Orders, Decorations and Medals

Four: Lance-Corporal R. C. Royal, Royal Marine Light Infantry, a veteran of Heligoland Bight 1914, Dogger Bank 1915 and Jutland - at which latter battle he suffered serious burns while serving in H.M.S. Princess Royal - and subsequently a survivor from a torpedoed Defensively Armed Merchant Ship

1914-15 Star (Ch. 11798 Pte. R. C. Royal, R.M.L.I.); British War and Victory Medals (Ch. 11798 L. Cpl. R. C. Royal, R.M.L.I.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (Ch. 11798 R. C. Royal, Private, R.M.L.I.), mounted as worn, the third with officially re-impressed naming, generally very fine (4) £200-250

Robert Charles Royal was born in Battersea, London, in August 1883 and enlisted in the Royal Marine Light Infantry in September 1900.

Drafted to the battle cruiser H.M.S. Princess Royal in September 1914, Royal was subsequently present at Heligoland Bight, Dogger Bank, when his ship obtained hits on the Blucher, and at Jutland, where, as verified by his service record, he was seriously wounded, suffering ‘burns of face and hands’. On the latter occasion, as part of the 1st Battle Cruiser Squadron, the Princess Royal took numerous hits and sustained over one hundred casualties. Her charismatic captain, Walter Cowan - that famous “fire-eater” who preferred to spend his leave in the trenches and wept when peace was declared, and who added a second D.S.O. to his accolades in the 1939-45 War with No. 2 Commando - summarised the damage inflicted on Princess Royal in the following terms:

‘In Princess Royal one turret was punched through the armour and out of action, two out of the three struts of the tripod mast carrying the control tower were shot through and the mast was consequently somewhat of an anxiety should the sea get up. Twenty-five percent of the auxiliary armament was also out of action from heavy shell bursts inside and below - one in the canteen, where 10,000 eggs were blown to pieces with the bodies of the two poor servers lying in the middle of the mess. Fore and aft, the upper deck casings and funnels were riddled with shell splinters, and there was a shell through the Admiral’s cabin. These damages are all I can recollect, and the engines were intact. We had over a hundred casualties.’

On recovering from his wounds, Royal was drafted for service in Defensively Armed Merchant Ships (D.A.M.S.), and he was serving in one such vessel, the Alice Marie, when she was torpedoed by the UB-31 off Start Point, Devon on 19 December 1917 - the ship sank but all hands were rescued. Post-war, he was awarded six shillings and a penny from the prize fund for the sinking of the Blucher, and he was finally discharged in August 1922; sold with a file of research.