Medals for Services at Sea from the Collection of the Late Oliver Stirling Lee

Four: Chief Stoker H. C. Dickinson, Royal Navy

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue (K. 62808 Ch. Sto., H.M.S. Delight), together with original addressed card forwarding box for the 1939-45 issues and related Admiralty condolence slip in the name of ‘Henry Cecil Dickinson’, generally extremely fine (4) £140-160

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals for Services at Sea from the Collection of the Late Oliver Stirling Lee.

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Henry Cecil Dickinson was serving aboard the destroyer H.M.S. Delight when she was attacked by at least 15 enemy aircraft in a position approximately 20 miles S.S.W. of Portland Bill on 6 August 1940. Quickly overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the attack and set on fire, Delight’s fate was sealed by an escape of oil fuel, and she was clearly beyond assistance by the time a small flotilla of rescue ships arrived on the scene. Eighteen men lost their lives, Dickinson among them, and of the 147 survivors, 59 were badly injured, many of them by burns. Dickinson, who was 34 years old, left a widow resident at Monkseaton, Whitley Bay, Northumberland.