Naval Medals from the Collection of the Late Jason Pilalas

The outstanding Great War Tigris Flotilla operations D.S.C. group of four awarded to Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander D. Loughlin, Royal Navy, who was decorated for his gallantry in the river gunboat Comet on the night of 18 September 1915, when he tended the wounded under a heavy fire, among them his C.O., Lieutenant-Commander E. C. Cookson, who was awarded a posthumous V.C.

Distinguished Service Cross, G.V.R., hallmarks for London 1915; 1914-15 Star (Surg. D. Loughlin, M.B., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Surg. Lt. Cr. D. Loughlin, R.N.) mounted as worn, good very fine (4) £3,600-£4,400

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Naval Medals from the Collection of the Late Jason Pilalas.

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Collection

R. C. Witte Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, December 2012.

D.S.C. London Gazette 21 January 1916:

‘In recognition of their services during the advance on Kut-el-Amara on 27-28 September 1915 ... Surgeon Loughlin attended the wounded on board Comet under a heavy fire at close quarters on the night of 28 September.’

Dermot Loughlin was serving in the sloop Clio on the China Station on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, but by early 1915 she was operating in defence of the Suez Canal, where she engaged Turkish positions on 27 January and 1-3 February. Shortly thereafter, with her consort Espiegle, she was ordered to Basra to reinforce the Navy’s flotillas operating on the Euphrates and Tigris, a remarkable ‘gallimaufry of vessels’ best described by Colonel Sir Mark Sykes:

‘There are paddle steamers which once plied with passengers and now waddle along with a barge on either side, one perhaps containing a portable wireless station and the other bullocks for heavy guns ashore; there are once respectable tugs which stagger along under the weight of boiler plating - to protect them from the enemy’s fire - and are armed with guns of varying calibre; there is a launch which pants indignantly between batteries of 4.7s, looking like a sardine between two cigarette-boxes; there is a steamer with a Christmas-tree growing amidships, in the branches of which its officers fondly imagine they are invisible to friend or foe. There is also a ship which is said to have started life as an aeroplane in Singapore, but shed its wings, kept its propeller, took to water, and became a hospital. And this great fleet is the cavalry screen, advance guard, rear guard, flank guard, railway, general headquarters, heavy artillery, line of communication, supply depot, police force, field ambulance, aerial hangar and base of supply of the Mesopotamian Expedition.’

Among other personnel to be transferred from the Clio for river duties in April 1915 was Lieutenant-Commander E. C. Cookson, R.N., and, given Loughlin’s part in that officer’s final action, it would be not be unreasonable to assume he joined him in his first command, the stern-wheel launch Shushan - if so, he would have been present on the occasion Shushan was ambushed by Arabs on the Euphrates in the following month, when Cookson was wounded and won a D.S.O.



Be that as it may, Loughlin was very much present in Cookson’s next engagement, this time in the gunboat Comet at Es Sinn on the Tigris, where, on 28 September 1915, with two steam launches in support, a daring attempt was made to clear a river obstruction. The Naval V.Cs, by Stephen Snelling, take up the story:

‘At midnight, under cover of darkness, the majority of his force on the right bank slipped across a hastily constructed pontoon bridge and launched an enveloping attack. Fighting, intense in places, continued through a broiling day in which strong winds fanned clouds of dust that enveloped the battlefield. At one point Cookson’s flotilla of riverboats halted a Turkish attempt to forestall Townshend’s plan with close-range fire. Then they turned their guns on the redoubts that the British and Indian units were striving to outflank. That they did not have everything their own way, however, is clear from an account written by one of the Comet’s ratings which appeared in the British press under the by line of a ‘West Country R.N.R.’:

‘The Turks were ready for us, for they had quite as many guns as we had and four of them were a little bigger. We had a very lively time for a few hours, but, as usual our gunboats kept creeping up closer and closer until it got too warm for them. Then they ran away and left their guns. But they had stuck out well ... as it was dinner time before we shifted them. Our ship had several hits but very little damage - one of their shells went through our funnel, and that was the most damage they did to us. We silenced all their guns but one big one, but the gunners had us weighed off, and as soon as we attempted to get round ... we had to drop back under cover again ... ’

Half-swallowed by the dust-storm, the two armies slugged it out until sunset. A final bayonet charge eventually sent the Turks reeling, but the victorious troops were in no condition to follow up. Exhausted and parched with thirst, many were on the brink of collapse. But the gateway to Kut had been prised open. ‘Now,’ wrote the Official Historian, ‘was the time for the flotilla to make the success decisive.’

At around 7 p.m., an R.N.A.S. seaplane plopped down alongside Cookson’s flagship. According to Comet’s seaman correspondent, it brought news that the Turks were on the run and orders from Townshend to clear the river block below the fast-dissolving front-line and give chase to Kut’s routed defenders. The idea was simple enough: a waterborne cavalry charge against a disorganised enemy. As soon as it was dark, the Comet, captained by Lieutenant W. V. H. Harris, supported by the launches RN1 and RN2, under the overall command of Cookson, crept upstream. All lights were extinguished, but it made no difference. Surprise was impossible and they were soon sighted by Turks who, contrary to Townshend’s report, were resolved to fight and fight hard. As the boats neared the obstruction they came under a hot fire that signalled what Comet’s ‘West Country R.N.R.’ called the ‘liveliest time I had had since we have been fighting.’

He wrote: ‘It was very dark. We took the lead, being the biggest boat. When we got round the headland the Turks opened fire with rifles, but we steamed right up to the obstruction. The Turks were then close enough to us to throw hand bombs, but luckily none reached the deck of our ship ...’ Unfortunately the same good fortune did not extend to the rifle and machine-gun fire that poured at them from both banks. The lightly armoured craft were peppered with bullets from less than 100 yards range. Comet bore the brunt of the fusillade. One man described the bullets as “pattering” on the vessel’s steel plating “like raindrops on a window-pane”. Cookson, however, held his course and charged the centre of the obstruction, hoping to punch a hole through the block. The dhow buckled under the impact, but the hawsers held. Amid an inferno of fire, Comet drew away with the intention of using her guns to destroy the block.

As the sounds of battle reverberated across desert and marsh, the exposed paddle-yacht was lashed by fire. Despite being a sitting target for every Turk in the vicinity, Comet’s crew stuck to their task. But it was useless. The obstruction remained defiantly in place. Cookson might have considered withdrawing, but if he did the notion was quickly rejected in favour of a daring gamble which, if successful, was liable to turn the Turkish retreat into a rout. His plan was to lay the Comet alongside the central maheilah [dhow] and cut the steel moorings holding her in place.

Having issued his orders, Cookson set the paddle-yacht thrashing upstream into a hurricane of fire that not even her steel cladding could withstand. Comet shuddered under the welter of blows. One shell blew away the 6-pounder’s gun shield, leaving Private Arthur May, a marine gunner, to fight on without a shred of cover. There were many other acts of bravery. Gilbert Wallis, a signaller, was wounded and unable to stand, but propped himself up and carried on, while Leading Seaman Ernest Sparks somehow managed to keep his gun in action despite the bolts that held it to the deck working loose. But for sheer cold-blooded courage none could match Edgar Cookson.

As the bullet-riddled Comet came up against the obstruction, he was heard by Lieutenant Harris to shout for an axe. Ignoring a hail of close-range fire, Cookson made his way along the deck towards the bow. The crew of the fo’c’stle gun were among the eyewitnesses to what followed and their account was later recorded by Cyril Cox, a Paymaster Lieutenant-Commander in the Tigris Flotilla:

‘They saw the S.N.O., axe in hand, leaning over the Comet’s steel plating in an endeavour to reach the wire hawser. Then they saw him get over the plating and step on to the maheilah itself. Immediately afterwards they saw him fall between the ship and the maheilah, and they hastened to extricate him and bring him back to the ship ... ’

According to Cox, ‘there were more bullet holes in him than they cared to count’. Cookson, though, was still conscious. Comet’s ‘West Country R.N.R.’ reported: ‘Our S.N.O. was shot in seven places, and when we dragged him in his last words were “I am done. It is a failure. Return at full speed.” Ten minutes later he was dead.’

And in those ten minutes, the Comet still under a galling fire as she withdrew, Loughlin fought frantically trying to save his commander’s life and those of Comet’s other casualties. He was awarded the D.S.C.

Removing to the cruiser Calypso in June 1917, Loughlin’s medical skills were once more to the fore on 17 November 1917, when, in the second battle of Heligoland Bight, Calypso’s bridge took a direct hit, killing or wounding many of her personnel.