GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
825
The superb Great War Q-ship operations D.S.M. and Bar group of five awarded to Leading Seaman P. Ross, Royal
Navy, who won both awards for his gallantry as Gunlayer in the special service smack I’ll Try (a.k.a. Nelson), the
second of them on the same occasion that his skipper, Tom Crisp, won a famous posthumous V.C.
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS, G.V.R., with Second Award Bar, the reverse of which officially dated ‘15 August
1917’ (184463 P. Ross, Lg. Sea., North Sea, 1 Feb. 1917); 1914-15 STAR (184463 P. Ross, A.B., R.N.); BRITISH WAR AND
VICTORY MEDALS (184463 P. Ross, L.S., R.N.); ROYAL NAVY L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue (184463 Percival Ross, A.B., H.M.
S. Excellent), good very fine (5) £8000-10000
One of only 67 Second Award Bars awarded to the D.S.M. in the Great War.
Ex Captain K. J. Douglas-Morris collection (Part I), Dix Noonan Webb, 1 October
1996 (Lot 667).
D.S.M. London Gazette 23 March 1917: ‘The following awards have been
approved.’
Bar to D.S.M. London Gazette 2 November 1917: ‘The following awards have
been approved.’
Percival Ross was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire and joined the training
establishment Impregnable as a Boy 2nd Class in July 1895. He subsequently
served aboard a variety of ships and, nearly a year before the outbreak of
hostilities in August 1914, was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal.
Having served in Dryad, an old torpedo boat based at Lowestoft for
minesweeping duties, from October 1913, and been advanced to Leading
Seaman in August 1916, Ross transferred to the shore base Halcyon II for special
Ross (left) with his skipper, Tom Crisp
duties aboard Q-ships in December of the same year, thereby gaining
appointment as Gunlayer in the nine-man crew of ‘H.M. Special Service Smack’
I’ll Try.
On 1 February 1917, the day the German Imperial Navy declared virtually unrestricted submarine warfare, I’ll Try was at sea off
Lowestoft. To outward appearances the 70ft. smack was engaged in fishing in company with another armed smack, Boy Alfred, when
two U-Boats appeared. One of the German commanders hailed the Boy Alfred from his conning tower and ordered Skipper Wharton
and his crew to abandon ship as he intended to torpedo her. Wharton went up into the bows, feigning deafness, and asked the U-Boat
commander to repeat his instructions. All the while Boy Alfred was gently swinging by means of her specially fitted motor into a
position abeam of the U-Boat from which she could get off a shot from her concealed 12-pounder gun. As Wharton was going through
the motions of abandoning ship, he glanced at two fishermen standing in front of the gun and then at the U-Boat, and judging his
moment, roared “Let go, Buffer!” The two men stood aside from the muzzle and a shell tore away towards the U-Boat. Before the
Germans could recover, a second shot followed and struck the conning tower. The U-Boat heeled over, swung back and went down by
the head. The U-Boat’s consort, east of the I’ll Try, crash dived.
For the next two hours the second U-Boat, with only her periscope showing at intervals, and I’ll Try played a deadly game of hide and
seek. Ultimately, Skipper Thomas Crisp of the I’ll Try decided to sail east hoping the U-Boat would think they were retiring. As hoped
the U-Boat continued to stalk the smack and when about 200 yards off I’ll Try’s starboard bow, it fired a torpedo and broke surface,
showing her conning tower and the whole of her upper casing. Crisp, using his secret motor, put the helm hard over so as to dodge the
torpedo by two or three feet and also bring the smack broadside on to the U-Boat. Ross at the smack’s 13-pounder got on target and
fired, the shell crashing into the base of the conning tower and blowing pieces off the U-Boat in all directions. Heeling over under the
shock, the U-Boat swung back again and dipped by the bow. Then the stern came up, the propeller spinning high out of the water, and
she plunged into the deep. I’ll Try closed over the spot, but all that could be seen were large pockets of air coming up from the bottom
and an increasing spread of oil. Crisp was awarded the D.S.C. and Ross his first D.S.M.
Following the encounter of 1 February 1917 the I’ll Try resumed her vigil under the new name Nelson. And whilst off Jim Howe Bank
in the North Sea at about 2.45 p.m. on 15 August 1917, with her fishing trawl shot, about a mile apart from the armed smack Ethel and
Millie, Crisp sighted a U-Boat coming out of the mist three or four miles away to the north-west. As Crisp roared “Sub Oh! Clear for
action!”, the U-Boat’s first shell fell about 100 yards off the port bow, and as Ross manned the gun, a second German shell fell close
by. Crisp put the Nelson on another tack to see if it would disturb the enemy’s aim but the German gunner was on target and the third
shell penetrated the bow just below the waterline and Nelson began to sink. Crisp ordered a seaman to break out the White Ensign, and
Ross to open fire. The gun was raised to the extreme of its elevation, but still the 13-pounder was hopelessly outranged. The seventh
German shell hit Crisp himself, shattering both his legs at the hips and partially disembowelling him, before smashing through the deck
and passing out through the ship’s side. Ross, and the Skipper’s son, Tom Crisp, rushed over to him and found that in spite of his
frightful wounds he was still conscious. He knew he was dying and told his son to send off a message which Ross took down: ‘Nelson
being attacked by submarine. Skipper killed. Send assistance at once.’ The message was attached to the smack’s carrier pigeon and sent
on its way.
www.dnw.co.uk
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