1914-1915 Star awarded to Officer’s Steward 3rd Class, Royal Navy who survived two sinkings, the first on 18th March 1915 when he was aboard H.M.S. Irresistible when she struck a mine and was later sunk in the Dardanelles, and the second when he was aboard H.M.S. Cornwallis which was sunk by U-32 off the coast of Malta on 9th January 1917.
1914-1915 Star; (L.4366 C.H. WINSBURY. O.S.3. R.N.)
Condition: Nearly Extremely Fine
Charles Henry Winsbury was born in Newington, London on 18th April 1897 and saw service as a Boy Servant from 18th April 1913. He would see service during the Great War aboard H.M.S. Irresistible which was assigned to the Channel Fleet. After operations with the Dover Patrol, during which she bombarded German forces in northern France, she was assigned to the Dardanelles Campaign in February 1915. She took part in numerous unsuccessful attacks on the Ottoman forts guarding the Dardanelles in February and March. These operations included several raids by landing parties to destroy Ottoman coastal artillery batteries. On 18 March, she struck a naval mine that caused extensive flooding and disabled her engines. Without power, she began to drift into the range of Turkish guns, which laid down a withering fire. Attempts to tow her failed, so her surviving crew was evacuated and Irresistible was abandoned and eventually sank. Her crew suffered around 150 killed in the sinking.
He would then transfer to H.M.S. Cornwallis, this ship had fired the first shots of the campaign on 19 February during a bombardment of Ottoman coastal defences. Over the following two months, she participated in numerous attacks on the forts that failed to destroy them, leading to the decision that a major ground attack would be necessary to neutralise the defences. Cornwallis supported the Landing at Cape Helles on 25 April and shelled Ottoman troops over the following month as the Allied soldiers sought to push further inland. She thereafter served with the Suez Canal Patrol and briefly on the East Indies Station until March 1916, when she returned to the Mediterranean. While on patrol off Malta on 9 January 1917, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German U-boat U-32.
On 9 January 1917, Cornwallis was hit on her starboard side by a torpedo from German U-boat U-32, commanded by Kurt Hartwig, in the eastern Mediterranean, 60 nautical miles (110 km; 69 mi) east of Malta. Some of her stokeholds flooded, causing her to list about ten degrees to starboard, but counter-flooding corrected the list. She was also rendered immobilised, which made her an easy target for a second attack from U-32, which was able to evade the depth charge attack from Cornwallis's escorting destroyers. By this time, the British had begun preparations to take her under tow, but Hartwig launched another torpedo at long range. About 75 minutes after the first torpedo hit, another struck Cornwallis, also on the starboard side, and the ship rolled quickly to starboard. Fifteen men were killed in the torpedo explosions, but she stayed afloat long enough to get the rest of the crew off. She sank about 30 minutes after the second torpedo hit.
Winsbury would also survive this sinking, and after several other uneventful appointments would be pensioned ashore on 22nd March 1920.