The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection

A fine Great War Dardanelles picket boat action D.S.M. group of five awarded to Petty Officer 1st Class J. McElligott, Royal Navy

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (148265 J. McElligott, Ldg. Sean., H.M.S. Majestic); 1914-15 Star (148265 J. Elligott, D.S.M., P.O., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (148265 J. McElligott, P.O.1, R.N.); Naval Good Shooting Medal, G.V.R. (148265 J. Elligott, P.O. 1Cl., H.M.S. Berwick, 1913, 6 In. B.L.), good very fine (5) £1800-2200

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

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Ex Captain K. J.Douglas-Morris Collection (Part II), 12 February 1997 (Lot 608).

D.S.M. London Gazette 16 August 1915:

‘For services in picket boats of H.M.S. Majestic and Triumph 18th April 1915.’

James McElligott was born in Devon in February 1874 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in March 1889. Having then been pensioned ashore as a Leading Seaman in March 1914, he was recalled on the outbreak of hostilities and joined H.M.S. Majestic, in which ship he was to win his D.S.M. for gallant deeds in the Dardanelles.

The splendid work of our submarines in the Sea of Marmora was carried out in the teeth of great and incessant dangers, and both we and our Allies the French lost a number of boats in the narrow and closely guarded passage of the Dardanelles. And it was the loss of one of these vessels, the E.15, which led to a most brilliant exploit on the part of the two little steam picket boats belonging to the Royal Navy.

On the night of 16 April 1915, the E.15 (Lieutenant Commander T. S. Brodie, R.N.) was detached from the flotilla lying at Tenedos and sent into the Straits to reconnoitre a newly laid minefield about eleven miles up. The Turks, however, were keeping a very vigilant watch, and it was not long before the submarine was compelled to dive in order to escape their searchlights. Thus submerged, she continued to creep steadily up the Straits, but the strong head current gradually threw her off her course, and just off Kephez Point, where the land shelves out and the navigable channel is greatly reduced in width, she unfortunately ran aground. The water shallowed so imperceptibly that she was hard and fast, with her conning tower well out of the water, almost before her danger was realised, and the forts ashore at once opened fire demolishing the conning tower, killing the Commanding Officer and a number of men, and leaving the survivors no alternative but to surrender.

When it became apparent that the Turks were attempting to refloat the submarine, steps were immediately taken to frustrate this intention. Aircraft tried to drop bombs on the stranded vessel; submarines went in and endeavoured to torpedo her; battleships entered the Straits and fired two score rounds from their heavy guns, but all to no purpose. When darkness fell, destroyers were sent in to see if they could get within range, but they were discovered and driven out by the heavy fire that was concentrated on them.

Next morning Vice-Admiral de Robeck made a signal to the effect that two small steamboats, one from the Triumph and one from the Majestic, were to be fitted with outrigger torpedoes, manned by volunteer crews, and sent in that night to accomplish what aircraft, submarines, battleships and destroyers had failed to do. Throughout the fleet there was very little expectation that those who ventured out on this exploit would ever return, but there was no lack of volunteers and lots had to be cast to choose the boats' crews from among them.




By nightfall all was ready, and at 2200 the little boats, with sides easily penetrable by a rifle bullet, got underway. The whole enterprise was fraught with the greatest danger, seeing that the boats had to steam ten or eleven miles through a narrow channel dominated by the Turks on both sides, and that the enemy had been well warned the previous day of our intention to destroy the submarine by some means or another. For some time, however, all went well; and then, while they were still three or four miles from their goal, they were suddenly lit up by the glare of a searchlight. Instantly a torrent of fire was opened on them, and the sea, now brilliantly lit, seemed as though it were lashed by a terrific hailstorm. As if by a miracle the boats remained unscathed, forging their perilous way ahead against the strong current, the centre always of a dazzling blaze of light and the target of guns that increased in number as they advanced. As they got nearer and nearer to the stranded submarine, fresh searchlights came into action from directly ahead, the enemy hoping by this means to blind the helmsmen and conceal the whereabouts of the E.15.

Presently however one of the Turks made a slip and threw his light full on to the submarine. It was all our men wanted. The Majestic’s boat was then no more than three hundred yards distant from it, and Lieutenant Godwin put her end on to the target, slowed her down, and dropped his first torpedo. Unfortunately the glare of the search lights confused his aim, and the weapon missed, and a few seconds afterwards the Turkish gunners scored their one and only hit of the night with a shot that carried away part of the boat's stern. She instantly began to fill, but Lieutenant Godwin still had another torpedo in its slings, and he was determined to use it. Putting on steam he again approached the submarine, and taking careful aim, was rewarded after a few seconds by a great explosion which occurred well under water, just forward of her conning tower. After such an attack no submarine would have any remaining value save as waste metal.

In the meantime the Triumph's boat had observed the misfortune of her consort and hurriedly steamed up alongside. All the men of the damaged craft were taken aboard, including one, the only casualty, who had been mortally wounded. The forts and batteries ashore had redoubled their efforts when the torpedo struck home, but not another shot found its intended billet, and when the Triumph, now doubly loaded, set off down stream, the enemy gunners, for some reason best known to themselves, concentrated their fire on the drifting and tenantless wreck of the Majestic's boat.

Vice-Admiral de Robeck congratulated those concerned in a general signal, and the Admiralty telegraphed Lieutenant Commander Robinson's promotion to Commander for his services. The D.S.O. was awarded to Lieutenant Godwin, and the D.S.C. to Lieutenant Brooke-Webb and Midshipman Woolley, while the boats' crews all received the D.S.M., including McElligott - whose service record actually states he was recommended for a D.C.M. Commander Robinson had already performed in Gallipoli a deed of gallantry for which he was later awarded the Victoria Cross.

Advanced to Petty Officer 1st Class in November 1915, while serving ashore at Vivid I, McElligott returned to sea in the armed merchant cruiser Avenger in March 1916, and was still aboard her on the occasion she was torpedoed in the North Atlantic on the night of 13-14 June 1917 - just one man was killed in the explosion and all of her crew rescued. He was demobilised in March 1919.