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拍品專文
Sold with the recipient's original Certificate of Service and three portrait photographs.
D.S.M. London Gazette 17.3.1919.
Stoker Petty Officer Sidney William Shillabeer, D.S.M., was born in Devon in May 1882 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in September 1904. Advanced to Stoker in November 1905 and to Leading Stoker in March 1908, he joined H.M.S. Fox in the following June, seeing service in the Persian Gulf and off Somaliland prior to leaving her in July 1910 - earlier that year he received an allocation of prize money 'for the capture of two Dhows by Fox in March 1909'. A Stoker Petty Officer by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Shillabeer was attached to Vivid until joining the Torpedo Boat Destroyer H.M.S. Mounsey in August 1917, a ship that would shortly witness one of the War's greatest Convoy disasters.
The Loss of the Otranto
On the 6.10.1918, the Auxiliary Cruiser Otranto, bound from New York to Glasgow, with a crew of 360 men and some 660 American Troops, collided with the P. & O. Liner Kashmir off the North Coast of Islay. Both ships had acted as Column Leaders in Convoy HX50 and arrived in the North Channel in the midst of a violent gale and poor visibility. When land was sighted, the Officer of the Watch aboard the Kashmir correctly identified it as Islay, but his counterpart in the Otranto mistook the ground for that of Inishtrahull. As a consequence, both ships were turned in toward each other and at 8.45 a.m. the Kashmir struck the Otranto with a fatal blow amidships on her port side. As the damaged vessels drifted apart, water poured into the huge hole in Otranto's side and she drifted towards the rocky coast of Islay. First to answer the stricken vessel's S.O.S. calls was the Torpedo Boat Destroyer H.M.S. Mounsey, commanded by Lieutenant F.W. Craven and crewed by such men as Stoker Petty Officer Shillabeer, shortly to be a D.S.M. The Mounsey reached the stricken Liner at around 10 a.m. and, dwarfed by her rearing and plunging 12,000 ton frame, very gallantly closed her to take off survivors. On no less than four occasions the plucky little Destroyer crashed against the Liner's side, each time hundreds of American servicemen jumping from the latter's decks in an effort to reach those of the Destroyer. In what must have been horrific circumstances, many of them met their death between the pitching sides of the two vessels, while many others sustained serious injuries on hitting the Mounsey's deck. At length, however, with her decks perilously overladen, the Mounsey set sail for Belfast with an astonishing 596 survivors. Tragically at least another 400 souls remained trapped aboard the Otranto, and when she hit the bottom less than half a mile from shore, near Machir Bay, Captain Davidson gave the order to abandon ship - only 16 of these men ever reached land (Argyll Shipwrecks, P. Moir and I. Crawford refers).
Remaining a Regular after the War, Shillabeer was pensioned in September 1926. Subsequently recommended for the Royal Fleet Reserve, he did not finally hang up his sea boots until May 1933.
D.S.M. London Gazette 17.3.1919.
Stoker Petty Officer Sidney William Shillabeer, D.S.M., was born in Devon in May 1882 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in September 1904. Advanced to Stoker in November 1905 and to Leading Stoker in March 1908, he joined H.M.S. Fox in the following June, seeing service in the Persian Gulf and off Somaliland prior to leaving her in July 1910 - earlier that year he received an allocation of prize money 'for the capture of two Dhows by Fox in March 1909'. A Stoker Petty Officer by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Shillabeer was attached to Vivid until joining the Torpedo Boat Destroyer H.M.S. Mounsey in August 1917, a ship that would shortly witness one of the War's greatest Convoy disasters.
The Loss of the Otranto
On the 6.10.1918, the Auxiliary Cruiser Otranto, bound from New York to Glasgow, with a crew of 360 men and some 660 American Troops, collided with the P. & O. Liner Kashmir off the North Coast of Islay. Both ships had acted as Column Leaders in Convoy HX50 and arrived in the North Channel in the midst of a violent gale and poor visibility. When land was sighted, the Officer of the Watch aboard the Kashmir correctly identified it as Islay, but his counterpart in the Otranto mistook the ground for that of Inishtrahull. As a consequence, both ships were turned in toward each other and at 8.45 a.m. the Kashmir struck the Otranto with a fatal blow amidships on her port side. As the damaged vessels drifted apart, water poured into the huge hole in Otranto's side and she drifted towards the rocky coast of Islay. First to answer the stricken vessel's S.O.S. calls was the Torpedo Boat Destroyer H.M.S. Mounsey, commanded by Lieutenant F.W. Craven and crewed by such men as Stoker Petty Officer Shillabeer, shortly to be a D.S.M. The Mounsey reached the stricken Liner at around 10 a.m. and, dwarfed by her rearing and plunging 12,000 ton frame, very gallantly closed her to take off survivors. On no less than four occasions the plucky little Destroyer crashed against the Liner's side, each time hundreds of American servicemen jumping from the latter's decks in an effort to reach those of the Destroyer. In what must have been horrific circumstances, many of them met their death between the pitching sides of the two vessels, while many others sustained serious injuries on hitting the Mounsey's deck. At length, however, with her decks perilously overladen, the Mounsey set sail for Belfast with an astonishing 596 survivors. Tragically at least another 400 souls remained trapped aboard the Otranto, and when she hit the bottom less than half a mile from shore, near Machir Bay, Captain Davidson gave the order to abandon ship - only 16 of these men ever reached land (Argyll Shipwrecks, P. Moir and I. Crawford refers).
Remaining a Regular after the War, Shillabeer was pensioned in September 1926. Subsequently recommended for the Royal Fleet Reserve, he did not finally hang up his sea boots until May 1933.