Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte 1161
A fine Second World War Arctic convoys D.S.C. group of eight awarded to Commander P. G. Satow, Royal Navy, who survived the loss of the destroyer Wild Swan and was also twice mentioned in despatches, once for gallantry in “The Battle of Barents Sea”, the famous action in which the destroyers Orwell and Onslow repelled the mighty Hipper - a V.C. action and classic ‘David and Goliath’ contest that caused an enraged Hitler to order the scrapping of his High Seas Fleet
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS,
G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1944’ and privately engraved ‘Patrick Satow, Royal Navy’; 1939-45 STAR;ATLANTIC STAR;AFRICA STAR; BURMA STAR;WARMEDAL 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf; KOREA 1950-53 (Lt. Cdr. P. G. Satow, D.S.C., R.N.); U.N. KOREA 1950-54, good very fine or better (8)
£3000-3500 D.S.C. London Gazette 1 January 1944.
Patrick Graham Satow, who joined the Royal Navy as a Cadet in May 1937, was appointed a Sub. Lieutenant (and Navigating Officer) in the destroyer H.M.S. Wild Swan on 19 December 1939, the very same day that her crew fell in on the jetty at Portsmouth to greet the King as he made a visit to the dockyard. From that date until the Wild Swan’s loss to enemy aircraft in June 1942, her active wartime commission is vividly recounted by Peter C. Smith’s in his history of the ship, a history in which Satow is often quoted at length.
Employed on 10 May 1940 to take demolition parties to the Hook of Holland, Wild Swan remained there until the 13th, when she returned to Dover. During that time she engaged enemy batteries, parachute troops and carrier borne troops landing on the beaches, and sustained damage from a near miss which reduced her speed to 15 knots, and necessitated her return to dock for repairs. But she was quickly back at sea, and from the 21st to 25th was employed in escorting ships and evacuating refugees and troops at Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne. At the latter port she assisted on the 23 May in the final evacuation in the face of heavy air attack and fire from shore batteries, one of her own guns destroying an enemy tank which was ‘roaring down a side street towards the quay’. Gunnery skills aside, Wild Swan’s survival was also down to the navigation of Satow, Signalman W. K. Harrison recalling in Peter C. Smith’s ship history:
‘One man who gained the respect of the people on our bridge was Sub. Lieutenant Satow, our Navigation Officer. On the backward and forward runs, bringing shiploads of soldiers back, we always seemed to pass close to a particular floating mine. On the way out it would be to starboard and on the way back it would be on the port side. We did not worry during the daylight hours as the lookouts would always spot it in good time, but at night there was some concern that they would not see it and would fail to warn us in time to prevent us hitting it. We always seemed to pass four or five feet from it. The Captain would be sitting on his stool on the bridge in front of the binnacle with his duffle-coat on and he would say, “Satow, we are coming up near that damned mine, are we not?” And Satow would reply, “It’s all right, sir.” Sure enough the lookouts would shout out, “mine on the port bow”, and we would watch it glide by at the usual distance. Why we never gave it a wider berth I’ll never know. Satow was, however, recognised as a very excellent navigator, even though the mine at night always gave the people on the bridge many secret worries.’
Another witness to Satow’s exceptional qualities as Navigating Officer, as Wild Swan subsequently embarked upon convoy escort work, was Surgeon Lieutenant F. H. D. Hutter:
‘I also met Pat Satow, in those days a Sub. Lieutenant. He was the navigator. In the worst weather imaginable, no sun and no star sights possible, he always seemed spot-on. To me it seemed absolute magic. He was always cheerful and the ship’s tensions seemed to bounce off him. Of all the ship’s officers, I can see him now cheering the wardroom up simply by his presence’ (Smith’s Wild Swan refers).
Loss of the “Wild Swan”
On 17 June 1942, however, Satow’s cheerful nature was sorely tested, for, while sailing in support of convoy H.G. 84, Wild Swan was sunk by Ju. 88s in a ferocious action in the Western Approaches - but not before she accounted for six enemy aircraft, an achievement that would propel her into the front pages of the home press. Satow’s account of the action is recounted in Smith’s history:
‘Within a minute or two, of course, we were at full action stations and then the twelve Huns slowly dropped out from the cloud base. As they crossed ahead of us we opened up with our two foremost 4.7s. The first few rounds burst remarkably close, and at least two of the raiders appeared to be hit, and climbed back into the clouds. A minute or two later these two dropped out of the clouds again steering wildly. We held our breath as they collided head-on, each doing about 300 m.p.h. One caught fire and dived vertically on to a Spanish trawler. The whole lot blew up and a shower of pieces went flying through the air. The other dived headlong into the sea, quite close to the burning wreckage of his opposite number. He released his bombs about a hundred feet up - too late - they fell only a few yards away, and he was also blown to pieces. During the early part of this fierce engagement, Wild Swan was steaming at nearly 25 knots, and altering course continuously to try and avoid the bombs which were falling alarmingly close. She had no time to go and look for German airmen in the sea who might have escaped ...
www.dnw.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256 |
Page 257 |
Page 258 |
Page 259 |
Page 260 |
Page 261 |
Page 262 |
Page 263 |
Page 264 |
Page 265 |
Page 266 |
Page 267 |
Page 268 |
Page 269 |
Page 270 |
Page 271 |
Page 272 |
Page 273 |
Page 274 |
Page 275 |
Page 276 |
Page 277 |
Page 278 |
Page 279 |
Page 280 |
Page 281 |
Page 282 |
Page 283 |
Page 284 |
Page 285 |
Page 286 |
Page 287 |
Page 288 |
Page 289 |
Page 290 |
Page 291 |
Page 292 |
Page 293 |
Page 294 |
Page 295 |
Page 296 |
Page 297 |
Page 298 |
Page 299 |
Page 300 |
Page 301 |
Page 302