Orders, Decorations and Medals

Eight: Chief Petty Officer D A Fox, Royal Navy

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals, these all impressed, ‘J.114745 D. A. Fox, C.P.O., H.M.S. Royal Arthur’; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (J.114745 P.O., H.M.S. Drake); Civil Defence Long Service, impressed, ‘Mr D. A. Fox C.R.O. Wiltshire C.D. C.1950-1968’, mounted court style as worn, contact marks, nearly very fine and better (10) £120-150

Donald Albert Fox was born in Erlestoke, Wiltshire on 23 November 1908. Served throughout the Second World War in the Royal Navy. As a Petty Officer based at H.M.S. Hamilcar, he was wounded on 11 May 1943. The particulars of his wounding are given in his Wound Certificate: ‘Going rounds of Sentry Posts and checking as to whether sentries had survived bombs of a few minutes before. Threw himself to the ground as another bomb exploded. Blast caused dullness of hearing, a discharge from the Right Ear, and Haemoptysis. Piece of shrapnel lodged in Right Scapular Region.’ Post-war he was a member of the Civil Defence, 1950-68 - serving as a County Rescue Instructor/officer.

H.M.S. Hamilcar was a shore base at Djedjelli, Algeria, commissioned in February 1943; transferred to Messina, Sicily in June 1944. It acted as a base for Combined Operations personnel in the Central and Western Mediterranean and a base for landing craft. It was aptly named after the Carthaginian commander Hamilcar Barca, the father of Hannibal.

With Mediterranean Fleet Rifle Meeting Medal, bronze, unnamed, with brooch bar, in case; and a Prize Medal, obverse, a harp, reverse inscribed, ‘T.S. Mercury Donald Fox, Xmas 1924’, silver, in case; Certificate for Wounds and Hurts, 11 May 1943; Report of Wound or Hurt Certificate; Daily Mail Small-Bore Rifle Competition Prize Certificate, 25 January 1946; Birth Certificate; photographs of the recipient in uniform; postcard photographs of warships; and copied research.