Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte

Family group:

The outstanding Second World War withdrawal from Greece D.S.O., inter-war M.V.O., Great War “sub-on-sub” D.S.C. and battle of Crete Second Award Bar group of thirteen awarded to Commander K. Michell, Royal Navy - he was also twice honoured by the Italians for his services in submarines operating out of Venice in 1916, won a “mention” for North Russia 1919, and was awarded the Royal Humane Society’s Medal between the Wars

Distinguished Service Order, G.VI.R., 1st issue, silver-gilt and enamel, the reverse of the suspension bar officially dated ‘1941’; The Royal Victorian Order, M.V.O., Member’s 4th Class breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, the reverse officially numbered ‘1211’; Distinguished Service Cross, G.V.R., with Second Award Bar, hallmarks for London 1916, the reverse of the Cross engraved ‘Lieut. K. Michell, R.N., 21.4.17’ and the reverse of the Bar officially dated ‘1942’; 1914-15 Star (Lieut. K. Michell, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Lieut. K. Michell, R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45; Italy, Order of St. Michael and St. Lazarus, Knight’s breast badge, in gold and enamel; Italy, Al Valore Militare, silver, unnamed; Royal Humane Society’s Medal (successful), bronze (Lieut. Commander Kenneth Michell, R.N., 18th Nov. 1926), complete with riband buckle for wearing, mounted as worn (excepting the last), the Italian Order with replacement suspension ring and severe enamel damage, otherwise very fine and better


A civil O.B.E., Second World War D.S.C. group of six attributed to Lieutenant-Commander R. B. Michell, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his gallantry in the destroyer Maori during the Bismarck action

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s breast badge, silver-gilt, in its Royal Mint case of issue; Distinguished Service Cross, G.VI.R., hallmarks for London 1941, the reverse officially dated ‘1941’; Naval General Service 1916-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1936-1939, naming erased; War Medal 1939-45, with M.I.D. oak leaf, mounted as worn, lacquered, good very fine (19) £16000-18000

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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D.S.O. London Gazette 17 June 1941:

‘For distinguished services during the withdrawal from the beaches of Greece under fire and in the face of many great difficulties of many thousands of troops of the Allied Armies.’

M.V.O. London Gazette 25 August 1925.

D.S.C. London Gazette 16 November 1917:

‘For services in action with enemy submarines.’

The original recommendation states:

‘Great credit is due to Lieutenant Michell for the promptitude and good judgement with which he acted on 19 April 1917, when he rammed and sank a German submarine.’

Bar to D.S.C. London Gazette 8 January 1942:

‘For outstanding gallantry, fortitude and resolution during the battle of Crete.’

The original recommendation states:

‘In addition to his duties as Senior Sea Transport Officer (S.S.T.O.) and in charge of all caiques, Commander Michell showed a complete disregard of personal danger and took immediate action to put out fires, board damaged ships and organise fire and salvage parties. Commander Michell was an example to every officer at Suda Bay.’



Kenneth Michell, who was born in Steyning, Sussex in March 1887, entered the R.N.C. Britannia as a cadet in September 1902 and was advanced to Sub. Lieutenant in March 1907.

Pioneer submariner

In January 1909, Michell joined the fledgling submarine service and, on qualifying, was appointed to the C. 37, in which he served as No. 1 during a record voyage to Hong Kong in February-April 1911 - a remarkable feat retold in Keble Chatterton’s Amazing Adventure, from which the following extract has been taken:

‘During this memorable voyage every one felt most trying the cramped space, lack of exercise, and being battened down for hour after hour with little air and excessive heat. On a number of occasions it became necessary to stop cooking, and in fine weather an electric boiler was rigged up abaft the conning-tower. For most of the journey C. 37 carried only two officers, which meant watch-and-watch, four hours on and four hours off by day, but at night three hours on and off. The seamen were in four watches at the wheel, and the engine-room staff worked in four watches likewise. In a surface ship, during almost any weather, you can at least walk about, but here in these boats no space was available, so that personnel used to suffer a good deal of cramp.’

Honorary Venetian submariner - a brace of Italian gongs

By the outbreak of hostilities, Michell was serving as a Lieutenant and C.O. of the C. 28, but it was not until his transfer to Venice in 1916 that he gained his first accolades, namely the Al Valore Militare (London Gazette 17 November 1917 refers), and the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus (London Gazette 7 August 1918 refers), the former distinction in recognition of his ‘bravery and seaman like skill displayed in the execution of an operational cruise in B. 10 between 2-4 July 1916 in the Adriatic’ (his service record refers).



Indeed Michell carried out a number of successful war patrols in the B. 10, up until the submarine’s destruction at the hands of an Austro-Hungarian seaplane in a raid on Venice on 9 August 1916 - a fine operational record which receives due coverage in We Dive at Dawn, by Kenneth Edwards. Here, by way of example, a hair-raising encounter with a mine:

‘The first line of defence on the Straits of Otranto were the submarines. North of the “barrage” of surface patrols was a large area, extending well to the north of Cattaro, in which Allied submarines maintained diving patrols in the hope of catching the enemy submarines on their way to and from their advanced base at Cattaro. The submarines, and particularly those capable of laying mines, often went on more extended patrols to the immediate approaches to Pola and Fiume.

This was particularly exciting work, for the numerous islands were fortified and the channels heavily mined. B. 10 (Lieutenant Michell) was on one of these expeditions when she had a curious experience with a mine. She had been ordered to search the Istrian Islands, south of Fiume, and had on board an Istrian pilot. She was diving at a depth of 50 feet through a strongly fortified and mined channel, and the water was so clear that it was possible to keep an under-water look-out through the periscope, although the range of vision was of course limited. Michell was at the periscope when he saw a large cylindrical mine right head, about 6 feet above B. 10’s bows. The submarine’s helm was put over in an attempt to avoid it. But the mine swung with the submarine’s bows, and came gently to rest on B. 10’s port forward hydroplane. Michell let the Istrian pilot have a look at it through the periscope, and the poor man nearly fainted.

Michell was thinking quickly. To try to rise would probably mean touching one of the mine-horns and being blown to pieces. Moreover, it would have been certain destruction to come to the surface in that strongly fortified and narrow channel. He put B. 10’s hydroplane hard to dive and increased to full speed. In his own words, “In about a couple of minutes I had the joy of seeing the mooring severed and the mine shoot up past the tip of my periscope, which gave me rather a shock for the moment.” One can imagine that it would. Things look queer under water, and periscopes sometimes play odd tricks. Long after the War a certain submarine captain was very worried for several minutes by a baleful eye which kept looking into his at the periscope. The other periscope revealed that it was a curious seagull, perched on the top of the periscope and leaning over to stare into the top glass.

B. 10 did not survive for long after her encounter with the mine. A few weeks later Michell was in the wardroom of the depot ship when the air alarm sounded. Thirty seconds afterwards there was a crash. B. 10, lying alongside, had been hit by a bomb, and had disappeared when her captain looked over the side of the depot ship.’

Home waters - “sub-on-sub” D.S.C.

On returning home at the end of 1916, Michell was given command of the E. 50, in which capacity he won his D.S.C. for ramming and crushing an enemy submarine below the surface in the North Sea on 21 April 1917. We Dive at Dawn takes up the story:

‘E. 50 (Lieutenant-Commander Michell) was the submarine which had the temerity to ram a German submarine when both boats were submerged. Like so many other submarine encounters, this happened near the North Hinder Lightship. The collision was, in the first place, accidental, Michell’s account of the incident is characteristically brief and simple. British submarine officers will never “spread” themselves, even about the most amazing experiences. It did not apparently occur to Michell that there was anything brave or unusual in trying to carry a U-boat down to the bottom of the sea in a death-grip and there crush her against the sea-bed. Michell’s account reads:

‘I was diving with my periscope awash at about 2 knots on patrol, when there was a crash forward, and on looking through the periscope, I perceived the tail and bridge of a German submarine slowly emerging on my port bow. I saw at once that she was under me and must be severely damaged, so I decided to endeavour to take her down with me, and if possible crush her on the bottom. So I flooded my amidship tanks and went down to 80 feet with her, when she sounded as if she had scraped clear. I then had a rather difficult task in regaining stability, and slowly rose to periscope depth.

I observed a lot of oil on the surface, but no submarine, so considered it not unlikely that the manoeuvre had been successful. I remained diving until dark with some difficulty, as I found out afterwards that the 9-inch shaft of my port forward hydroplane had been snapped off just outside the hull. In addition, some of my port tanks were leaking. I returned to Harwich that night for repairs, and believe that later on the U-boat was able to regain the surface and return to her base.’

The U-boat did get back, but she was badly damaged, and the morale of her crew had suffered from their experience of submarine “all-in” wrestling in the depths. Not so Michell and his crew. To them a dead U-boat was the primary consideration, and overrode the natural inclination to come to the surface as soon as possible when damaged.’

As if Michell had not already experienced enough adventures as a submariner, he next played an important role in rescuing survivors from the K. 13 following her disappearance on her final acceptance trials off Gareloch on 29 January 1917. Commanded by Lieutenant-Commander G. Herbert, R.N., K. 13’s normal complement of 53 officers and men had swollen to 80 due to the addition of civilian contractors and assorted naval staff, and of these passengers 30 were killed when the submarine hit the bottom and partially flooded. Fortuitously for the survivors, Michell was on hand in the E. 50, and suspecting something untoward had occurred, sent word to the Clyde for salvage gear. And, in the fullness of time, divers managed to connect a high-pressure airline to the stricken submarine’s hull, thereby saving those aboard - all of whom were evacuated through a hole burned in the hull by oxy-acetylene equipment; see Don Everitt’s The K Boats for a full account of the incident.

Appointed to the command of a Motor Launch Hydrophone Flotilla at Newlyn in July 1917, Michell was advanced to Lieutenant-Commander that October and was next borne on the books of the Landrail in early 1918, in which capacity he ended the War as Senior Officer of a Norwegian Convoy Destroyer Escort Flotilla.

North Russia 1919 - monitors and a “mention”

In April 1919, he was appointed to the command of the monitor M. 33, and shortly thereafter ordered to North Russia - with her shallow draught and a pair of 6-inch guns, M. 33 was ideal for carrying out bombardments in support of the Anglo-Russian Expeditionary Force.

Michell first went into action on the Dvina River 19 June, when the M. 33 and her consorts bombarded Bolshevik troops and shipping during an offensive to capture the high ground between Topsa and Troitsa. A passage having then been cleared through an enemy minefield, the M. 33 made her way - under a heavy fire - to Troitsa, where, on 9 July, the Bolsheviks launched a fierce attack. Of subsequent events, an officer of the gunboat Cricket stated:

‘The enemy gunboats, however, soon began to take a hand in the business and we therefore advanced, in company with M. 33, to engage them, and a pretty hot action followed. We took up position close under the cliffs on the right bank, where continuous machine-gun fire still resounded through the woods, but at a good distance inland. The enemy seemed to have got our position well marked off, and was getting unpleasantly close. We therefore shifted our position and closed the range. Just as we passed under the stern of M. 33, a cloud of black smoke shot up from amidships and it was evident she was hit. She was not badly damaged, the shot having only destroyed the ward-room, sparing the wine store, as the Captain [Michell] cheerfully informed us as we passed. Together we continued the action for another half-hour or so, shifting place to place, and the enemy, according to his usual tactics, ceased fire and retired behind his river bank.’

Relative peace having intervened, events took a turn for the worse at noon, when, to complicate matters, a White Russian battalion mutinied:

‘Without the slightest warning, a perfect storm of machine-gun and rifle fire broke out from the woods on the bank, at a range of about 50 yards. The few on deck scuttled for cover, or froze like rabbits behind anything handy. For what seemed like a very long time, but was probably only a few minutes, the enemy had it all his own way, the bullets beating on the side and upper works with a deafening clatter, like the noise of an automatic riveter, sweeping across the deck and lashing the water into foam ... ’

Then in preparation for an Allied offensive on 9 August, M. 33 took two more hits from enemy batteries at Selmenga Road. Notwithstanding damage caused on that occasion, she was back in action for the main event the following day:

‘When trouble was announced at Borok, the Navy soon set to work and banged shell after shell into the village. The result of that shoot was exceedingly beneficial to the infantry, who were not having too pleasant a time in front of Borok. All through the afternoon the guns of the Navy dropped shells on to points selected for special treatment. They enjoyed the hurricane bombardment of Seltso amazingly ... as one Naval officer described it, ‘A pleasing sight was to see Seltso on fire, the whole sky glowing a beautiful red. I suppose this was an everyday sight for the Army, but I must confess it impressed us vastly, as it seemed such a fitting climax.’ ’

The offensive was a complete success, the enemy suffering some 3,700 casualties in addition to the loss of considerable quantities of military supplies. But in the subsequent evacuation of the Naval flotilla, the river level became so low that M. 25 and M. 27 ran aground, could not be refloated, and had to be destroyed. For her own part, the M. 33 safely reached Archangel at the month’s end: and today may be seen in a dry-dock at Portsmouth harbour.

Michell was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 17 October 1919 refers), and recommended for early promotion, but the latter distinction was denied him.

Between the Wars - M.V.O. and Royal Humane Society’s Medal

Having then served as Senior Officer of the Danube Motor Launch Flotilla from November 1919 until September 1920, and been employed as senior Lieutenant-Commander in the battleship Revenge, Michell was appointed C.O. of the minesweeper Truro, in which capacity he was awarded the M.V.O. for escorting the royal yacht during King George V’s visit to Cowes in 1925. While in the following year, as mentioned above, he added the Royal Humane Society’s Bronze Medal to his accolades, the Society’s records stating:

‘At 21.00 hours on 18 November 1926, attempting suicide, a woman threw herself into the river, 30 feet from the side, at a depth of eight feet. Michell jumped in from a dinghy, caught her and they were picked up by a boat from a ship.’

Michell, who was serving as an instructor at the London Division, R.N.V.R. training establishment President at the time of the above incident, was placed on the Retired List as a Commander in April 1931, following a period of attachment to the Royal Australian Navy.

Greece and Crete - D.S.O. and another D.S.C.

Recalled on the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, he was appointed Sea Transport Officer (S.T.O.) at Dieppe, but returned to take up an appointment at Portsmouth in April 1940. Then in the following year he joined the Staff of the Senior Naval Officer in Athens, which appointment led to his subsequent awards of the D.S.O. and second D.S.C.

In the closing days of April 1941, in what was code-named “Operation Demon”, the Royal Navy plucked over 50,000 troops to safety from assorted Greek beaches and harbours at Kalamata, Kithera, Megara, Milo, Monemyasia, Nauplia, Raphina and Tolon. And in his capacity as Sea Transport Officer (S.T.O.), with command of a flotilla of caiques and local craft, Michell performed a pivotal role in the operation’s success.

And glimpses of the gallant Michell’s at work are to be found in Heckstall-Smith’s Greek Tragedy, initially as S.T.O. at Piraeus:

‘Helped by the Greek Navy, Michell and his party, braving the hazard of mines, moved other transports under steam or by tow to the small ports of Volos and to the roadsteads of Eleusis, Scaramanga and Keratsini. They performed astonishing feats of seamanship and were repeatedly dive-bombed. Often, the vessels they had struggled so hard to save were sunk under them or blown to pieces before their precious cargoes could be off-loaded. But in spite of their courage and determination, from that fateful night Piraeus virtually ceased to exist as a port. The hours that members of the German Legation in Athens had spent watching our troops and supplies landing at Piraeus had paid a handsome dividend.’

With Piraeus all but closed to traffic, Michell was next ordered to form a flotilla of caiques and other local craft, in order to assist in the imminent evacuation of our troops. Rear-Admiral H. T. Baillie-Grohman, the Flag Officer attached Middle East, refers to this directive in his relevant despatch - see the London Gazette of 19 May 1948 for all the relevant despatches, as received by Admiral “ABC” Cunningham, the C.-in-C. Mediterranean:

‘I could appreciate at once that the bottle-neck of any evacuation would be the small craft required for ferrying troops to H.M. Ships and transports from the beaches. It would have been a bad risk to use what quays were, left available at Piraeus, and Kalamai in the S.W. Morea was the only other port with quays. A "Caique and Local Craft Flotilla” was formed this day [17 April 1941] under the direction of Commander K. Michell (of the Divisional Sea Transport Officer's Staff) with military and Greek representatives, its purpose being to charter and fit out as many caiques, motor boats and local craft as possible. As it turned out hundreds of soldiers owe their escape to caiques and small craft taken up in this manner.’

But the caiques came at a cost. Greek Tragedy takes up the story:

‘So far as small craft were concerned, it was lucky that at the time they were most needed, Commander Kenneth Michell, then working on the D.S.T.O’s staff, had already been ordered to charter as many caiques as he could to be used as minesweepers in Egypt and on the supply run to Tobruk. For this purpose he had drawn ten million drachma from the Legation funds. But with the Germans on their doorsteps, the Greek ship owners had not only asked extortionate charter rates, but had demanded payment in gold on arrival in Alexandria. However, by offering a month’s payment in advance, Michell had managed to collect together about a dozen caiques.’

Greek Tragedy also refers to Michell’s final operation:

Kenneth Michell and Lieutenant Trevor in the Thalia made for Aegena when the evacuation ended at Megara at three o’clock in the morning of 26 April. At dawn, as they neared the port, they were dive-bombed, but escaped damage.

At Aegena, they were refused entry by the harbour-master on the grounds that their presence would attract the enemy bombers. Michell then proceeded to another small port five miles farther south, but there again he was turned away.

By then, it was after six o’clock and broad daylight, and Michell knew that his chances of survival were slight unless he found shelter. But, at seven o’clock, as she was heading for the entrance of the harbour at Metharia, Thalia was once more dive-bombed and machine-gunned. During these attacks, while Michell was dodging the bombs, one of his Greek crew jumped overboard.

At Metharia, the Thalia was coldly told to go away. But Michell insisted on being allowed ashore, where he demanded a motor-boat to search for the missing man. After an hour’s search, it was discovered that he had been rescued by a fishing boat. However, by the time Michell returned to the Thalia, he found that her Greek crew had deserted her.

‘This,’ as he wrote in his report, ‘made things rather difficult, as I did not want to spend the rest of the war in Metharia. Also, I had about seven million drachmas on board which I did not want to fall into the hands of the Germans or anyone else.  So I got hold of a policeman and a doctor, who said they would find me another crew.’

By sunset, when he had taken on three volunteers to form a skeleton crew, and was preparing to leave, the original crew returned and said they were now willing to sail.

Throughout the next day, Thalia was repeatedly bombed off the eastern coast of the Peloponnesus. But, by a miracle, she came through unharmed to reach Kythera and anchor south of Port Makri before daylight on 28 April.

There were several caiques in the harbour that were waiting to sail for Crete that night. And ashore hundreds of soldiers were hiding, and Michell and his crew joined them, for he was confident that none of his men would elect to desert in an island from which everyone was trying to escape.

At ten o’clock, he re-embarked his crew together with some 100 soldiers, and set off at full speed for Crete.’

He was awarded the D.S.O.

As is well-known, Crete quickly went the same way as Greece, Michell this time serving as the Senior Sea Transport Officer (S.S.T.O.) at Suda Bay, in which capacity, as cited above, he displayed ‘complete disregard of personal danger and took immediate action to put out fires, board damaged ships and organise fire and salvage parties.’

Awarded a Bar to his D.S.C., he attended an investiture at Buckingham Palace on 8 December 1942, when he also received his earlier award of the D.S.O. - a memorable day indeed, for his son Richard was also present to receive the D.S.C. for his gallantry in the Bismarck action.

Journey’s end

Following his gallant exploits in Greece and Crete, Michell returned to the U.K. to take command of Northney II, the Landing Craft Base at Hayling Island, and he remained similarly employed until being appointed to the Naval Intelligence Department at the Admiralty in May 1943. In the following year he joined the Staff of the Operations Division (North Africa and the Adriatic), while in the closing weeks of the War he joined the Director of Personnel’s Staff at the Admiralty.

The Commander, whose post-war appointments included time as Master of the M.V. Sir Edward P. Wills II of the R.N. Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen and as Superintendent of the Training Ship Foudroyant, died at Amberley, near Arundel in December 1967.


Lieutenant Richard Burgess Michell, the son of Kenneth Michell, entered the Royal Navy as a Midshipman in May 1936 and was serving as a Sub. Lieutenant in the destroyer Maori on the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. Under Commander Noel Brewer, R.N., Maori quickly saw action off Norway, not least during the evacuation of Nasmos in April 1940, when two near misses from enemy aircraft caused extensive damage and wounded 20 of her crew, five of them mortally.

Commander H. T. “Beaky” Armstrong, D.S.C., R.N. (afterwards D.S.O.* and D.S.C.*), then having been appointed C.O., Maori went on to lend valuable service with Cossack, Sikh and Zulu during the Bismarck action in May 1941 - after creeping up at 25 knots on the enemy’s port quarter, under fire, and delivering a torpedo attack, she and her destroyer consorts clung to their quarry to await the arrival of Tovey’s big guns. One of Maori’s crew later described the moment Bismarck’s shells started to find their range:

‘Armour piercing shells, each weighing a ton, splashed on all sides sending up large plumes of water. One passed under the wireless aerials between the funnels, and, as Maori gathered speed Bismarck changed to shrapnel, shells exploding in the air, fragments passing through the superstructure ... ’

Maori was subsequently present at the Bismarck’s demise, and picked up 24 survivors, and Michell, by now a Lieutenant, was awarded the D.S.C. ‘for mastery, determination and skill in action against the German battleship Bismarck’ (London Gazette 14 October 1941 refers). As stated above, he received his decoration at Buckingham Place on the same day that his father collected a D.S.O. and a Bar to his D.S.C.

Removing to the (ex-U.S.S.) destroyer Ramsey in June 1941, Michell appears to have remained employed in her on the Atlantic run for a year or two, following which he joined the minesweeper Sidmouth in early 1944, and gained a brace of “mentions” (London Gazettes 8 June 1944 and 28 November 1944 refer), the latter in respect of services off Normandy on 5-6 June 1944:

‘The 9th Flotilla, commanded by Commander R. W. B. Thomson in H.M.S. Sidmouth, was responsible for clearing Channel No. 7 [on the approaches to the assault area]. Not only did this flotilla find and cut moored mines, but one or two of the ships found that mines had become foul of their sweeps. This is always an awkward predicament, but far more so when sweeping an all-important channel in which there must be no risk whatever of mines being left. There was only one thing to be done. The ships steamed out of the channel into unswept water although they knew they were in a minefield. Then they cut away their sweeps clear of the channel, streamed new sweeps, and resumed their positions in the sweeping order. It sounds courageous and simple, but it was by no means simple, for steps had to be taken to ensure that not one square yard of the water in the channel was left unswept as a result of these manoeuvres. A little later one of the motor launches sweeping ahead of H.M.S. Sidmouth - it was M.L. 185 - “put up” a mine right ahead of the Sidmouth which would otherwise certainly have claimed her as a casualty’ (Operation Neptune, by Commander Kenneth Edwards, R.N., refers).

Michell ended the War employed at the signalling establishment Mercury II, attained the rank of Lieutenant-Commander in March 1948 and was placed on the Retired List in the mid-1950s; sold with a file of research.