The important Great War Q-Ship commander's D.S.O. and Bar group of seven awarded to Captain...

The important Great War Q-Ship commander’s D.S.O. and Bar group of seven awarded to Captain S. H. Simpson, Royal Navy, who was twice decorated for his command of the Q-Ship Cullist from March 1917 to February 1918, a period that included no less than five close encounters with enemy submarines, the last of them resulting in Cullist’s demise

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., with Second Award Bar, silver-gilt and enamels, with integral top riband bar; 1914-15 Star (Lt. Commr. S. H. Simpson, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Lt. Commr. S. H. Simpson. R.N.); Defence and War Medals 1939-45; France, 3rd Republic, Croix de Guerre 1914-1917, with bronze palm, mounted as worn, minor enamel chips to wreaths of the first, generally good very fine and better (7) £10,000-£14,000
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Importation Duty
This lot is subject to importation duty of 5% on the hammer price unless exported outside the UK
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Provenance: Douglas-Morris Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, October 1996; R. C. Witte Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, December 2007.

D.S.O. London Gazette 29 August 1917: ‘For services in action with enemy submarines.’

D.S.O. Second Award Bar London Gazette 22 February 1918: ‘For services in action with enemy submarines.’

French Croix de Guerre London Gazette 17 May 1918.

Salisbury Hamilton Simpson was born in Karachi in September 1884, the son of a half-Colonel in the Indian Army, and entered the Royal Navy as a Naval Cadet in Britannia in January 1900. Appointed a Midshipman in the battleship Jupiter in the Channel Squadron in June 1901, he was advanced to Lieutenant in April 1907, and was serving in the cruiser Argyll in that rank on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914. Removing to his first command, the sloop Jessamine, in early October 1915, he informed his Admiral that he would need a week to get the ship seaworthy - the latter coldly informed him to proceed to sea at 8 a.m. the following morning. Thus ensued an eventful commission, Chatterton’s Danger Zone quoting some of Simpson’s operational reports.

But it was his transfer to Queenstown Command in March 1917 that led to his many honours, for, in the same month, he was appointed to the command of the Cullist (ex-Westphalia), a Q-Ship armed with one 4-inch gun, two 12-pounders and two torpedo tubes. Between then and February 1918, Simpson was involved in no fewer than five actions, the last of them resulting in Cullist’s demise:

On 13 July 1917, while sailing between the French and Irish coasts, an enemy submarine was sighted on the surface at 11,000 yards range, from which distance it began shelling the Cullist. After firing 38 rounds without recording a hit, the enemy was enticed by Simpson’s tactics to close the range to 5,000 yards, and fired a further 30 rounds, some of which straddled their target. At 1407 hours Cullist returned fire, her gunners getting the range after their second salvo was fired and numerous hits were recorded on the enemy’s conning tower, gun and deck. Then an explosion was seen followed by bright red flames, and three minutes after engaging the submarine it was seen to go down by the bows leaving oil and debris on the surface - the latter included ‘a corpse dressed in blue dungarees, floating face upwards.’ Simpson was awarded the D.S.O.

On 20 August 1917, in the English Channel, an enemy submarine was sighted on the surface and opened fire on the Cullist at 9,000 yards range. After 82 rounds had been fired by the submarine, just one of them scored with a hit on the water-line of the stokehold, the shell injuring both the firemen on watch and causing a large rush of water into the stokehold, which was overcome by plugging the hole and shoring it up. Several time-fuzed shrapnel projectiles were also fired at the Cullist but without effect. The submarine then closed the range to 4,500 yards at which time the Cullist returned fire and scored two hits in the area of the conning tower, upon which the submarine was seen to dive and contact was lost.

On 28 September 1917, in another hotly contested action, Simpson gave the order to open fire on an enemy submarine at 5,000 yards range - ‘thirteen rounds were fired of which eight were direct hits, causing him to settle down by the bowstill while about 30 feet of his stern was standing out of the water at an angle of about 30 degrees to the horizon. He remained in this position for about ten to fifteen seconds before disappearing at 12.43 hours.’ Soon afterwards Simpson spotted another enemy submarine and set off in pursuit, on this occasion to no avail.

Yet another brush with the enemy took place on 17 November 1917, when the Cullist was sighted by an enemy submarine which opened fire at 8,000 yards range. Within five minutes the enemy had the range and a shell glanced off the Cullist’s side, damaging one of three officers’ cabins before bursting on the water-line. After disappearing in a bank of fog the submarine re-appeared and continued to shell the Cullist with such accuracy that for 50 minutes the decks and bridge were continually sprayed with shell splinters and drenched with water from near misses. In all, the enemy fired 92 rounds, while the Cullist returned fire from 4,500 yards, 14 rounds being fired at the submarine of which six were seen to be direct hits. The submarine, although badly damaged, was able to turn away, dive and escape. Simpson was awarded a Bar to his D.S.O.

On 11 February 1918, however, the Cullist’s luck ran out and she was torpedoed without warning in the Irish Sea and sank in two minutes. The enemy submarine then surfaced and asked for the Captain, but was told that he had been killed. The Germans then picked up two men and after verbally abusing the remaining survivors, made off. Simpson, who had been wounded, was pulled into one of the rafts, and the survivors were subsequently rescued by a patrol trawler, but not before being forced to sing “Tipperary” to convince the trawlermen of their true identity.

Simpson was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 22 February 1918), but such was the nature of his wounds, which included a ‘broken shoulder’, that he did not obtain another seagoing command until joining H.M.A.S. Anzac in September 1919, shortly after his advancement to Commander. In late 1924, he assumed command of the Widgeon in the Far East, taking over from Commander M. G. B. Legge, D.S.O., and in August of the following year he became S.N.O. on the Upper Yangtze, winning Their Lordships’ appreciation for his services during ongoing local disturbances. His First Lieutenant during this period was Lieutenant (afterwards Rear-Admiral) A. F. Pugsley, the author of Destroyer Man, a work in which he refers to his C.O’s gathering apathy, rather than the more charming eccentricity for which he was known in his Q-Ship days, and therein, no doubt, lay the roots of Simpson’s request to be placed on the Retired List in December 1930.

Recalled on the renewal of hostilities, he served as a Divisional Sea Transport Officer at Plymouth, Belfast and Glasgow, and was released in March 1946. Simpson died in January 1951.