Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte

The Great War D.S.C. group of four awarded to Engineer Lieutenant J. House, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his gallantry in the battle cruiser Princess Royal at Jutland, which ship took nine direct heavy-calibre hits and sustained around a hundred casualties: he did not, however, survive the loss of the destroyer Verulam in September 1919, when she was mined during anti-Bolshevik operations in the Gulf of Finland

Distinguished Service Cross, G.V.R., hallmarks for London 1914, the reverse privately engraved, ‘J. A. House, R.N., H.M.S. Princess Royal, 31st May 1916, Jutland’; 1914-15 Star (Art. Eng. J. House, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Eng. Lt. J. House, R.N.), extremely fine (4) £3500-4000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte.

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D.S.C. London Gazette 15 September 1916.

‘When the ship was hit and badly damaged, he efficiently made repairs to pipes under very difficult circumstances of smoke and darkness, whereby fires were got under control which otherwise must have been a very grave danger.’

Joseph House joined the battle cruiser Princess Royal as an Artificer Engineer in November 1913, and was subsequently present in her at Heligoland Bight in 1914, when she received at least one hit, Dogger Bank in 1915 and Jutland in 1916, when she took numerous hits and sustained total casualties of around 100 men - on the latter occasion she formed part of the 1st Battle Cruiser Squadron and was commanded by Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir) Walter Cowan - that famous “fire-eater” who won a second D.S.O. in the 1939-45 War with No. 2 Commando. He summarised her damage in the following terms:

‘In Princess Royal one turret was punched through the armour and out of action, two out of the three struts of the tripod mast carrying the control tower were shot through and the mast was consequently somewhat of an anxiety should the sea get up. Twenty-five percent of the auxiliary armament was also out of action from heavy shell bursts inside and below - one in the canteen, where 10,000 eggs were blown to pieces with the bodies of the two poor servers lying in the middle of the mess. Fore and aft, the upper deck casings and funnels were riddled with shell splinters, and there was a shell through the Admiral’s cabin. These damages are all I can recollect, and the engines were intact. We had over a hundred casualties.’

Having removed to the P. 17 in October 1917, and been advanced to Engineer Lieutenant, House joined the destroyer Verulam in May 1918, and was similarly employed at the time of her loss on anti-Bolshevik operations in the Gulf of Finland on 3 September 1919 - she hit a mine and went down in two minutes. The bodies of eight men were subsequently washed ashore near the headland between Wiborg and Kronstadt, south-east of Koivisto, and were interred on a hill among pinewoods a quarter of a mile from the sea - the plot, called Styrsudd Point Cemetery, was purchased and fenced by the Finnish Government. Three of the bodies were identified, one of them as Engineer Lieutenant Joseph House, D.S.C.