Orders, Decorations and Medals

A good Second World War B.E.M. group of eight awarded to Master at Arms R. Calvert, Royal Navy, a veteran of the 1915 Konigsberg operations off East Africa who went on to serve as M.A.A. of the submarine depot ship Cyclops with ‘ruthless efficiency’ in the Second World War
British Empire Medal, G.VI.R., 1st issue, Military (M.A.A. Robert Calvert, C./M. 36386); 1914-15 Star (K. 20773 Sto. 1, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (K. 20773 S.P.O., R.N.); Defence and War Medals, these unnamed; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (M. 36386 R.P.O., H.M.S. Hawkins); Coronation 1953, unnamed, very fine and better (8)
£350-400

B.E.M. London Gazette 1 January 1945. The recommendation states: ‘He has served as Master at Arms of H.M.S. Cyclops since she commissioned nearly five years ago in September 1939. Utterly reliable, and infallible in his knowledge of the King’s Regulations and Service Routine, he is a stickler for discipline and ruthlessly efficient. He has devoted himself entirely to the good of the ship and with complete loyalty to his superiors, and has run the Regulating Department of the depot ship with tireless energy and drive. Although aged 51 he exacts a high standard from himself, and will always be found on duty from early morning till last thing at night.’

Robert Calvert was born in York in December 1892 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in December 1910. A Stoker 1st Class by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, which found him serving in the cruiser H.M.S. Pyramus, he went on to serve in the same ship off East Africa in 1915.

Pyramus arrived from New Zealand off the Rufigi Delta in January 1915, her eight 4-inch guns being a welcome addition to the watch against the Konigsberg. And those same guns went into action on 6 February, when she sunk the Adjutant, which had earlier that day fallen into enemy hands - ‘a conflagration broke forth and the prize was still burning next dawn’. Three days later, in company with the Pioneer and Weymouth, Pyramus returned to try and finish off the job, but, as it transpired, the Germans were eventually able to refloat her. And on the day that the monitors Severn and Mersey so famously engaged and sank the Konigsberg in July 1915, the Pyramus was employed immediately off Rufigi Delta, with the intention of closing the Kikunja mouth so as to engage any guns or entrenchments on the banks. As it transpired, as a result of the high water, the Pyramus was able to get inside the river proper, and ‘fairly deluged both shores’ with her eight 4-inch guns, a bombardment not lost on the ill-fated crew of the Konigsberg.

Retuning to home waters, and following a period ashore at Vivid II in late 1916, Calvert joined the cruiser Doris, and was still aboard her at the end of the War, in the rank of Stoker Petty Officer.

A Master at Arms by the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, Calvert was appointed to the submarine depot ship Cyclops, which establishment was based at Rothesay in the Clyde Estuary. Here he served until the end of the War, a period that saw the depot serving the needs of the 7th Submarine Flotilla, in addition to running a variety of training courses - candidates for the latter included the first intake of X-Craft personnel, shortly to win numerous decorations for their famous strike against the Tirpitz.

The only Robert Calvert on the Coronation 1953 roll is the Senior Custodian of the Lord Great Chamberlain’s Office. With copied research.