Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine M.V.O., Great War boat action D.S.C. group of eleven awarded to Rear-Admiral E. R. Corson, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his gallantry in H.M.S. Fox’s steam cutter at Dar-es-Salaam in November 1914, on which occasion Commander Ritchie won the first Naval V.C. of the War - ‘bullets were raining over and into the boat and through and against the thin iron plates rigged on either side of the boiler and around the coxswain’

The Royal Victorian Order (M.V.O.) Member’s Fourth Class breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, the reverse officially numbered ‘1134’; Distinguished Service Cross, G.V.R., hallmarks for London 1914; Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Persian Gulf 1909-1914 (Lieut. E. R. Corson, R.N., H.M.S. Fox); 1914-15 Star (Lieut. E. R. Corson, D.S.C., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Lt. Commr. E. R. Corson, R.N.); Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; Greece, Order of the Redeemer, Commander’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, in its Huguenin Freres & Co. case of issue, otherwise mounted court-style as worn, together with the recipient’s career menu holder, silver, with engraved appointments from Britannia in 1901 to H.M.S. Resource in 1932, in its Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Co. case, occasional enamel damage, otherwise good very fine (11) £3500-4000

M.V.O. London Gazette 7 July 1922.

D.S.C. London Gazette 10 April 1915:

‘For services during the operations at Dar-es-Salaam on 28 November 1914, when boats’ parties from H.M.S. Fox and Goliath were attacked unexpectedly at the harbour entrance.’

Eric Reid Corson was born in 1887, the son of George Corson of Dumfries and Leeds, and entered the Royal Navy as a cadet in January 1903.

Appointed a Lieutenant (N.) in H.M.S. Fox in July 1912, he witnessed active service in the Persian Gulf (Medal & clasp), and was similarly employed on the outbreak of hostilities, quickly seeing action on 10 August 1914, when Fox captured the German merchantmen Australia and Holtenfels off Columbo, Ceylon, and in early November, when in support of the attack on Tanga in German East Africa.

However, it was for his part in the action at Dar-es-Salaam on 28 November 1914, when boats’ parties from Fox and Goliath were unexpectedly attacked at the harbour entrance, that he won his D.S.C., relieving the mortally wounded Stoker in Fox’s steam cutter under heavy fire. John Winton’s The Victoria Cross at Sea takes up the story:

The first naval VC of the Great War (though not the first to be gazetted) was won in Dar-es-Salaam, which means 'Abode of Peace', the capital of German East Africa.

By the end of October 1914 the German raiding cruiser Konigsberg had been rounded up and trapped in the Rufiji river delta, on the east coast of Africa. Amongst the warships in support of the cruisers who had chased Konigsberg was the old pre-Dreadnought battleship Goliath, whose second-in-command, Commander Henry Peel Ritchie, was given the independent command of Duplex, an old German cable ship converted into an armed auxiliary vessel. In November, Ritchie went to Dar-es-Salaam, where a number of German ships had been keeping Konigsberg supplied, barricaded as she was some miles inland. While Goliath and the old protected cruiser Fox remained outside, Ritchie made his preparations to enter the harbour.

Duplex's engines were unreliable, so a Maxim gun and extra deck protection were fitted to Goliath's steam pinnace, which Ritchie himself drove into Dar-es-Salaam on 28th November, accompanied by Lieutenant Paterson, Goliath's Torpedo Officer, in an ex-German tug called Helmuth, and Lieutenant E. Corson, of Fox, in Fox's steam cutter.

The harbour seemed as peaceful as its name. There were no warships, no sign of hostilities, and two white flags flew as tokens of truce from the harbour signal station flagstaffs. The Governor of Dar-es-Salaam had already agreed that any German ships found in the harbour would be British prizes of war, and could be destroyed or immobilised. While Paterson boarded the Feldmarschall to lay demolition charges and Surgeon Lieutenant Holtom, of Goliath, inspected the bona fides of a hospital ship called Tabora, Ritchie himself boarded the Konig. She was almost deserted. The few people on board were told to get into her boats, and the ship was demobilised by charges exploded under the low-pressure cylinders of her engines.

The next ship, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was also deserted. According to Petty Officer T. J. Clark, the pinnace coxswain, Ritchie's suspicions were aroused by a clip of three Mauser bullets with their pointed ends sawn off, lying on the deck and showing that someone had been preparing small arms for action. Ritchie had never been at ease in the eerie quietness and emptiness of that harbour, and as a precaution had two steel lighters lashed one on either side of the pinnace.

It was as well he did, for they soon heard small arms fire from the main harbour. In spite of the white flags, the Germans were firing on Fox's steam cutter. At once, Ritchie headed Goliath's pinnace out into the harbour, making for the entrance. A storm of fire burst upon them, the Germans firing shells and bullets from huts by the water's edge, from houses in the city, from wooded groves and hills above, even from a cemetery. Without the steel lighters, the pinnace must have been lost. As it was, Clark was hit and Ritchie took over the wheel but he, too, was hit eight times in twenty minutes - on the forehead, in the left hand, twice in the left arm, in his right arm and hip; finally, two bullets through his right leg laid him low and he fainted from loss of blood. Clark, roughly bandaged, took over the wheel from Able Seaman George Upton, and brought the pinnace back alongside Goliath with her decks literally running blood. In retaliation, Goliath opened fire with her main 12-inch guns and flattened the Governor's house.

The stoker of Fox's steam cutter was mortally wounded, steam pressure fell and the cutter slowed down. Lieutenant Corson clambered forward under fire, took the shovel from the dying man and stoked up pressure again. He received the D.S.C.’

Removing to the Caroline in November 1915, Corson was subsequently present at Jutland, when she formed part of the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron - she survives to this day at Belfast, the only Jutland ship still afloat - and his final wartime appointment was in the battleship Canada from May 1918.

Between the Wars he was awarded the M.V.O. for his services as Navigator in the Renown during the Prince of Wales’ tour of India and the East, and served as a Commander aboard the royal yacht Victoria & Albert 1925-29. Having then attained post-rank, he took command of the Resource on the Mediterranean Station and was awarded the Greek Order of the Redeemer for ‘valuable services rendered on the occasion of the earthquake in Chalcidice’ (London Gazette 26 September 1933 refers).

Placed on the Retired List as a Rear-Admiral in 1940, Corson continued to serve as Chief of Staff at Portland until 1942, and then as Deputy Director of Shipbuilding and Repairs in India until the War’s end. He died in August 1972.