A Collection of Medals for the Russian Intervention 1918-20


With the arrival of an air capability, plans were then made for a raid on Kronstadt, which would involve the destruction of Soviet capital ships at berth in the Harbour. It would be a combined operation by sea and air, with the assorted aircraft attacking Kronstadt from the air, distracting the anti-aircraft gunners and shooting out searchlights along the breakwater. Under cover of the bombing and strafing the Coastal Motor Boats would use gun cotton to breach the boom at the harbour entrance, speed into the harbour, fire their torpedoes in order and leave the way they came at full throttle before the Bolshevik’s could react. Just in case the sneak attack provoked a response form the Soviet Navy, Rear Admiral Cowan’s destroyers and cruisers would be waiting just behind Kronstadt’s protective minefield to ward off any pursuers.


On 17 August eight Coastal Motor Boats left Biorko at 2200 and rendezvoused off a small island in the Gulf of Finland where they were met by Agar in Coastal Motor Boat No. 7. Agar was to guide the boats through the chain of forts to the harbour entrance where he would wait for the larger Coastal Motor Boats to make their attacks before leading them back through the forts to Terrioki. Shortly after midnight the eight Coastal Motor Boats set course for Kronstadt at high speed.


As the Coastal Motor Boats began their run in to the chain of forts Donald’s squadron of four Short Seaplanes, two Strutter’s, and one Griffin and Camel dived on Kronstadt harbour strafing and bombing up and down the Bolshevik gun positions and searchlights along the breakwater. The eight Coastal Motor Boats were then able to pass through the chain of forts without being fired upon although they were observed, their white wake being visible on the surface, but the forts did not turn on their searchlights nor open fire for fear of attracting the Royal Air Force overhead.


As the first wave of Coastal Motor Boats sped into the harbour the attentions of the garrison were very firmly on taking cover from the strafing and bombing aircraft. The first torpedoes struck home just as the Bolshevik sailors and soldiers responded with a hail of fire. Tracers and shells of every calibre criss-crossed the basin and into the sky from the Bolshevik gun positions on the breakwater. Added to the maelstrom of fire were the machine guns and bombs of the R.A.F. and the twin Lewis guns mounted stern and aft on each of the Coastal Motor Boats


The seven Coastal Motor Boats tasked to attack inside the harbour made their attacks with varying success. The Bolshevik battleships Petropavlovsk and Andrei Pervozanni were hit by one and three torpedoes respectively, the Pervozanni being critically damaged. The submarine depot ship Pamiat Azova was sunk by a single torpedo fired by the raid’s commander, Commander. C. C. Dobson, in Coastal Motor Boat No. 31, and several smaller ships had been sunk or damaged by a torpedo fired from Agar’s Coastal Motor Boat No. 7 waiting outside the harbour. The R.A.F. were credited with the possible destruction of a destroyer depot ship which disappeared after the raid.


In his book Baltic Episode, Agar later wrote of the R.A.F. airmen, ‘The part played by our airmen, without whom it would have been impossible to carry out the operation, was magnificent. Beginning with the diversion created when dropping their small bombs at zero hour, they drove the garrison to cover. Without this, our first three Coastal Motor Boats could never have reached the dockyard basin undetected. Bombing from the air at night was a technique unknown during World War I, and their difficulties can well be imagined. Following this diversion, our airmen in their semi-obsolete machines, Griffins, “one and a half strutters”, and Camels, kept repeatedly diving on the searchlights to attract their attention to they sky and away from the sea. Time and again they dived on to our old enemies, the chain of forts near the entrance, and without doubt accounted for the surprise entry of Dobson’s first three Coastal Motor Boats into the basin. When they saw the difficulties we had on the return journey they came to our rescue again in the most unselfish and noble way:seeing us a long way behind, and about to make our dash through the passage at high speed, one of the airmen turned back to give the two forts on either side of us a final strafe of tracer bullets in wasp-like dives. It enabled us to get through safely to Terrioki, where we arrived at daylight to refuel before going on to Biorko to report to the Admiral. How they took off in the darkness with a full bomb load on their makeshift runway and landed in the early dawn after their petrol had given out is just proof of the guts and courage of these young airmen. We certainly gave them full marks.’


Of the 55 participants in the Kronstadt Raid in both the sea and air no less than 48 received either a decoration or were Mentioned in Despatches, including Victoria Crosses to Lieutenant Steele and the raid commander, Commander Claude Congreve Dobson. Each of the pilots who took part in the raid received the D.F.C., whilst each of the 6 observers who took part, including Pilot Officer Lionel James Booth, were Mentioned in Despatches.


The raid was hailed as a great success with Admiral Cowan (Commander-in-Chief British Forces in the Baltic) writing in his official report that ‘the result will, I feel sure, be assessed by those best qualified to judge, as brilliant and completely successful a combined enterprise by sea and air forces as the last five years of war can show.’


Advanced Flying Officer, Booth retired on 11 October 1929. A full account of the Krontstadt Raid including a complete list of casualties and awards will be found in Churchill's Secret War with Lenin by Damien Wright in which Booth is mentioned on pages 359, 363 and 549.


232


Nine: Captain J. H. Brown, Royal Army Service Corps, who served during the Russian Intervention of 1919, and was awarded the Russian Medal of Zeal


British War and Victory Medals (M-35532 A. Sjt. J. H. Brown. A.S.C.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, the Second War awards all privately engraved ‘146958. Capt. J. H. Brown. R.A. S.C.’; Army L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 3rd issue, Regular Army (T/14972 C.Q.M. Sjt. J. H. Brown. R.A.S.C.); Russia, Empire, Medal for Zeal, Nicholas II, silver (M-35532Pte. J. H. Brown. A.S.C.) traces of lacquer, the Great War awards fine, the rest good very fine or better (9)


£240-£280


John Henry Brown was born in Kingston, Surrey, on 7 October 1899 and attested for the Army Service Corps as a Boy Soldier at Kingston-upon-Thames on 28 August 1914, aged 14. He served overseas British Military Mission to Denikin’s White Russian Forces in South Russia from May 1919 to June 1920, being awarded the Russian Medal for Zeal on the St. Stanislaus riband, whilst holding the rank of Acting Sergeant (War Office Confidential List of 16 July 1921 confirms).


Posted to 780 Motor Transport Company, Royal Army Service Corps, on 24 June 1920, Brown served in Constantinople during the Chanak Affair, before seeing further service with the Army of Occupation on the Rhine. Advanced Regimental Sergeant Major on 1 April 1936, he served with 7th Company, R.A.S.C., as part of the British Expeditionary Force, before being evacuated from Dunkirk in June 1940, and was subsequently posted to the 43rd Divisional Ammunition Park, South East Coast of England on 4 July 1940.


Brown was commissioned Lieutenant (Mechanist Officer) in the Royal Army Service Corps on 3 September 1940, and saw further service during the Second World War in the Middle East with No. 7 Motor Transport Sub Depot and as an Instructor at the Middle East Training School from 1 October 1940 to 20 June 1944, being promoted War Substantive Captain on 3 September 1943. He transferred to the Reserve List on 27 November 1945 with the rank of Captain, and relinquished his commission, having attained the age limit, on 7 October 1954.


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