CAMPAIGN GROUPS AND PAIRS 462 Family group:
Pair: Lance-Corporal L. A. Batten, 3rd South African Infantry, wounded in action BRITISH WAR AND BILINGUAL VICTORY MEDALS (L/Cpl., 3rd S.A.I.)
Pair: Staff Serjeant J. Batten, Adjutant General’s Branch BRITISH WAR AND BILINGUAL VICTORY MEDALS (S/Sjt., A.G.B.) nearly extremely fine (4)
Medals to brothers:
Lawrence Arthur Batten was born in East London, Cape Province. Living in Germiston and an Electrician by occupation, he attested for the South African Overseas Expeditionary Force at Potchefstroom on 1 November 1915 , aged 29 years. Posted to the 3rd South African Infantry, he arrived in England on 16 January 1916 and in France on 26 July 1916. He was wounded in action in the shoulder on 13 October 1916 and on 20 October was invalided to England. Batten was discharged as physically unfit for further service at Germiston on 5 November 1917.
With copied service papers and a photograph of the recipient. £90-120
463
Pair: Staff Sergeant C. S. A. Brooks, South African Pay Corps, late South African Heavy Artillery BRITISH WAR MEDAL 1914-20 (S./Sjt. C.S.A. Brooks, S.A.P.C.); BILINGUAL VICTORY MEDAL 1914-19 (Gnr. C.S.A. Brooks, S.A.H.A
BRITISHWAR AND BILINGUAL VICTORY MEDAL PAIRS (3) (Gnr. J. Ibbotson, S.A.H.A.; Pte. J. Draaier, 1st C.C.; Sjt. C. E. Shackle, 2nd C.C.), good very fine and better (8)
£120-160
Cecil Sydney Augustus Brooks was born in Kimberley and was educated at St. George’s Grammar School, Cape Town. Enlisting in the South Africa Heavy Artillery in August 1915, he was posted to 73rd Battery, S.A.H.A. and served in France from April to July 1916, when he was invalided home as a consequence of illness. Having then served in the South African Pay Corps, he was discharged in July 1918; sold with copied service record.
James Ibbotson appears to have enlisted in the South African Expeditionary in August 1915; he was discharged in the U.K. in June 1919, where he had a sister living in Staffordshire; sold with copied medal issuance references and brief service details.
John Draaier was taken on the strength of the 1st Battalion, Cape Corps in May 1918, and embarked for Egypt in August. He was discharged back in South Africa in May 1919; sold with copied medal issuance reference sheet.
Charles Ewing Shackle was born in Jersey, the Channel Islands and enlisted in the 2nd Battalion, Cape Corps in Cape Town in July 1917, aged 20 years. Having then served overseas, he was discharged at Wynberg in January 1919; sold with copied attestation and discharge papers.
464
‘The undersigned is proud to admit that he sailed for some years under Captain Oakley during the War and can say, with no hesitation, that his courage and ability were outstanding and that he was, right up to his retirement, much admired and very greatly liked by all who sailed under his command.’
Letter from Captain C. E. C. Windram, late Union Castle Line, refers.
The Great War and Second World War campaign group of seven awarded to Captain J. F. Oakley, Merchant Navy, latterly Commodore Captain of the Union Castle Fleet: as a young Cadet, just days after joining his first ship, he found himself enduring an open boat voyage of the most challenging kind
BRITISHWAR AND MERCANTILE MARINEWAR MEDALS 1914-18 (John F. Oakley); 1939-45 STAR; ATLANTIC STAR; PACIFIC STAR; ITALY STAR; WAR MEDAL 1939-45, generally good very fine (7)
£240-280
John Frederick Oakley was born at Uppingham, Rutland in May 1901 and joined the Union Castle Line as a Cadet in February 1917, when he joined the Alnwick Castle. He was about to endure several days in an open boat. A Dictionary of Disasters at Sea takes up the story:
‘On 17 March 1917, Alnwick Castle left Plymouth for Cape Town with 14 passengers and 100 crew and a cargo of silver. On the 18th, she picked up 25 survivors from the Ham steamship Trevose which had just been torpedoed by the German submarine U-81.
In the morning of the 19th, when 310 miles of the Bishop Rock, Alnwick Castle was herself torpedoed without a warning by the U-81 (Oberleutnant zur See Raimund Weisbach). She sank within half an hour, but six lifeboats got away. Two of them were never heard of again.
The Chief Officer’s boat, containing 31 persons, drifted nine days before being rescued by Spanish fishing boats and taken into Carino, near Cape Ortegal. Ten persons had died, some had lost their reason.
The Captain´s boat had more luck. She was five days adrift and was picked up by the French Fabre liner Venezia. Four persons had died from exposure.
In total, out of 139 persons on board the Alnwick Castle, 40, including three of the crew of the Trevose, had died.’
Duly recovered from this ordeal, Oakley spent the remainder of the war engaged on trooping duties and, in July 1921, after gaining his Second Mate’s Certificate, rejoined the Union Castle Line.
During the Second World War he served as First Officer and Chief Officer of the Cape Town Castle on trooping, until he obtained his first command, the Roxbrough Castle, in May 1942. He subsequently held several further wartime commands, mainly cargo ships engaged in the meat trade that sailed independently of convoys.
Post-war, he took command of the passenger liner Carnarvon Castle in 1953 and, in July 1962, while commanding the Windsor Castle, he was appointed Commodore Captain of the Union Castle Line. Owing to ongoing ill-health, however, attributed to his experiences in the Great War, he was compelled to retire and he died at Ferndown in March 1968; sold with copied research, including the above quoted letter.
www.dnw.co.uk
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