Naval Medals from the Collection of the Late Jason Pilalas (Part I)

The outstanding Great War V.C. group of six awarded to Captain H. P. Ritchie, Royal Navy, who won the Senior Service’s first V.C. of the conflict for his gallant command of H.M.S. Goliath’s steam pinnace at Dar-es-Salaam in on 28 November 1914

When the pinnace came under a withering fire, he took over the wheel from his wounded coxswain and steered for the harbour’s entrance, but it took twenty minutes to get clear, in which period he was wounded eight times - on the forehead, in the left hand, twice in the left arm, in his right arm and hip and, finally, by two bullets through his right leg

Victoria Cross, the reverse suspension engraved ‘Comdr. Hy. Peel Ritchie, R.N.’, the reverse centre dated ‘28. Nov. 1914.’; 1914-15 Star (Capt. H. P. Ritchie, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Commr. H. P. Ritchie. R.N.); Coronation 1937; Coronation 1953, extremely fine (6) £200,000-£260,000

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

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V.C. London Gazette 10 April 1915: ‘Commander Henry Peel Ritchie, Royal Navy, for the conspicuous act of bravery specified below:

For most conspicuous bravery on the 28th November 1914 when in command of the searching and demolition operations at Dar-es-Salaam, East Africa. Though severely wounded several times, his fortitude and resolution enabled him to continue to do his duty, inspiring all by his example, until, at his eighth wound, he became unconscious. The interval between his first and last severe wound was between twenty and twenty-five minutes.’

Henry Peel Ritchie was born at Melville Gardens, Edinburgh on 29 January 1876, the son of Dr. Robert Peel Ritchie and Mary (née Anderson). Educated in the city at George Watson’s Boy’s College, he joined Britannia as a Naval Cadet on 15 January 1890 and first served at sea as a Midshipman in H.M.S. Camperdown, between October 1892 and January 1895.

Having then been advanced to Lieutenant in June 1898, he qualified as a gunnery officer, in addition to winning the Army and Navy lightweight boxing championship in 1900. He was also commended by Their Lordships of the Admiralty for attempting to save the life of a rating from drowning at Chatham in 1903.

First Naval V.C. of the War

The outbreak of hostilities in August 1914 found Ritchie serving as Executive Officer of the battleship Goliath in the 4th Squadron in home waters, but she was quickly ordered to East Africa to help locate and destroy the German commerce raider Königsberg. John Winton’s The Victoria Cross at Sea takes up the story:

‘The first naval V.C. of the Great War was won in Dar-es-Salaam, which means ‘Abode of Peace’, the capital of German East Africa. By the end of 1914 the German raiding cruiser Königsberg had been rounded up and trapped in the Rufiji river delta, on the east coast of Africa. Amongst the warships in support of the cruisers who had chased Königsberg was the old pre-Dreadnought battleship Goliath, whose second-in-command, Commander Henry Peel Ritchie, was given the independent command of Duplex, an old German cable ship converted into an armed auxiliary vessel. In November, Ritchie went to Dar-es-Salaam, where a number of German ships had been keeping Königsberg supplied, barricaded as she was some miles inland. While Goliath and the old protected cruiser Fox remained outside, Ritchie made his preparations to enter the harbour.

Duplex’s engines were unreliable, so a Maxim gun and extra deck protection were fitted to Goliath’s steam pinnace, which Ritchie himself drove into Dar-es-Salaam on 28th November, accompanied by Lieutenant Paterson, Goliath’s Torpedo Officer, in an ex-German tug called Helmuth, and Lieutenant E. Corson, of Fox, in Fox’s steam cutter.

The harbour seemed as peaceful as its name. There were no warships, no signs of hostilities, and two white flags flew as tokens of truce from the harbour signal station flagstaffs. The Governor of Dar-es-Salaam had already agreed that any German ships found in the harbour would be British prizes of war, and could be destroyed or immobilised. While Paterson boarded the Feldmarschall to lay demolition charges and Surgeon Lieutenant Holtom, of Goliath, inspected the bona fides of a hospital ship called Tabora, Ritchie himself boarded the König. She was almost deserted. The few people on board were told to get into her boats, and the ship was demobilised by charges exploded under the low-pressure cylinders of her engines.

The next ship, Kaisar Wilhelm II, was also deserted. According to Petty Officer T. J. Clark, the pinnace coxswain, Ritchie’s suspicions were aroused by a clip of three Mauser bullets with their pointed ends sawn off, lying on the deck and showing that someone had been preparing small arms for action. Ritchie had never been at ease in the eerie quietness and emptiness of that harbour, and as a precaution had two steel lighters lashed one on either side of the pinnace.

It was as well he did, for they soon heard small arms fire from the main harbour. In spite of the white flags, the Germans were firing on Fox’s steam cutter. At once, Ritchie headed Goliath’s pinnace out into the harbour, making for the entrance. A storm of fire burst upon them, the Germans firing shells and bullets from huts by the water’s edge, from houses in the city, from wooded groves and hills above, even from a cemetery. Without the steel lighters, the pinnace must have been lost. As it was, Clark was hit and Ritchie took over the wheel but he, too, was hit eight times in twenty minutes - on the forehead, in the left hand, twice in the left arm, in his right arm and hip; finally, two bullets through his right leg laid him low and he fainted from loss of blood. Clark, roughly bandaged, took over the wheel from Able Seaman George Upton, and brought the pinnace back alongside Goliath with her decks literally running blood. In retaliation, Goliath opened fire with her main 12-inch guns and flattened the Governor’s house … ’

Subsequent career – Red Sea Patrol – diminishing health

Ritchie received his V.C. from King George V at a Buckingham Palace investiture held on 24 April 1915 and, in the following month, returned to light duties with an appointment at the Haslar Gunboat Yards.

Then in April 1916, he was appointed to the command of the armed boarding steamer Suva, then employed in the Red Sea Patrol. She lent valuable service in supporting military operations ashore in Palestine over the coming months, including those being undertaken by Lawrence of Arabia. Most notably Suva persuaded the Turkish garrison at Qunfandu to surrender after a bombardment on 7 July 1916, and then remained on station to likewise discourage local dissent by use of her searchlights and guns at night. Ritchie backed up that process by coming ashore to meet the Sheik of the Idrissi at the end of the month.

All, however, was not well, for at the year’s end he stood down from his command and was invalided home in the new year. Surveyed at the Royal Naval Hospital (R.N.H.) Haslar on 4 March 1917, he was found to be suffering from ‘delusional insanity’ and was placed on the Retired List as ‘physically unfit’ on the same date. Admitted to the R.N.H. at Great Yarmouth, he remained there until August 1918, when his wife, Christiana, requested he be fully discharged into her care; they had married, in March 1902, at St. Cuthbert’s Edinburgh and had two daughters.

Ritchie, who was promoted Captain on the Retired List in January 1924, lived at Craig Royston House in Edinburgh and died there on 9 December 1958, aged 83.