Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte 1525


A fine Second World War anti-U-boat operations D.S.C. group of seven awarded to Commander A. H. L. Harvey, Royal Navy, a long-served destroyer officer who first went into action in H.M.S. Punjabi at Narvik in 1940, but who was decorated and twice mentioned in despatches for his subsequent services in the Croome 1941-44 - in which period she rammed and sunk an Italian submarine and shared in the destruction of two U-boats: post-war he added a third “mention” to his accolades for his command of a Landing Craft (Tank) in the Suez crisis - and wrote a hitherto unpublished account of his 1939-45 War experiences


DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS, G.VI.R., hallmarks for London 1941, the reverse officially dated ‘1941’; 1939-45 STAR; ATLANTIC STAR; AFRICA STAR, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; ITALY STAR;WARMEDAL 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf; NAVALGENERAL SERVICE 1915 -62, 2 clasps, Palestine 1945-48, Malaya (Lieut. A. H. L. Harvey, D.S.C., R.N.), mounted as worn, good very fine (7) £2500-3000


D.S.C. London Gazette 28 October 1941. The original recommendation states:


‘For skill and alertness as A./S. control officer resulting in the destruction of an enemy submarine.’


Arthur Herbert Lane Harvey was born in Totnes, Devon, in May 1921, the son of Engineer Commander Harold Harvey, afterwards a Rear-Admiral and C.B.


Entering the Royal Navy as a Cadet at the R.N.C. Dartmouth in September 1938, young Arthur was appointed a Midshipman in May 1939 and was serving aboard the battleship H.M.S. Rodney on the outbreak of hostilities. Removing to the patrol escort Lunar Bow that November, he remained similarly employed until joining the destroyer Punjabi in February 1940, and it was in this latter capacity that he first went into action.


Baptism of Fire - Narvik 1940


And a hot action it was - namely the second battle of Narvik on 13 April 1940 - when the Germans lost eight destroyers, but not without cost to our own forces, as illustrated by the following account of damage sustained by the Punjabi, taken from Captain Donal MacIntyre’s Narvik:


‘The British destroyers had not escaped unscathed. On the Punjabi had fallen a fierce and accurate rain of 5-inch shells. The first, plunging into her hull below the bridge, had burst between decks, splinters killing one man and wounding three others in the Transmitting Station whence the guns were controlled. While two of these were having their wounds dressed on the mess deck nearby they were more seriously injured by a second shell which had burst on the upper deck at the foot of a steel locker containing ready-use cordite charges for the guns. Tearing a hole in the deck, it had showered splinters between the decks killing two of the ammunition supply party and wounding others. Cordite charges from the locker blazed up, starting a fierce fire.


Almost simultaneously, the ship shook to another hit right forward which shattered a watertight bulkhead and caused flooding. A fire then broke out between the funnels from a bursting shell. Right aft another shell had plunged into a storeroom starting a blaze which threatened a magazine which had to be flooded. Fire and repair parties were thus all fully occupied when a fifth hit, bursting on the starboard motorboat and setting it alight, sent a jagged fragment through the upper deck, smashing a steam pipe and engulfing the engine room in a roaring cloud of steam. Other splinters had swept across the decks, killing two of the pom-pom crew and wounding two others as well as three of the torpedo-tubes’ crew.


A message from the engine room had just reached Commander H. T. Lean, Punjabi’s captain, that the engines would shortly have to be stopped owing to the burst pipe, when torpedoes were seen approaching, running to the surface. With imperturbable skill, Lean swerved his ship out of their path, but the time had come to consider what best to do for his ship in its precarious situation. The engineer had been sent for to report on the situation below. With fires blazing forward, amidships and aft, all fire hoses slashed and useless, extinguishers exhausted, the guns’ crews were urgently needed to help the parties fighting the flames by means of buckets of water. The guns were, in any case, in local control and largely ineffective owing to the damage to the Transmitting Station.


As the engineer officer arrived, oil-streaked, grimy and wild-eyed, a sixth shell burst on the upper deck below, savagely wounding him in the back and arms. He was just able to confirm his diagnosis of the damage to the steam system before collapsing. The chief stoker in charge of the party fighting the fire amidships was instantly killed and several more men wounded.


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