A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners

Pair: Captain A. S. Blues, Mercantile Marine, who received a King’s Commendation for driving off the U-28 in an action off the Scillies in the summer of 1916

British War and Mercantile Marine War Medals 1914-18 (Arthur S. Blues), together with an M.I.D oak leaf representative of a Commendation, extremely fine (3) £200-250

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners.

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Arthur Samuels Blues, who was born in Liverpool in January 1876, first went to sea as an Apprentice in the Aladdin of Liverpool in late 1892, and took his 2nd Mate’s ticket in October 1897 and his 1st Mate’s ticket in March 1901, and was serving in the latter capacity on the occasion of the Stuart being wrecked in Caernarvon Bay in April of the latter year.

Having then qualified as a Master in July 1904 and ‘Extra Master’ in December of the following year, the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914 found him in command of Stentor out in the Far East, a ship of Alfred Holt & Company, by whom he had been employed for several years. Removing to the Theseus at the end of the year, he remained similarly employed until the summer of 1916 - which period witnessed her in action with the U-28 west of the Scillies, when her accurate gunnery drove off the enemy submarine. He was duly commended ‘for zeal and devotion to duty shown in carrying out the trade of the country during the War’, which notice appeared in the London Gazette on 22 December 1916.

Blues commanded several more ships of Alfred Holt & Company before the War’s end, latterly the Astyanax on the North America run, and finally came ashore in the mid-1930s after extensive service in the Far East.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s Commendation Certificate, namely two examples dated 3 August 1917 and 22 September 1920; his Authority to Wear the British War and Mercantile Marine War Medals, with date of issue 11 September 1924; a Certificate of Discharge, dated 31 July 1922; three letters, dated in the period 1917-25, several photographs, and a file of research.