 1942, Wolverine claimed another victim with the sloop Scarborough and the corvette Arbutus, on this occasion the U-76, commanded by von Hippel. Although her sonar system was malfunctioning, Wolverine dropped two accurate depth-charges, the first of them smashing all of the U-76’s instruments and the second plunging her into darkness, in addition to forcing a welded seam to give way. Then Scarborough dropped another pattern of eight depth-charges, causing severe flooding aft, so much so that von Hippel decided to surface and scuttle. And the Arbutus was waiting for her, running alongside and dropping off a boarding party, but it was quickly apparent that U-76 was beyond the attention of this gallant team, her interior being half-full of seawater. Wolverine was now on the scene, too, and she picked up von Hippel and 39 of his crew.

In May 1942 Rockey removed to the Wivern, in which ship he served until January 1945, and was present on the occasion of her mining in the Straits of Gibraltar in February 1943.