An extremely rare Great War D.S.C. and life-saving group of eight awarded to Lieutenant de...

An extremely rare Great War D.S.C. and life-saving group of eight awarded to Lieutenant de Vaisseau J. J. Perrette, French Navy, for services aboard the battleship Gaulois in the failed attempt to force the Dardanelles in March 1915, and for saving life from a torpedoed vessel in January 1918 Distinguished Service Cross, GVR, reverse hallmarked London 1915; France, Third Republic, Legion of Honour, Officer’s breast badge, gold and enamels, chipped in several places; Croix de Guerre 1914 1915, with palm; China Campaign Medal 1900-01, silver, 1 clasp, Chine 1900-01; Levant Campaign Medal, bronze, 1 clasp, Levant; Colonial Campaign Medal, silver, 1 clasp, Afrique Occidentale Francaise; Serbia, War Medal 1914-18, these mounted for display in French order of precedence; together with Société Centrale de Sauvetage des Naufragés (Central Society for Saving Life), large gold medal, 36mm, French hallmark for 18 carat gold, 28.0g, the reverse with uniquely struck inscription ‘Lieutenant de Vaisseau Perette, Commandant La “Sagaïe” – Sauvetage en presence de l’ennemie du personnel de La “Catherine II” torpillée 30 Janvier 1918’, generally good very fine or better (8) £3,000-£4,000 --- Importation Duty This lot is subject to importation duty of 5% on the hammer price unless exported outside the UK --- --- DSC London Gazette 23 December 1915: ‘rewards to Officers and Men of the French Navy, with the approval of the President of the Republic, in recognition of their bravery and distinguished service in the [Dardanelles] campaign:- ‘Le Lieutenant de Vaisseau Julien Joseph Perrette, du “Gaulois”.’ The Gaulois was on the extreme left of the French four battleship squadron taking part in the main naval attack on the Dardanelles defences on 18 March 1915. Badly holed below the waterline in the early afternoon by return fire from Turkish fixed and mobile land batteries, Gaulois flooded rapidly and had to be beached off the entrance to the Dardanelles, on Rabbit Island, north of Tenedos. After pumping out, patching and refloating she went to Malta to be repaired. Only twenty-nine D.S.C.’s were gazetted to the French Navy during the Great War although a few others were possibly awarded and not gazetted. Most of these awards were for the Dardanelles, with one award going to each of the battleships Bouvet (sunk), Suffren and Gaulois. In the absence of any named medals the majority will have passed into anonymous obscurity. The French cargo ship Catherine II (formerly Empress Ekaterina II of the Russian Steam Navigation & Trading Company, Odessa) was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine UB 52 (Otto Launburg) on 30 January 1918, north of Bougie, Algeria, whilst en route from Bizerta to Greece. The crew were saved by the French destroyer La Sagaïe, commanded by Lieutenant Perette who was awarded a gold medal.