The James Fox Collection of Naval Awards

A Great War ‘evacuation of Gallipoli operations’ D.S.M. awarded to Able Seaman C. Gosling, Royal Navy, who had previously served in H.M.S. Canopus during the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (177627 C. Gosling, A.B., Gallipoli Opns., 1915-16) minor contact marks, good very fine £500-£700

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The James Fox Collection of Naval Awards.

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D.S.M. London Gazette 15 May 1916:
‘In recognition of services during the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula, December 1915 to January 1916.’

Claude Gosling was born in London in November 1878 and joined the Royal Navy at Devonport as a Boy Second Class in December 1893, aged 15 years. Released from the service as an Able Seaman in October 1905, he enrolled in the Royal Fleet Reserve and was recalled in August 1914, when he joined the battleship H.M.S. Canopus, a component of the 8th Battle Squadron of the Channel Fleet.

Initially sent to East Africa and the Cape, Canopus later became attached to Sir Christopher Cradock's Squadron which was seeking von Spee's East Asian Squadron in the South-East Pacific. Canopus's maximum speed of only 17 knots meant that she was 300 miles south of the rest of Cradock's Squadron when, at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November 1914, H.M.S. Good Hope and H.M.S. Monmouth were both lost with all hands off the coast of Chile. Sailing to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, she was grounded as a local defence fortress but on 8 December 1914 fired the opening shots of what was to become the Battle of the Falkland Islands. At five miles with guns loaded with practice shells, she achieved the near impossible when one of her shots miraculously skimmed across the water and struck the German cruiser Gneisenau. This persuaded the Germans to break off their attack and allowed the British Squadron, which had arrived at Port Stanley the previous day, to raise steam, up anchor and chase the German Squadron to its destruction.

In February 1915 the Canopus was sent to the Mediterranean to support the ill-fated Dardenelles expedition and whilst in Turkish waters on 28 April, she was damaged by gunfire. Then on 2 May she was involved in a grounding off Gaba Tepe and in October 1915 she assisted in the evacuation of troops from Salonika.

In November 1915, Gosling transferred to the cruiser Europa and following that, on 15 January 1916, after participating in the operations leading to the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula, he transferred to Egmont, the Malta base. He was awarded the D.S.M. and was demobilised in February 1917, following a few months of being placed on the books of Vivid I. In January 1918, however, Gosling was once more recalled, and for a short period he served in his old ship Europa, following which, in March 1919, he was released for a final time.