The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection

A good Second World War D.S.C. group of six awarded to Commander D. J. B. Jewitt, Royal Navy, who, having won a “mention” for gallant services off Norway in 1940, shared in the destruction of the U-314 when in command of the destroyer Meteor on the Arctic run in 1944

Distinguished Service Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1945’; Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1936-1939 (Lieut. D. J. B. Jewitt, R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Defence and War Medal, M.I.D. oak leaf, good very fine and better (6) £1600-1800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection.

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D.S.C. London Gazette 14 June 1945.

Dermod James Boris Jewitt, who was appointed a Midshipman in September 1926, was serving as a Lieutenant in the destroyer Ivanhoe by the renewal of hostilities in September 1939. Advanced to Lieutenant-Commander shortly thereafter, he was given command of the Northern Spray in January 1940, a trawler in the 12th Anti-Submarine Striking Force and, in the period April-June, witnessed extensive action off Norway, and gained a mention in despatches (London Gazette 26 September 1940 refers). He was, in fact, a group commander of five trawlers during the latter operations, a story recounted in details by Lund and Ludlam in Trawlers Go To War.

On 8 May, having shared in bringing down a an enemy aircraft with her consort Northern Gem, Jewitt’s command was approached by a Norwegian puffer, the crew stating that they could show the British where the German aircraft had crash-landed. Jewitt order six men from each of the trawlers to join the Norwegians, with orders to bring back any survivors or secret documents. Tragically, however, on arriving at the scene of the enemy aircraft’s demise, the party ran into a crack German Alpine troop who opened up with Spandau fire, killing the three Norwegian crew and wounding all of Northern Spray’s men. At length, however, a rating managed to turn the puffer away from the hail of fire, but those who had already disembarked were taken prisoner. The puffer having made contact with Northern Spray that evening, her decks awash with blood and crowded with the wounded, Jewitt organised their evacuation to the flagship Resolution, embarked a party of 150 Royal Marines and set-off to locate the enemy and his captured crew, an ambitious plan that ultimately met with success.

Northern Spray also won praise for the skilful use of her wireless communication, one of her telegraphists regularly intercepting enemy messages - thus the occasion a party was sent ashore after a “fix” had been obtained and a Norwegian fifth columnist apprehended.

Removing to the destroyer Winchester in January 1941, Jewitt served on convoy escort and patrol duties in the North Sea until being given his own command, the newly launched destroyer Meteor, in June 1942. And it was in this latter capacity that he was awarded the D.S.C. and another “Mention” (London Gazette 9 May 1944 refers), Meteor bring actively engaged on the Arctic run,including QP-18 in the wake of the disastrous PQ-17 operation, and sharing in the destruction of the U-314 in the Barents Sea on 30 January 1944. Richard Woodman’s Arctic Convoys 1941-1945 takes up the story:

‘Then out on the starboard advanced flank of the convoy at 19.17, Meteor’s lookouts spotted torpedo tracks, dull white smears in the gloom, as her asdic operators gained a contact. Combing the tracks, Lieutenant-Commander Jewitt reported his situation and Campbell ordered the adjacent elderly and much-modified Whitehall to her assistance. Twenty minutes later Whitehall made and then quickly lost contact, while Meteor pressed on in the darkness. At 20.00 Whitehall’s radar picked up a new echo three miles south of Meteor and her asdic operators heard the noise of torpedoes being fired: the quarry appeared to be attempting a surface retreat, so Jewitt and Lieutenant-Commander Cowell in Whitehall continued south in pursuit.

Kapitanleutnant Basse in U-314, aware of their approach and the fact that, being destroyers, he could not outrun them on the surface, fired his stern tubes and then submerged. As the U-boat dived, Whitehall regained contact and informed Meteor, whereupon both ships dropped depth charges. Neither Jewitt or Cowell were convinced they had been successful, even after combing the area for four hours. Their quarry, they assumed, had escaped their questing sonar beams, hidden by a layer of denser water. Breaking off their hunt at midnight, they headed back for the convoy, signalling their results as inconclusive.

In fact they had sunk U-314. She had been built at Flenderwerft’s Lubeck yard, a Type VIIC boat commanded by Kapitanleutnant Georg-Wilhelm Basse who, because he trained in 1936, the year of the Berlin Olympics, bore the Olympic rings on his conning tower. His submarine had been in commission just six weeks.’

Jewitt departed Meteor in October 1944, having also in the interim been present at the North Africa landings and at the defence of convoy JW-55B in December 1943, when under threat of attack from the ill-fated Scharnhorst, and ended the War employed in the Admiralty’s Plans Division. He was placed on the Retired List as a Commander in 1953.