Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Signalman J. Hay, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

1914-15 Star (C.Z. 1131 Sig., R.N.V.R.); British War and Victory Medals (C.Z. 1131 Sig., R.N.V.R.), together with original H.M.S. Galatea silk cap tally, all official replacements (or late issues), good very fine (4) £80-100

According to accompanying newspaper cuttings, “Jim” Hay served aboard H.M.S. Galatea at the Battle of Jutland, as a 16-year-old Signalman, and was ‘the man who first sighted the enemy on that memorable day’:

“I was on lookout duty on the bridge when I sighted the first smudge of German smoke on the horizon ... We belonged to the first light cruiser squadron under Commodore E. S. Alexander-Sinclair, and we had been sent ahead as a sort of decoy.”

After the War, ‘Scottish born Hay came to B.C., Canada, where he worked as a skipper on Pacific tugboats’. He died in May 1966.