Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A good Second World War M.B.E. group of seven awarded to Warrant Engineer W. G. Rockey, Royal Navy, an ex-submariner who went on to distinguish himself in destroyers in anti-U-boat operations

The Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Military) 2nd type, in Royal Mint case of issue; British War Medal 1914-20 (M. 26972 B. Art., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 3rd issue, coinage head (M. 26972 E.R.A. 2, H.M.S. Dolphin), mounted as worn unless otherwise stated, very fine and better (7) £280-320

M.B.E. London Gazette 11 June 1942.

Walter Gage Rockey was born in Tavistock, Devonshire in May 1901 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy Artificer in July 1917 at the training establishment Indus. His first seagoing appointment was not until February 1922, when he joined the battleship Resolution, but in February 1924 he volunteered for submarines. Thus employed until the end of 1934, he served variously in H.M. Submarines H23, L1, L53 and Olympus, was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in June 1934 and gained advancement to Engine Room Artificer in January of the following year.

Rockey had been recommended for Warrant Rank back in 1927, an intention which appears to have been fulfilled by the renewal of hostilities, for it was in the rank of Temporary Warrant Engineer that he was gazetted for the M.B.E. in June 1942. The award, which he received at an Investiture in May 1943, was in recognition of services aboard H.M.S. Wolverine, a destroyer whose Battle Honours included “Dunkirk 1940” and “Malta Convoys 1942”. The latter would certainly have been pertinent to his time aboard, and it is quite probable his distinction also recognised a successful encounter with the U-47 in March 1941. The latter, commanded by Kapitain Gunther Prien of Royal Oak fame, succumbed to a full pattern of depth charges dropped by Wolverine:

‘Their explosion threw a great cascade of water into the sky and they were counted in the Wolverine as they went off. A few seconds after the last of them went off there was another dull underwater explosion, and after another three or four minutes some wreckage floated to the surface and a slowly widening patch of oil showed that another U-Boat would trouble the convoys no more. It was U-47, Prien’s boat. There were no survivors’ (H.M. Destroyers by Lieutenant-Commander P. K. Kemp, refers).

It is probable, too, that Rockey was still aboard the Wolverine in August 1942, when she accounted for another enemy submarine. On this occasion, she rammed her opponent, the Italian Dagabur, at 26 knots, and ‘hit her fair and square at the after end of the conning tower ... the shock was terrific. The ship seemed to come up all standing, the impact throwing off their feet all those holding on ... we seemed to lift out of the water, then silence followed by a heavy explosion’. In his definitive work, Malta Convoys 1940-43, Richard Woodman’s account of the action continues:

‘The Wolverine was severely damaged forward and a main steam pipe had fractured, filling her engine room with superheated steam and causing its evacuation. However, the boilers were undamaged, and in about forty minutes the starboard turbine was again working. Broome sent Malcolm back to stand by and in due course Gretton’s elderly destroyer limped west at some 6 knots, her company rigging hand gear and recovering one anchor cable which hung down from the wrecked bow.’