A rare Second World War D.S.M. awarded to Able Seaman Cyril Hartley, Royal Navy, for gallantry on land as a member of the ‘Unrotated Projectile’ Battery at the fall of Tobruk, 20 June 1942

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V1.R. (JX.168633 C. Hartley. A.B.) impressed naming, good very fine £1,500-£2,000

D.S.M. London Gazette 20 October 1942: ‘For bravery in action at Tobruk.’

Seedies Roll confirms - ‘U.P. Bty Tobruk. Fall of Tobruk 20 June, 1942.’ Just 4 D.S.Cs. and three D.S.Ms. awarded for the fall of Tobruk, all to members of this most unusual unit.

The original recommendation states: ‘For outstanding courage and devotion to duty in returning a second time to light the demolition charges which had failed to ignite while under constant shell fire from the enemy.’ The recommendation is signed by Lieutenant G. E. E. Somerset, R.N.V.R., Officer Commanding U.P. Battery, H.M. Naval Base, Tobruk, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross on the same occasion.

U.P. was the cover name for one of Churchill’s pet projects, the ‘unrotated projectile’, a short range anti-aircraft rocket, developed for the Royal Navy.

‘Unrotated’ denoted that the projectile was not spin-stabilized. The weapon had 20 smoothbore tubes and fired ten at a time. A small cordite charge was used to ignite a rocket motor which propelled the fin-stabilized 7-inch diameter rocket out of the tube to a distance of about 1,000 feet, where it exploded and released an 8.4 ounce mine attached to three parachutes by 400 feet of wire. The idea was that an aeroplane hitting the wire would draw the mine towards itself where it would detonate.

It was used extensively by British ships during the early days of the Second World War, but proved unreliable and ineffective in operation, prompting the withdrawal of the system during 1941. Tests in the U.K. had suggested that they were too dangerous to the population to be used at home and so they were tried out by the Royal Navy batteries at Tobruk.