Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Nine: Captain E. W. B. ‘Teddy’ Sim, Royal Navy, a Jutland veteran who was killed in action when commanding the cruiser H.M.S. Galatea in the Mediterranean in December 1941

1914-15 Star (Mid. E. W. B. Sim, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (S. Lt. E. W. B. Sim. R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Coronation 1937, this privately named, together with a Great War period postcard portrait, some verdigris, otherwise generally very fine or better (9) £400-£500

Dix Noonan Webb, March 2000.

Edward William Boyd Sim was born in Peebles, Scotland on 3 May 1899, and entered the Royal Navy as a Cadet at Osborne in January 1912.

Immediately called-up on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he joined the cruiser H.M.S. Amphitrite as a Midshipman and remained similarly employed until removing to the battleship Barham in July 1915. And it was in the latter ship that he witnessed extensive action at the battle of Jutland, Barham being credited as one of the most accurate ships engaged; she fired 337 15-inch shells but was herself hit by several heavy calibre projectiles and suffered a loss of 26 killed and 46 wounded.

Between the wars, Sim served in several destroyers, including Sterling, in which ‘he carried out detached service on the Yangtze and on the China coast in an able manner.’ He also received steady promotion, attaining the rank of Commander in June 1933 and being employed as Executive Officer of the cruiser Arethusa on the Mediterranean Station in the period leading up to the Second World War.

On the renewal of hostilities, and having been advanced to Captain, he was embarked for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he oversaw the transfer of U.S. Navy destroyers to the Royal Navy, a task in which, his service record notes, ‘he was much admired by the Americans to whom he showed great tact.’

On returning to the U.K., Sim received what was to prove to be his final appointment, namely the captaincy of the cruiser Galatea. In July 1941, Galatea was ordered to the Mediterranean, where she joined Force K in operations against Axis supply routes. And it was on returning from just such an operation - a search for an Italian convoy off Libya on 15 December 1941- that Galatea was hit by three torpedoes from the U-557. The stricken cruiser turned over and sank within minutes, taking with her Sim, 22 other officers and 447 ratings. Just under 150 survivors were picked up by the destroyers Griffin and Hotspur.

A personal tribute which appeared in The Times on 12 February 1942, described Sim as a ‘fine leader who did nothing by halves.’ It added: ‘Perhaps his outstanding characteristics were first and foremost his kindness and generosity of thought and action, a wonderful sense of humour, modesty and inexhaustible energy.’