Naval Medals from the Collection of the Late Jason Pilalas

The outstanding and extremely rare Second War D.E.M.S. gunner’s D.S.M., and Great War ‘Gavrelle Mill, April 1916’ M.M. group of ten awarded to Sergeant A. J. Kerslake, Royal Marines, who was wounded facing-off a determined low-level attack by a Fw. 200 Condor in January 1941

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (A./T./Sgt. A. J. Kerslake, R.M., Ply. 17813) small official correction to rank; Military Medal, G.V.R. (Ply.-17813 Pte. A. J. Kerslake, R.M.L.I.); British War and Victory Medals (Ply. 17813 Pte. A. J. Kerslake, R.M.L.I.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star, 1 clasp, France and Germany; Africa Star; Burma Star; War Medal 1939-45, with M.I.D. oak leaf; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue, with Second Award Bar (Ply. 17813 A. J. Kerslake, Mne., R.M.) mounted court-style for display, the Great War awards and Long Service polished, therefore fine or better, the remainder good very fine (10) £4,000-£5,000

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

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D.S.M. London Gazette 8 June 1944.

M.M. London Gazette 6 July 1917.

Arthur John “Sam” Kerslake was born in Devon in November 1896 and joined the Plymouth Division of Royal Marines Light Infantry in December 1914.

Posted to the 2nd Battalion, R.M.L.I., he first saw action at Miraumont in February 1916, and then, in April, at Gavrelle. On the 27th of that month his unit was given the task of assaulting the heavily fortified Gavrelle Mill, alongside the 1st Battalion, R.M.L.I. and Anson Battalion, Royal Naval Division. The resultant carnage is graphically described in Blumberg’s Britain’s Sea Soldiers, the mill being stormed and held at heavy cost - only ‘B’ Company succeeded in breaking through the enemy’s wire and after bitter fighting with boot, fist and bayonet, the German defenders were all killed or captured. The Marines then held their ground against repeated counter-attacks until relieved by another unit twenty-four hours later. As a consequence of many acts of bravery displayed on the same occasion, two M.C.s. two D.C.Ms and 19 M.Ms were awarded, Kerslake being among the latter recipients. He subsequently served in the Eastern Mediterranean in 3rd R.M. Brigade.

Post-war, he enjoyed a spate of seagoing appointments, was awarded the L.S. & G.C. Medal in February 1930 and took his discharge in late 1938.

Recalled on the renewal of hostilities, Kerslake was assigned as a ‘pensioned gunner’ to Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships (D.E.M.S.) and was given the acting rank of Sergeant on joining the S.S. King Edgar, a vessel armed with a 12-pounder on her poop deck and a 4-inch gun on her forecastle. Having then undertaken two voyages to Cape Town, the King Edgar was assigned to Hobart, Tasmania, and it was on the return leg of this trip, as part of Convoy SL 61 that Kerslake won a commendation for his bravery in command of King Edgar’s guns on 20 January 1941 (London Gazette 1 April 1941, refers). ‘Fighting Marine - Sam Kerslake’, by Roger Perkins (Royal Marines Historical Society Journal, Vol. XV, No. 1), takes up the story:

‘The convoy required nearly two weeks to approach British waters. A succession of gales hindered its progress and caused several ships to straggle behind the main body. Two of these were the King Edgar and a Dutch freighter, the Heemskerk. They were still battling to catch up, in the teeth of strong winds and a heavy sea, as dawn broke on 20 January. The convoy was now 500 miles due west of Galway Bay.

Captain Arthur Wheeler, the King Edgar's master, could see seventeen other ships ahead of him at a distance of four to five miles. The Heemskerk was five cables away on his port beam. They were making less than three knots against the north easterly gale. Cloud base was down to 500 feet and enemy action in these conditions seemed unlikely, but he had ordered his look-outs and gun captains to be on full alert. His caution was justified when, at 1100, a large four engined aircraft was seen approaching from the south. Flying just below the clouds, it commenced a shallow dive towards the Heemskerk.

Passing over the length of the Dutchman from dead astern, it released two 250kg. bombs. One exploded alongside the ship, the other plunged through the after hatch covers and exploded within the hull. Fire broke out immediately, and the Heemskerk veered away to a rapid stop. She sank shortly afterwards.

The attack had been so swift that neither ship had time to open fire. The watchers aboard King Edgar saw the aircraft, now identified as a Focke Wolfe 2000 Condor, making a long turn ahead of them and circling around to attack their own ship from astern. At three miles range the German pilot levelled out for his bomb run. Kerslake and his gun crew discharged four rounds of high explosive before the Condor roared low over their heads. It is possible that this defensive fire may have damaged the release mechanism in the aircraft because it failed to drop any bombs on the King Edgar. However two streams of cannon and machine-gun fire raked her stern as the enemy's own gunners opened fire during the last mile of their approach.

Kerslake was hit in the neck and left knee by splinters of steel from the exploding cannon shells, and three of his men were also hit, but they all stayed at their posts. They were ready and waiting as the German pilot again circled the ship and made another run from astern. Again the Condor's gunners raked the King Edgar with cannon and machine-gun fire, damaging the superstructure, wrecking a lifeboat, and destroying part of the de-gaussing gear, but causing no further casualties.

Kerslake's team fired three more rounds from the 12-pounder during this attack, one of them bursting under the Condor's nose. It may have inflicted further damage because, having overflown the King Edgar and having drawn three miles ahead, the German was seen to jettison his two remaining 250kg. bombs into the sea. The aircraft then altered course and was last seen heading towards Ireland at a low altitude. Subsequent research indicates that any damage it may have suffered was not fatal. Presumably the pilot continued on the usual track for such flights, to Trondheim or Stavanger in Norway, or he may have turned back to his base at Bordeaux-Merignac in Western France.

Following the attack, Captain Wheeler brought his ship safely into Belfast and then to Barry Dock, South Wales. Kerslake went for 14-days' leave and a visit to the local R.N. sick quarters where his wounds were found to be healing satisfactorily.

Unknown to him, his name was being forwarded for some sort of recognition. Captain Wheeler, in his report, had written: 'The accurate gunfire of the King Edgar went a long way towards not only driving the aircraft away, but saving the vessel also'. A covering note commented: 'The Master considers that the gun's crew saved the ship'. There was a clear need for an award, but the peculiar status of D.E.M.S. gunners presented the authorities with a difficult problem.’

Kerslake departed the King Edgar in June 1942 but continued to serve as a D.E.M.S. gunner, his subsequent appointments including the Luminetta, Pieter de Hoogh and the Castalia, ships that took him to North America, the Middle East, India and Ceylon. His final ship was the Empire Swordsman, in which he served off Normandy in June 1944 and afterwards visited Belgian and Dutch ports. It was, however, the Master of the Castalia who put his name forward for a decoration, a recommendation submitted at Port Said on 20 March 1944. Kerslake was duly awarded the D.S.M., one of about 200 such awards to the Royal Marines for the 1939-45 War.

Demobilised in August 1945, he found employment as a labourer at Bradley Wool Mills, Newton Abbot, Devon, where he died in 1977, aged 81. A year or two later, with the assistance of Roger Perkins, Kerslake’s sister applied for a Second Award Bar to her late brother’s L.S. & G.C. Perkins takes up the story:

‘In late 1981, I advised Mrs. Vera Cheshire, as next-of-kin, to contact the Drafting and Records Office, Royal Marines. Within a fortnight the ever efficient staff at D.R.O.R.M. approved the claim. The bar arrived a few days later and I hastily appended it to the original medal in time for a formal presentation. On 28 January 1982, Marine A. J. Kerslake’s astonishing group of awards, made complete after a gap of thirty-eight years, was handed back to Mrs. Cheshire at a reception at the Officers’ Mess, Stonehouse Barracks, Plymouth. It was the establishment where Kerslake had begun his service career in 1914. The presenting officer was Major-General J. J. Moore, O.B.E., M.C. In the words of the staff officer who arranged the ceremony: “Once a Marine, always a Marine. The Corps never forgets.” ’

Sold with the recipient’s original U.S. Coast Guard identity card, dated at New York in 1942, with portrait photograph, together with a large quantity of related research.