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Lot Essay
D.S.C. London Gazette 11.11.1919 'For distinguished service as Second-in-Command of H.M. Coastal Motor Boat No. 86 in the attack on Kronstadt Harbour on 18 August 1919. The Boat in which he was serving passed through the line of forts under a heavy fire. She was then disabled, when Sub-Lieutenant Wight prepared her for towing and re-passed the line of forts single-handed'.
Lieutenant Robert Leslie Wight, D.S.C., was educated at Wellington College and entered the Royal Navy as a Cadet at Osborne in January 1914. Passing out of Dartmouth as a Midshipman in May 1917, he served for the next two years with the Grand Fleet aboard the Battleship H.M.S. Barham.
In the Spring of 1919, however, he transferred to Coastal Motor Boats, which appointment led to his gallant exploits in Kronstadt Harbour while Second-in-Command of No. 86. By any standards Wight and his crew endured one of the more hair-raising episodes of the night, the big end of their C.M.B.'s engine seizing-up on the way in at 20 knots. Drifting helplessly below the enemy's Batteries for the duration of the attack, crew and craft were mighty lucky to survive - mercifully Sub-Lieutenant Bodly in No. 72A stopped to offer assistance and managed to tow the stricken C.M.B. back to Biorko.
Returning to more normal seagoing duties aboard the Destroyer H.M.S. Valentine in April 1920, Wight was advanced to Lieutenant in the following year. Transferring to the newly established Fleet Air Arm in the mid-1920s, he qualified as an Observer and joined H.M.S. Vindictive on the China Station sometime in 1927, having completed earlier trials aboard H.M.S. Argus. Tragically, however, this was to prove his last appointment, for in mid-February he was reported missing over Shanghai.
Lieutenant Robert Leslie Wight, D.S.C., was educated at Wellington College and entered the Royal Navy as a Cadet at Osborne in January 1914. Passing out of Dartmouth as a Midshipman in May 1917, he served for the next two years with the Grand Fleet aboard the Battleship H.M.S. Barham.
In the Spring of 1919, however, he transferred to Coastal Motor Boats, which appointment led to his gallant exploits in Kronstadt Harbour while Second-in-Command of No. 86. By any standards Wight and his crew endured one of the more hair-raising episodes of the night, the big end of their C.M.B.'s engine seizing-up on the way in at 20 knots. Drifting helplessly below the enemy's Batteries for the duration of the attack, crew and craft were mighty lucky to survive - mercifully Sub-Lieutenant Bodly in No. 72A stopped to offer assistance and managed to tow the stricken C.M.B. back to Biorko.
Returning to more normal seagoing duties aboard the Destroyer H.M.S. Valentine in April 1920, Wight was advanced to Lieutenant in the following year. Transferring to the newly established Fleet Air Arm in the mid-1920s, he qualified as an Observer and joined H.M.S. Vindictive on the China Station sometime in 1927, having completed earlier trials aboard H.M.S. Argus. Tragically, however, this was to prove his last appointment, for in mid-February he was reported missing over Shanghai.