Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War D.S.M. group of three awarded to Engine Room Artificer T. Fowler, Royal Navy, for gallantry whilst serving with the destroyer H.M.S. Grasshopper, January - June 1918

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (M1380. T. Fowler, E.R.A. 4.Cl. “Grasshopper” 1918.); British War and Victory Medals (M.13830 T. Fowler. E.R.A. 3 R.N.) worn, fine (3) £600-£700

Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, December 2010.

D.S.M. London Gazette 11 December 1918:
‘For services in other destroyers between 1st January and 30th June 1918’.

Thomas Fowler was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire in January 1870. An engine fitter by occupation, he enlisted into the Royal Navy as an Acting Engine Room Artificer 4th Class, 15 June 1915. After service at Pembroke II, he was posted to Conquest, March 1916-September 1917, being confirmed in his rank in April 1917. After a further spell at Pembroke II, he was posted to the destroyer Grasshopper and the depot ship Hecla, October 1917-May 1918 and thence on the same destroyer and the depot ship Apollo until August 1918, being advanced to E.R.A. Class 3 in May 1918. He was then posted to Pembroke but in October 1918 was sentenced at the Chester Assizes for three months imprisonment for attempted murder. Fowler was demobilised in April 1919.

For his service aboard the destroyer Grasshopper, 1 January-30 June 1918, he was awarded the D.S.M. On 5 February 1918 the Grasshopper assisted in the rescue of survivors from the S.S. Tuscania. The ship was torpedoed by the UB-77 whilst carrying U.S. troops from New York to Liverpool. At the time of her loss she was carrying 2,235 persons of which 166 were lost.