Offered is a set of 4 medals to Seaman James Palmer, R.N.R. who served on the H.M.S. Doris and was involved in the numerous landings and shore bombardments in Syria 1915 & Gallipoli campaign. He would also have been a witness to the German massacre of nurses and patients, as a result of the sinking of the Hospital ship H.M.H.S Llandovery Castle in 1918
1914 – 15 Star, impressed named C.2869, J. PALMER, SMN,.R.N.R.; British War and Victory Medals (1914 – 18), impressed named 2869C J.PALMERSMN. R.N.R.; Royal Naval Reserve Long Service and Good Conduct Medal (G.V.) 1st issue, impressed named C.2869 J.PALMER, SEA R.N.R. Court mounted for display, comes with copies of service papers, medal roll and census.
James Palmer was born on the 6/11/1880, at Exmouth Devon. The 1911 census records his occupation as ‘Fish Hawker’ owner working from home in Exmouth. He enlisted into the Royal Navy Reserve 1/1/1903 with the service No C.2869. His file is stamped ‘No training required’. He served on a variety of H.M. ship and shore bases including: Revenge, Hercules, Prince George and worked ashore at Exmouth pre and post war 1913, 1914, 1919 – 1922.
During the war he was mobilised 2/8/1914 and served on the H.M.S. Doris (Eclipse-class protected cruiser) 2/8/14 – 27/??1916. The Doris served with the 11th Cruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet and captured a German merchant ship 5/8/1914. On the 7/11/1914 she was ordered to proceed to Alexandria and to patrol the Syrian coast, looking out for enemy ships and shore installations, and to "exercise general pressure."
On 15th December, Doris was lying off the Syrian coast near Beersheba when she spotted suspicious activity on a bluff commanding the shore. Closing in, her crew discovered it was a Turkish defensive position in the course of construction, the emplacement was swiftly destroyed. From Beersheba, Doris proceeded to the Gulf of Alexandretta, where she landed shore parties to disrupt Turkish communication lines, destroying telegraph lines and railway tracks. Anchoring off the harbour of Alexandretta, word was sent to the Military Governor of the town demanding that "All munitions of war, mines and locomotives" be handed over to his crew to be destroyed, and that all British and Allied subjects be surrendered to him, along with their families and effects. Failure to comply would result in the town being shelled. The Governor communicated with Djemal Pasha, Military Commander of Greater Syria, who was not a man to be intimidated. Not only did Djemal Pasha refuse the demands, but he threatened that, if Larken opened fire on Alexandretta, one British captive would be shot for every Ottoman subject killed in the bombardment. In the event, negotiations were carried out through the American Consul in Alexandretta, and the Turks took the opportunity to evacuate all military stores and equipment from the town, before two railway locomotives were destroyed in a token gesture. Doris continued to patrol the Syrian coast until March 1915, carrying out thirteen landing operations and many coastal bombardments before being relieved by the French. On 25/4/1915, Doris participated in a shore bombardment near Bulair along the western coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Posted to the Anemone (Acacia class sweeping sloop) 27/?/1916 – 28/12/1916 returning to the Doris.
H.M.S .Hilary (armed merchant cruiser, which was sunk by a U Boat 25/5/1917). It is unsure if he was aboard the ship at the time due to the month date being smudged on his records, he served on her from the 29/3/1917 – 10/?/1917.
The next entry is from Vivid II (accounts base) 4/7/1917 to H.M.S. Morea(a troop transport until April 1918 when she was commissioned as an armed merchant cruiser), 5/7/1917 – 12/2/1919.
He was aboard the ship when they steamed through the corpses of the victims that were sunk on the HMHS Llandovery Castle (Canadian hospital ship).
The Llandovery Castle was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine SM U-86 on 27/6/1918. Firing at a hospital ship was against international law and standing orders of the Imperial German Navy. The captain of U-86, Helmut Brümmer-Patzig, sought to destroy the evidence of torpedoing the ship. When the crew, including nurses, took to the lifeboats, U-86 surfaced, ran down all but one of the lifeboats and machine-gunned many of the survivors. Only 24 people in one lifeboat survived. They were rescued shortly afterwards by the destroyer HMS Lysander and testified as to what had happened.
Only 6 of the 97 hospital personnel survived. Among those lost were fourteen nursing sisters from Canada. Sergeant Arthur Knight was on board lifeboat #5 with the nurses. He reported: "Our boat was quickly loaded and lowered to the surface of the water. Then the crew of eight men and myself faced the difficulty of getting free from the ropes holding us to the ship's side. I broke two axes trying to cut ourselves away, but was unsuccessful. With the forward motion and choppy sea the boat all the time was pounding against the ship's side. To save the boat we tried to keep ourselves away by using the oars, and soon every one of the latter were broken. Finally the ropes became loose at the top and we commenced to drift away. We were carried towards the stern of the ship, when suddenly the Poop deck seemed to break away and sink. The suction drew us quickly into the vacuum, the boat tipped over sideways, and every occupant went under.
Afterward, HMS Morea steamed through the wreckage. Captain Kenneth Cummins recalled the horror of coming across the nurses' floating corpses; "We were in the Bristol Channel, quite well out to sea, and suddenly we began going through corpses. The Germans had sunk a British hospital ship, the Llandovery Castle, and we were sailing through floating bodies. We were not allowed to stop - we just had to go straight through. It was quite horrific, and my reaction was to vomit over the edge. It was something we could never have imagined ... particularly the nurses: seeing these bodies of women and nurses, floating in the ocean, having been there some time. Huge aprons and skirts in billows, which looked almost like sails because they dried in the hot sun.
He was demobilised 12/2/1919 and discharged from the R.N.R 31/12/1922 due to his age, awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal 1/5/1919 at Exmouth.
There is an entry on his records that is worthy of further research stating “Recom for medal to CO Morea 20/7/18 for (reay or recy??) action.
