Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte

A rare Great War East Africa operations D.S.M. group of five awarded to Yeoman of the Signals D. Greenshields, Royal Navy, a long served crew member of the monitor H.M.S. Severn who was present at the sinking of the Konigsberg in July 1915, the hit and run raid on Tanga that August, and in a subsequent action in the Rufiji Delta in which he was wounded - so, too, in the attack on Simba Urange in May 1916, when he was shot at by a concealed German signaller

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (144628 D. Greenshields, Yeo. Sigs., H.M.S. Severn, Tanga, 19 Aug. 1915); 1914-15 Star (144628 D. Greenshield, Y.S., R.N.), note surname spelling; British War and Victory Medals (144628 D. Greenshields, Y.S., R.N.); Khedive’s Star, undated, mounted as worn, minor contact wear, generally very fine or better (5) £3000-3500

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.M. London Gazette 14 July 1916.

Daniel Greenshields was born in Tynemouth, Northumberland, in January 1872, and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in January 1888. Having then qualified as a Signalman, he served in the gunboat H.M.S. Sandfly between August 1890 and December 1893, in which period he qualified for his undated award of the Khedive’s Star for transport duties. Passing for Yeoman of the Signals in May 1908, he was pensioned ashore in March 1912, but as a result of a ‘Fair’ assessment on his service record, he was not awarded the L.S. & G.C. Medal.

Recalled on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Greenshields joined the recently launched monitor Severn, in which ship he quickly saw action off the Belgian coast, when in October her guns were called upon to slow the German advance. But it was her subsequent commission off the coast of East Africa that Severn, and her sister ship Mersey, won fame, both ships being ideally suited to coastal waters with a draught of just over four feet when fully loaded - indeed it was just such credentials that convinced the Admiralty to send them to East Africa in the first place.

Destruction of the Konigsberg

Thus ensued two spectacular clashes with the Konigsberg, both of them fought in the Rufigi Delta in July 1915, and the second of them ending in the enemy cruiser’s demise. After the first engagement on the 6th, during which the Severn had to continue alone with the enemy’s salvoes straddling her, both monitors retired to assess their situation - but in the sure knowledge that Severn had certainly gained some hits, as well as knocking out an enemy observation party hiding in a tree on the bank. What followed in the second attack on the 11th was far more convincing, the fire of the monitors being well-directed by the spotting instructions of Flight Commander Cull, R.N.A.S. Corbett’s History of the Great War (Naval Operations) takes up the story:

‘One salvo was fired at the Mersey but after that the Konisberg concentrated on the Severn. For a mile she steamed on under a rain of salvoes, untouched until about 12.30 she was securely anchored and could open fire. By this time Flight Commander Cull was again ready to spot for her. Seven salvoes were fired before he got her on, but the eighth was a hit. After that “Hit” came in almost continuously. In ten minutes the Konigsberg was firing only three guns ... The Severn’s guns were trained further aft to get the target amidships and at 12.52 a large explosion was seen, followed by thick clouds of smoke. Amidst the cheers that greeted the success ... the doomed ship was now clearly blazing from stem to stern. The monitors were recalled by the Admiral at 2.30 and so ended the last of the German cruisers on the high seas.’

Subsequent Honours and Awards included five D.S.Ms to the Severn and four D.S.Ms to the Mersey, to which tally Greenshields added another D.S.M. for his part in a daring raid on Tanga.

The raid on Tanga

On 19 August 1915, in company with the whalers Pickle and Fly, H.M.S. Severn participated in a highly successful ‘hit and run’ raid on Tanga Harbour, Zanzibar. As one crew member remarked, it was ‘a hotter corner to be in than when we went up against the Konigsberg’. The main objective of this gallant little force was the destruction of the Markgraf, late of the German East Africa Line. Using her comparatively minimal fire power to good effect, the Severn finished off the latter vessel in just under ten minutes, raking her with ‘capped common shell’ and ‘tearing big holes in her side’ with a closing volley of three 6-inch lyddite. She afterwards engaged a mine-laden lighter which ‘went up in a huge explosion’ and shot up the German signal tower round Ras Kasone Point. Once again, the Severn had made her mark.

Return to the Rufiji Delta

On 14 September 1915, in company with H.M.S. Echo, the Severn returned to her old hunting ground in the Rufiji Delta. After engaging the German shore batteries she ran down an enemy boat attempting to cross the river and took several prisoners, but after a less successful confrontation with a large steamship which found refuge in a creek near the Kiomboni arm of the river, Severn was prepared for the return journey. Once again she engaged the enemy shore batteries but this time she was hit by a heavy calibre shell which caused ‘a good deal of structural damage’. The Severn's Captain also reported that ‘Yeoman of the Signals Daniel Greenshields, who was on the bridge, was slightly wounded by shell splinters’.

The attack on Simba Urange

On 5 May 1916, Severn was back in action in an attack on Simba Urange, on which occasion Greenshields was landed with a party under Major W. B. Brook, the Military Commandant and Resident of Mafia, comprising 35 Africans and Severn’s Surgeon, the whole landed by motor boat and gig - ‘proceeding a couple of miles through dense jungle, they struck a path ... It was a strange, savage, terrain of mango trees, overgrown by abundant bush, and over this the party began to advance in extended formation, officers and men very much on the qui vive, expectant of surprises, keeping a sharp lookout against sudden ambush and machine-guns hidden among trees’. So states Severn’s Saga, in which Keble Chatterton recounts how this party set off in pursuit of a German signaller by the name of Allett and how Greenshields nearly lost his life. In the latter’s own words:

"After skirmishing over a lot of ground and thick bush, and more swamps, we came in sight of a lot of huts and roughly-made houses. The troops on our right had pushed on ahead of us and were up to the huts, and captured three natives. They were brought in front of Major Brook and questioned. It was found from their information that the place was evacuated some months ago, but that there was one white man left behind with telephone communicating with white men at Kikunja mouth on the mainland. One of the natives taken was this white man's servant, and he took us to his house. We fully expected to capture him, but when we got close more natives were seen, one trying to get away, but he was caught. We found out that the white man had left hurriedly, and this native took us to where he had gone ... ”

“I had got ahead of the party,” relates Greenshields, “and with one native soldier, who had got further ahead of his section, went round a bush to make for a ladder which carried the telephone wire to Newbridge's masts, when I nearly stepped upon a white man lying prone on his stomach with his rifle at the present. He fired point blank at me, and I was taken by surprise. My pistol was in the holster and before I could get it out - and me falling down behind a bush as well, and calling out "Here he is!" - he managed to shift his position into the bushes.”

Breathless moment! Allett only two yards away ... pressing his trigger ... and the shot rang out into silence ... but missed!

The fugitive took speedy advantage of his great luck, for the vigilant man behind the Maxim gun aboard Newbridge on hearing this rifle imagined the sniper was aiming at Lieutenant Lewis' party, so answered with a spray of lead into the very bushes wherein Greenshields and his comrades had barely retired. Lying down, the latter sought to evade this spatter, but it continued in such a downpour that Greenshields as signalman had to go into the open along the bank and request the gun to cease. It was firing from only 50 yards away.

Now this misunderstanding enabled Allett to disappear once more, creeping his way through the bushes. But the hounds were still working around. Sending half his party to dismantle the telephone wire, Major Brook set the others to probe the thick growth. At last they got on the German’s track, followed it for a considerable distance, hung about for most of an hour, but Allett managed to get clean away into concealment. Such was his haste that in the bushes his pursuers came across the two obsolete rifles, together with the missing telephone receiver. Greenshields, too, picked up the empty cartridge as a personal souvenir of his own most narrow elusion from death. Not that the memory ever forfeits recollection of such an episode. “I could see him taking aim along the barrel. I could have touched him.” ’

The gallant Greenshields remained employed in the Severn until December 1917, when he returned home to an appointment in Vivid II, but he returned to sea with an appointment in the drifter Vigorous from April 1918 until the end of the War. He was demobilised in February 1919.