Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

“We cannot visualize the situation from your signal. Bismarck must be sunk at all costs and if to do this it is necessary for King George V to remain on the scene she must do so even if it means towing King George V”
Winston Churchill’s steely signal to Admiral Sir John Tovey

“Great as is our loss in the Hood, the Bismarck must be regarded as the most powerful as she is the newest battleship in the world, and the striking of her from the German Navy is a very definitive simplification of the task of maintaining the effective mastery of the Northern Sea and the maintenance of the Northern Blockade.”
Winston Churchill to the House of Commons, 27 May 1941.

A fine Second World War Bismarck action D.S.M. group of eight awarded to Stoker Petty Officer R. J. Hugill, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his gallant deeds in H.M.S. King George V

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (K. 61658 R. J. Hugill, Ch. Sto., H.M.S. King George V); Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1936-1939 (K. 61658 R. J. Hugill, S.P.O., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (K. 61658 R. J. Hugill, Ch. Sto., H.M.S. Victory), good very fine (8) £3000-3500

D.S.M. London Gazette 14 October 1941:

‘For mastery, determination and skill in action against the German battleship Bismarck.’

The original recommendation states:

‘As Chief Stoker of the oil fuel party he, by his example, leadership, cheerfulness and fine sense of duty, enabled the ship to continue steaming at high speed for the prolonged period of the chase under the most trying and arduous circumstances.’

Robert Jackson Hugill, a native of Redcar, Yorkshire, originally joined the battleship H.M.S. King George V on her commissioning in 1940, under Captain W. R. Patterson, R.N. He was consequently present on the occasion Lord Halifax, the Ambassador to the United States, was conveyed to Annapolis in early 1941, at the Lofoten Islands commando raids in March, and in assorted Atlantic convoys, but it was for his gallantry in May 1941, during the Bismarck episode, that he won his D.S.M.

As the flagship of Admiral Sir John Tovey, the King George V sailed from Scapa Flow on the 22nd, the start of a protracted pursuit of the enemy battleship that much depleted Tovey’s fuel reserves, so much so that by 0845 hours on the 27th, when the Bismarck came within range of her 14-inch guns, she was down to a third of her normal capacity. Notwithstanding such shortages, Tovey turned to fire a broadside and closed to 16,000 yards range, at which point the enemy concentrated all of her remaining guns on the King George V - mercifully, however, though she endured many near misses, none of the enemy’s gunners found their mark:

‘The fire-gong sounded in King George V. On the upper bridge Captain Patterson and his officers, on the lower the Admiral and his officers, waited in tin hats and with cotton wool stuffed in their ears to deaden the sound for the flagship’s opening roar. Within seconds it came, like a small earthquake, the bitter cordite fumes catching at their throats, the explosion of the charges stunning them. The compass bounded out of its binnacle, Guernsey’s tin hat was blown off on to the deck, a pile of signals was sucked upwards like a tornado, scattered to the winds. The salvoes fell as Bismarck was turning to starboard to bring all her guns to bear: great white clumps rose all round her, higher than her foremast. Then it was her turn. In the British ships they saw a ripple of orange fire down the length of her, followed by a pall of cordite smoke, far blacker and thicker than their own. “Time of flight 55 seconds,” announced a keen officer of the Admiral’s staff, and started counting off the time that was left. “For heaven’s sake,” said Tovey, not wanting to know the moment the shell might strike him, “shut up!” Even so they waited anxiously on the bridges of the two battleships for the salvo to arrive, the men of each hoping it was aimed at the other. They felt an instinct to duck, then the thunderbolt fell off Rodney’s bow, short, in a pattern of huge splashes and Guernsey and others in King George V breathed a sigh of relief ... And now Bismarck shifted her fire from Rodney to King George V, and spat out a salvo. Guernsey heard the whine of its approach, saw four tall fountains rise near the fo’c’sle, one short, three over. He wondered if the next would hit, found himself edging into the doorway at the back of the bridge, then remembering it was only splash proof plating, stepped boldly forward.’

Notwithstanding Bismarck’s determined assault, Tovey was able to add the firepower of his 5.25-inch guns on closing the range to 12,000 yards at 0915 hours and, less than an hour later, after watching a succession of ‘shell splashes high as Hiltons and white as Daz’, his adversary was a mass of flames. Ludovic Kennedy’s Pursuit continues:

‘By 10 a.m. the Bismarck was a battered burning wreck, her guns twisted and silent, full of huge holes in her sides and superstructure through which fires glowed and flickered, grey smoke issuing from a hundred cracks and crevices and drifting away on the wind, listing heavily to port, but at the foremast her Admiral’s flag and at the mainmast the German naval ensign still bravely flying. In the British ships they looked at her with awe and admiration, awe that such a magnificent ship should have been reduced to this, admiration that her crew had fought so gallantly to the end. “Pray God I may never know,” said Guernsey, echoing George Whalley, “what those shells did as they exploded inside the hull.” It was a thought shared by many sailors that day, one rarely expressed by airmen who incinerate cities, nor by soldiers of those they kill in tanks.

As they watched, the lifeless ship took life - the enemy in person, a little trickle of figures running along Bismarck’s quarter-deck, climbing the guard-rails and jumping into the sea, unable to stand any more the inferno aboard, welcoming like lemmings death in the cool, kind sea. And presently in the British ships fire was checked, for the Bismarck no longer menaced anyone, her life was almost at an end.’

Following the Bismarck action, Hugill remained actively employed in the King George V until the end of 1944, a period embracing periods of command under Captain P. J. Mack, D.S.O., R.N., from May 1942, and Captain T. E. Halsey, D.S.O., R.N. from February 1943. And he was consequently present in the allied landings in Sicily and at the bombardment of the island of Levanzo and the port of Trapani, and on the occasion Winston Churchill was embarked for his return voyage to the U.K. following the Tehran conference.