Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Seven: Chief Yeoman of the Signals E. S. Calvert, Royal Navy

Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1936-39 (JX. 128732 Y.S., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Italy Star; War Medal 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (JX. 128732 C.Y.S., H.M.S. Newfoundland) nearly extremely fine (7) £250-300

Mention in Despatches London Gazette 1 January 1942.

Edward Summers Calvert won his ‘mention’ for services aboard the minesweeper sloop Halcyon, which ship participated in the Dunkirk and Norwegian operations of 1940, including the Lofoten raids in December of that year (“Operation Anklet”). More than probably Calvert’s ‘mention’ partially reflected services in these operations, but whether he was still aboard Halcyon some six months after his award was gazetted remains unknown. If so, he witnessed first hand the harrowing Arctic convoy P.Q. 17.

Afterwards removing to the cruiser H.M.S. Newfoundland, aboard which ship he was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in March 1943, he would have witnessed the actions that led to her winning the Battle Honours “Mediterranean 1943” and “Sicily 1943”, among them the bombardments of Pantellaria and Lampedusa, when she was acting as the flagship of Admiral Harcourt and the 15th Cruiser Squadron. So, too, in the very month that he received his L.S. & G.C. Medal, did Calvert experience the sharp end of the enemy’s presence in the Mediterranean theatre, when the Newfoundland was torpedoed on passage to Malta by the Italian submarine Ascianghi on the 27 March 1943. Undergoing a lengthy refit at Boston, U.S.A., she ended the War with the British Pacific Fleet.