Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War D.S.O. group of five awarded to Commander W. H. Coates, Royal Naval Reserve, who was decorated for services in command of H.M.S. Clacton when she was torpedoed and sunk in August 1916; he afterwards commanded H.M.S. Redbreast until he was killed when she was torpedoed and sunk on 15 July 1917

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, with integral top ribbon bar; 1914-15 Star (Commr. W. H. Coates, R.N.R.); British War and Victory Medals (Commr. W. T. Coates. R.N.R.) note error in second initial; Royal Naval Reserve Decoration, E.VII.R., hallmarks for London 1909, mounted for display, extremely fine (5) £1,800-£2,200

D.S.O. London Gazette 23 May 1917: ‘In recognition of services in the Destroyer Patrol Flotillas, Armed Boarding Steamers, etc., during the period which ended on the 30th September 1916.’

William Herbert Coates was born at Gosport on 20 April 1865, and joined the Royal Naval Reserve as a Sub-Lieutenant on 15 February 1894. He was promoted to Retired Commander on 20 April 1910. He was recalled for service on the outbreak of war and appointed to command the minesweeper H.M.S. Clacton from 4 December 1914. The Clacton was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine at Chai Aghizi, in the Levant, on 3 August 1916. Coates was commended for his services on this occasion and awarded the D.S.O. His next appointment, in September 1916, was to the command of H.M.S. Redbreast, a Fleet Messenger in the Mediterranean 1915-17 which had been fitted out for Q-ship duties between May and September 1916, but was now returning to fleet messenger services under his command. She rescued survivors from H.M. Troopship Arcadian in April 1917 which was carrying reinforcements for Egypt and had been torpedoed in the Aegean off the island of Melos on the 15th and sunk in only 6 minutes. Redbreast was herself torpedoed and sunk on 15 July 1917, by UC-38 in the Aegean Sea, while on passage from Skros to Doro, with the loss of Commander Coates and forty-one of his crew. He is remembered with honour on the Chatham Naval Memorial.