ZEEBRUGGE RAID WW1 1914 – 15 STAR MEDAL GROUP ARMOURER JONES ROYAL NAVY

Description

Offered is a WW1 trio of medals to Ordnance Artificer Wilfred Jones, who served 30 years in the Royal Navy, was aboard HMS Attentive during the raid on Zeebrugge in 1918 and died whilst still serving in 1945.

1914 – 15 Star, impressed named M8066 W.J. JONES. AR. CR. R.N.; British War and Victory Medals, impressed named M.8066 W.J. JONES. AR.CR. R.N. The medals are unmounted and have safety pins attached the ribbon as worn. Comes with copies service papers, photograph, medal rolls & 1939 census.

Ordnance Artificer Wilfred John Jones was born on the 23/3/1896 at Handsworth, Staffordshire. A metal turner by trade, he enlisted with the Royal Navy 19/8/1914. He served on the following H.M. ships and shore bases as an ‘armourers crew’: Excellent (Shore base gunnery school), Emperor of India (Dreadnought) 14/11/14 – 14/7/16. Hindustan (King Edward VII-class pre-dreadnought) 15/9/16 – 10/2/1918, Attentive (Adventure-class scout cruisers) 26/3/18 – 14/10/1919.

H.M.S Attentive and the Zeebrugge raid: Attentive screened the raiding force during the Zeebrugge Raid on 25 April 1918 and recovered part of the ship’s crew of the concrete-filled cruiser Sirius after she had detonated her demolition charges at Ostend harbour.

This operation was intended to block the harbour mouth and prevent the transit of German U-boats and other raiding craft from Bruges to the North Sea. German countermeasures were however too effective, and Sirius and her fellow blockship HMS Brilliant were eventually destroyed by their crews outside the harbour mouth after running aground on a sandbank.

Later that year the ship began escorting convoys to Gibraltar. She spent a few months off Murmansk, North Russia, supporting British forces intervening in the Russian Civil War.

Caledonia (Cadet training ship) Barham (Queen Elizabeth class battleship) Centurion (King George V-class dreadnought) Terror (Erebus-class monitor) Queen Elizabeth, Valliant (Queen Elizabeth-class battleship) Champion (C-class light cruiser)

Retired in 1936 but re joined 18/10/1937 as a Pensioner Ordnance Artificer, Royal Navy P/Mx 556 41 D R S Excellent. He died still serving 16/9/1945 Royal Hospital, Portsmouth Post-op toxaemia (bowel cancer).

Jones is also entitled to the Naval LS & GC medal issued October 1929 and probably the British War Medal 1939 – 45.

The grades of armourers were: Chief Armourer; Armourer; Armourer’s Mate; Armourer’s Crew.