Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A very rare Great War group of six awarded to Chief Stoker H. E. Woodland, Royal Navy, who was decorated by the Russians and the Roumanians for his part in the battle of Jutland aboard the destroyer H.M.S. Onslow, in addition to being officially commended by Their Lordships on the same occasion: the epic return voyage of the badly damaged Onslow, in the company of the Defender, was subsequently described by Kipling as the voyage of ‘the Cripple and the Paralytic’
1914-15 Star (297947 S.P.O., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (297947 S.P.O., R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (297947 S.P.O., H.M.S. Woolwich); Russian Cross of St. George, 4th class, the reverse officially numbered ‘091247’; Roumanian Distinguished Conduct Medal, 1st class, with swords, the fourth with one or two minor official corrections, contact marks, very fine or better (6) £1200-1500

Henry Ernest Woodland was born in Pagham, Sussex in December 1879 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in July 1901. Advanced to Stoker Petty Officer in January 1913, he was serving aboard the battleship H.M.S. Hercules on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, and remained similarly employed until coming ashore in October 1915. Removing to the destroyer Onslow in April 1916, he was present at Jutland, in which action his ship gained distinction for her many bold attacks on the enemy. Captain Donald McIntyre’s Jutland takes up the story:

‘An heroic epic meanwhile had been taking place between the lnes which demonstrated the apparent indestructibility of German warships. The light cruiser, Wiesbaden, disabled by Hood’s battle cruisers, had being lying motionless, a target for every ship that came by.
The first to come upon her was the Third Light Cruiser Squadron which poured a concentrated fire into her before shifting their aim to more worthwhile targets. Then a solitary destroyer, the Onslow, stationed on the Lion’s starboard bow, moving out to deliver a daring attack on the enemy’s battle cruisers, realised that, though disabled, the Wiesbaden was in a good position to fire torpedoes at Beatty’s line. Opening fire, no less than 58 salvoes were poured into the hapless cruiser at point-blank range before the Onslow passed on to her main objective. Still the Wiesbaden remained, her flag proudly flying, her guns feebly and intermittently in action.
Lieutenant-Commander Tovey of the Onslow (one day to be Commander-in-Chief of Britain’s Home Fleet in another war with Germany and later Admiral of the Fleet Lord Tovey of Matravers) had bigger game in sight. He found that he was in a good position to move in to the attack of the German battle cruisers. With incredible temerity he headed his solitary little ship for a point advantage on their bow and, at a range of 8,000 yards, turned to fire torpedoes. Not surprisingly he was by now under heavy fire and, even as he turned, two shells struck amidships near the torpedo tubes. Unknown to their captain, the tubes’ crews managed to get only one of his four torpedoes away ... Meanwhile, Tovey was returning in the Onslow from his gallant and spirited attack on Hipper’s battle cruisers. He had just discovered that he had three unexpended torpedoes in his tubes when, to his astonishment, he saw that the Wiesbaden was still afloat. Closing to within 3,500 yards of her, he put a torpedo squarely into her below the conning tower. Even with this shattering blow the Wiesbaden showed no signs of sinking, but as more important targets for his torpedoes at this moment appeared, Tovey sheered off and left her again.
Into sight had come the van of the German battle line, a target which, even with his crippled ship capable of no more than ten knots, he felt was too good to miss.
Accepting the almost certain destruction of his ship that must result, Tovey turned fearlessly towards the enemy and went in to the attack. But his torpedoes, like so many fired that day, found no billet in an enemy ship. Fortunately, it was at this moment that Arbuthnot’s squadron advanced to attack the Wiesbaden and drew the enemy’s fire with fatal consequences to themselves while the Onslow limped away to safety.

As recounted in The Fighting at Jutland, the badly damaged Onslow’s epic return journey to Aberdeen, in the company of another ‘lame duck’, the Defender, took 48 worrying hours, and was sufficiently impressive to attract the attention of Rudyard Kipling, who dubbed the pair of them the Cripple and the Paralytic in his work The Destroyers at Jutland:

‘Mark how virtue is rewarded! Another of our destroyers an hour or so previously had been knocked clean out of action, before she had done anything, by a big shell which gutted a boiler-room and started an oil fire. (That is the drawback to oil.) She crawled out between the battleships till she “reached an area of comparative calm” and repaired damage. She says: “The fire having been dealt with it was found a mat kept the stokehold dry. My only trouble now being lack of speed, I looked round for useful employment, and saw a destroyer in great difficulties, so closed her.” That destroyer was our paralytic friend of the intermittent torpedo-tubes [i.e. the Onslow] and a grateful ship she was when her crippled sister (but still good for a few knots) offered her a tow, “under very trying conditions with large enemy ships approaching.” So the two set off together, Cripple and Paralytic, with heavy shells falling round them, as sociable as a couple of lame hounds. Cripple worked up to 12 knots, and the weather grew vile, and the tow parted. Paralytic, by this time, had raised steam in a boiler or two, and made shift to get along slowly on her own, Cripple hirpling beside her, till Paralytic could not make any more headway in that rising sea, and Cripple had to tow her once more. Once more the tow parted. So they tied Paralytic up rudely and effectively with a cable round her after bollards and gun (presumably because of strained forward bulkheads) and hauled her stern-first, through heavy seas, at continually reduced speeds, doubtful of their position, unable to sound because of the seas, and much pestered by a wind which backed without warning, till, at last, they made land, and turned into the hospital appointed for brave wounded ships ... ’

Both of Woodland’s foreign awards are confirmed in appropriate Admiralty orders, as indeed is his commendation for Jutland. He remained in the Onslow until the end of the War, added a mention in despatches to his accolades in 1918, and was finally pensioned ashore in July 1923.