GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY 44
An outstanding and poignant Second World War Dunkirk Evacuation D.S.M. and St Nazaire Raid ‘V.C. Action’ M.I.D. group of four awarded to Able Seaman A. R. C. ‘Lofty’ Stephens, Royal Navy, who was decorated for gallantry in fighting off Stuka dive-bombers on M.T.B. 102 during the Dunkirk Evacuation and posthumously mentioned in despatches for his great gallantry as loader of the forward Pom-Pom alongside Bill Savage, V.C., on M.G.B. 314, the Headquarters Ship of the Famous St. Nazaire Raid
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE MEDAL,
G.VI.R. (JX. 131369 A. R. C. Stephens, A.B., R.N.); 1939-45 STAR; ATLANTIC STAR; WAR MEDAL, with M.I.D. oak leaf, extremely fine (4)
£14000-18000
D.S.M. London Gazette 16 August 1940: ‘For good services in the withdrawal of the Allied Armies from the beaches of Dunkirk.’
M.I.D. (Posthumous) London Gazette 21 May 1942: ‘For great skill and dauntless devotion to duty as Second Coxswain of a Motor Gun Boat. He was mortally wounded while helping at the pom-pom.’ One of only 3 such awards for the St Nazaire Raid.
Albert Richard Carver ‘Lofty’ Stephens was born in 1912, the second child and only son of Sub-Postmaster and smallholder Albert Stephens and his wife Sarah Eliza Stephens, of Himbleton, Worcestershire. His father died on Armistice Day, 1918, when Dick, as his family called him, was just six years old. His mother continued to run the local Post Office, while raising her family with the help of relatives. Dick was clever enough to obtain a place at Royal Worcester Grammar School, but left school at age 16.
In 1928, Stephens entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in the training ship Ganges. He served for three years in the modern battleship H.M.S. Nelson, flagship of the Home Fleet. He was aboard her during the Invergordon Mutiny, when junior seamen went on strike to protest against cuts in their pay. Stephens subsequently served in the destroyer Dainty on the China Station, and the cruiser Norfolk in the West Indies.
Dunkirk - “Come on, yer bastards”
By the time of the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940 (Operation Dynamo), Stephens was the machine-gunner in Motor Torpedo Boat 102, commanded by Lieutenant Christopher Dreyer, R.N., one of the great Coastal Forces’ leaders, who ended the War with a D.S.O. and two D.S.Cs. 102’s crew was small, just two officers and eight men, but her top speed of 48 knots made her the fastest wartime British naval vessel. Stephens’s action station was in a tiny turret that housed twin .303 machine guns to engage aircraft and surface targets.
Christopher Dreyer remembered Stephens as ‘a dearly loved character’: “Every time we left Dover, Stephens clambered into his turret and sat there, behind his .303 machine guns, until we got back; nothing would budge him. On one occasion he was looking up at the Stukas, his guns aimed and ready, waiting for them to come into range, the inevitable cigarette drooping from his mouth. I noticed his mouth moving and leant back to hear what he was saying. Over and over again, he was droning “Come on, yer bastards,” just to himself, longing to have a crack at them.”
According to a contemporary newspaper cutting, M.T.B. 102 made 12 or 13 trips from England to Dunkirk. She was frequently attacked by enemy aircraft. The Senior Naval Commander of the evacuation fleet, Rear-Admiral Wake-Walker, used the destroyer Keith as his flagship until it was dive-bombed and sunk on June 1st. Wake-Walker transferred to M.T.B. 102, using her as his flagship for the last two nights of the operation and directing the incoming and outgoing vessels at Dunkirk from her bridge. As she carried no Rear- Admiral’s flag, one was improvised from an Admiralty dishcloth daubed with paint. M.T.B. 102 was the third from last vessel to leave Dunkirk.
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