Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte

A World War campaign service group of seven awarded to Shipwright Lieutenant-Commander T. H. Stonehouse, Royal Navy, who survived the loss of the monitor Raglan off Imbros in January 1918, when she was brought to action by the Breslau and Goeben

1914-15 Star (Carpr. T. H. Stonehouse, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Wt. Shpt. T. H. Stonehouse, R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Defence and War Medals; Jubilee 1935, the Great War awards with contact wear, otherwise very fine or better (7)
£400-500

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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Thomas Henry Stonehouse was born at Gillingham, Kent in January 1887 and entered the Royal Navy as a Shipwright’s Apprentice in November 1905. By the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he was serving on the strength of Leda, at which establishment he was advanced to Acting Carpenter in March 1915.

Then, following a very brief appointment in Pembroke, he joined the monitor Raglan in April of the same year, and was quickly in action out in the Dardanelles, where Raglan’s 14-inch guns were brought to bear on Krithia and Achi Baba during the Suvla Bay landings; so, too, in the bombardments of October and December 1915, in which latter, on the 17th, she was hit six times. In early 1916, command of Raglan devolved to Commander Viscount Broome, a nephew of Lord Kitchener, but she remained actively engaged in the Dardanelles, and was present at bombardments of Smyrna and other targets on the Turkish west coast, while in October 1917, she bombarded enemy communications at Deir Seneid.

However, her distinguished career was suddenly curtailed on 20 January 1918, when she was surprised by the enemy cruisers Breslau and Goeben off Imbros. Hit by Breslau’s opening salvo, she barely got into action, and at length further enemy hits found her magazine - as a result of which she sank in shallow water in Kusa Bay with a loss of 127 officers and men. A lucky survivor indeed, Stonehouse ended the War as a Warrant Shipwright aboard the cruiser Antrim.

The inter-war period witnessed his further advancement to Commissioned Shipwright in April 1925 and to Shipwright Lieutenant in October 1934, and he appears to have been placed on the Retired List at the end of 1936. But with the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, he returned to uniform and served as a Barrackmaster at the training establishment Glendower and as a Shipwright Lieutenant-Commander at the Sheerness maintenance base Wildfire. Stonehouse, who was released in September 1945, still appeared on the Retired List as late as 1961, when he would have been in his mid-seventies.

Sold with a good quantity of original documentation, including an excellent run of ship’s “flimsies” (approximately 50); several rate qualification certificates and a “True Copy of Certificate of Service”, covering the period 1905-15; Buckingham Palace forwarding letter for the 1935 Jubilee Medal; Certificates for Wounds and Hurts (2), dated 28 March 1935 and 5 May 1944, the latter for several contusions as a result of falling off the gunwhale of H.M. drifter Constant Hope while supervising repairs; and Order for Release from Naval Service, dated 9 July 1945.