A Second World War Mention in Despatches and Royal Navy Long Service and Good Conduct Medal group awarded to Stoker Petty Officer H.F. Clay, Royal Navy who having joined on 30th December 1920 would be granted the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal on 9th January 1936 receiving the medal on 5th March 1936. He would see Second World War service aboard Ramilles where he would be involved in the initial search for the commerce raider Admiral Graf Spee, before making port visits in Australia on the way to New Zealand where she would rendezvous with the convoy transporting elements of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force to Egypt. Upon the declaration of war by Italy Ramilles would find herself in the Mediterranean on convoy escort duty including to and from the island of Malta. She would then escort the aircraft carrier Illustrious when she took part in the famous raid on Taranto on 11th November 1940. Ramilles would move to the Far East in time for the outbreak of war and Clay would still be aboard when she was damaged by a Japanese midget submarine in Diego Suarez harbour in May 1942. The ship would then return home, but Clay would be transferred to Indomitable which was initially being repaired herself having suffered bomb damage from Stuka dive bombers in the Mediterranean. Once repaired the ship would return to the Mediterranean and take part in Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, she was quickly damaged once more when she was struck by a torpedo from an Italian bomber on 16th July 1943. The ship would travel to the USA for repairs, Clay being Mentioned in Despatches on 1st January 1944. Once repaired the Indomitable would see service in the far east launching bombing raids against Sumatra. Clay would return ashore in September 1944 and would be discharged in November 1945. He would see a short three month period of service in 1951 before being discharged for good on 30th May 1951.
Group of 7: 1939-1945 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Pacific Star; Italy Star; War Medal with Mention in Despatches oak leaf emblem; Royal Navy Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, GVR coinage bust; (K.67014 H.F. CLAY. S.P.O. H.M.S. WINDSOR.) Loose-mounted for wear, Good Very Fine
Condition: loose-mounted for wear, Good Very Fine
Harodl Fred Clay was born in Cranleigh, Surrey on 9th December 1902 and joined the Royal Navy for 12 years service on 30th December 1920.
He would be granted his Long Service and Good Conduct Medal on 9th January 1936 whilst serving aboard H.M.S. Windsor and would receive the medal on 5th March 1936. By the outbreak of the Second World War he would be service aboard Ramilles as a Chief Stoker, his period aboard this ship lasting until 21st November 1942.
On 5 October 1939 Ramillies was ordered to leave Alexandria to join the North Atlantic Escort Force based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The following day, the order was rescinded, and she was instead recalled to Alexandria to replace the battleship Malaya in the Mediterranean Fleet. In November, she was transferred to Aden as part of the search effort for the German commerce-raiding heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee. Ramillies made port visits in Australia en route to New Zealand, arriving in Wellington on 31 December, to rendezvous with the convoy transporting elements of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force to Egypt. She was the first battleship to visit the country and Baillie-Grohman was presented with a Māori piupiu (a warrior's skirt made from rolled flax) by the head of the Ngāti Poneke. The gift followed a tradition established in 1913 by the battlecruiser New Zealand, as the piupiu was intended to ward harm from the ship's company provided that it was worn while the ship was in danger.
Ramillies escorted the convoy to Australia where it was reinforced by ships carrying units of the Second Australian Imperial Force and then to Aden where the battleship left them to return to Australia to pick up another troop convoy for the Middle East. Admiral Graf Spee never entered the Indian Ocean, so Ramillies was transferred back to the Mediterranean Fleet in May 1940 as the probability of Italy joining the war on the German side began to rise. Following the Italian declaration of war on 10 June, the British fleet began operations against Italian positions throughout the Mediterranean. By late June, Ramillies was occupied with escorting convoys in the Mediterranean in company with Royal Sovereign and the aircraft carrier Eagle. In early July, after France had surrendered to Germany and while Britain sought to neutralise the French battleships in the Mediterranean lest they be seized by Germany and Italy, Baillie-Grohman negotiated with the commander of the battleship Lorraine in Alexandria to demilitarise his ship by unloading fuel and removing the breechblocks from his guns.
On 15 August, Ramillies bombarded the Italian port of Bardia and Fort Capuzzo outside Sollum with the battleships Malaya and Warspite and the heavy cruiser Kent. Italian bombers attacked the British fleet but they failed to score any hits; heavy anti-aircraft fire and fighters from Eagle shot down twelve Italian aircraft. The ships escorted a convoy to Malta from 8 to 14 October; poor weather hampered Italian reconnaissance efforts and the convoy reached Malta without incident. Captain Arthur Read relieved Baillie-Grohman on 27 October. The ship was part of the force that covered a series of convoys to and from Malta and Greece in early November during which Ramillies was attacked by the Italian submarine Pier Capponi as she approached Grand Harbour with no result. The battleship then escorted the aircraft carrier Illustrious when she struck the main Italian naval base at Taranto on the night of 11 November, inflicting serious damage on the Italian battle fleet. As a result of the raid on Taranto and the crippling of much of the Italian battleship fleet, Ramillies was no longer necessary to counter the strength of the Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy), and so she was reallocated to the North Atlantic Escort Force. Later, on 27 November, she was attached to Force H to escort a Malta convoy during the Battle of Cape Spartivento, though she did not see action. In December, she returned to Devonport for a refit, escorting a convoy from Gibraltar to Greenock, Scotland, that lasted from 17 December to 6 January 1941.
On 12 January, Ramillies got underway to join the escort for a convoy out of Halifax bound for the Middle East. She continued convoy operations in the North Atlantic through August, and during this period, she escorted Convoy HX 106 which encountered the German fast battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on 8 February. The lightly armed German battleships, equipped with 11-inch (280 mm) guns, and under orders to avoid conflict with enemy capital ships, did not attack the convoy when they realised Ramillies was among the escort vessels. On 23 May, Ramillies was detached from escort duties for Convoy HX 127 to join the search for the German battleship Bismarck, though she did not encounter the vessel. Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the ship on 16 August in Hvalfjörður, Iceland, whilst returning from a conference in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt where they had signed the Atlantic Charter. Upon her return to the UK, Ramillies began a lengthy refit in Liverpool that lasted until 20 November.
In October 1941 the Admiralty decided the ship was to be transferred to the 3rd Battle Squadron which was to be based in Colombo, Ceylon; she was joined there by her three surviving sisters. The squadron was established in December and was attached to Force F. With the start of the Pacific War on 7 December, naval forces were necessary in the Indian Ocean to protect British India. By the end of March 1942, the Eastern Fleet had been formed, under the command of Admiral James Somerville. Despite the numerical strength of the Eastern Fleet, many of its units, including the four Revenge-class battleships, were no longer front-line warships. Vice-Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's powerful Kido Butai, composed of six carriers and four fast battleships, was significantly stronger than Somerville's Eastern Fleet. As a result, only the modernised Warspite could operate with the two fleet carriers; Ramillies, her three sisters, and Hermes were kept away from combat to escort convoys in the Indian Ocean
In late March, the code-breakers at the Far East Combined Bureau, a branch of Bletchley Park, informed Somerville that the Japanese were planning a raid into the Indian Ocean to attack Colombo and Trincomalee and destroy his fleet. He therefore divided his fleet into two groups: Force A, which consisted of the two fleet carriers, Warspite and four cruisers, and Force B, centred on Ramillies and her sisters and the carrier Hermes. He intended to ambush Nagumo's fleet in a night action, the only method by which he thought he could achieve a victory. After three days of searching for the Japanese fleet without success, Somerville returned to Addu Atoll, in the Maldives, to refuel. While there, Somerville received a report that the Japanese fleet was approaching Colombo which they attacked the following day, on 5 April, followed by attacks on Trincomalee on 9 April. Following the first raid on 5 April, Somerville withdrew Ramillies and her three sisters to Mombasa, Kenya, where they could secure the shipping routes in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The four Revenges departed from Addu Atoll early on the morning on 9 April, bound for Mombasa; they remained based there into 1943.
Syfret returned to Ramillies in late April as a rear admiral, commander of the covering force for the invasion of Madagascar (Operation Ironclad). The ship provided a landing party of 50 Royal Marines that were ferried by the destroyer Anthony at high speed past the coast defences of Diego Suarez on the northern end of Madagascar in the dark on 6 May. Disembarking in the harbour, they captured the French artillery command post along with its barracks and the naval depot. The following day the battleship engaged the coastal batteries on Oronjia Peninsula, but after enduring a few salvos of 15-inch shells, the French gunners decided to cease firing. Ramillies remained there during the Battle of Madagascar until the French garrison surrendered in November. On 30 May, Japanese midget submarines that had been launched by the submarines I-16 and I-20 attacked the ships in Diego Suarez. One of the midget submarines scored a hit on Ramillies just forward of her "A" turret on the port side. The explosion tore a large hole in the hull and caused extensive flooding, though damage control teams quickly contained it and prompt counter-flooding prevented her from listing badly. Still down by the bow after offloading most of her ammunition, she was nevertheless able to steam to Durban, South Africa, at a speed of 9 to 10 knots (17 to 19 km/h; 10 to 12 mph). There, she was inspected by the Constructor H. S. Pengelly, who noted that "although the vessel is now 26 years old and felt by most to be of little value owing to reduced size and slow speeds, the Ramillies is in exceptionally good shape, and I should wonder whether or not the capital ships of today with their lighter scantlings would survive a blow as well as this old girl, some 26 years after they were built."
The ship underwent temporary repairs in Durban from June to August before getting underway for Devonport, where permanent repairs were effected.
Clay would then leave the ship, and be pensioned on 30th December 1942 before rejoining the next day, he would join Indomitable on 27th January 1943 which at that time was being repaired having been bombed during Operation Pedastal, a convoy to Malta during August 1942 when she was struck by 2 x 500lb bombs dropped by Ju-87 Stukas. She would then return to the Mediterranean when she was torpedoed by an Italian bomber whilst supporting Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. The ship would then travel to the United States for repairs before travelling to the Far East where in August and September 1944 she would launch bombers against Sumatra in modern day Indonesia. Whilst aboard the ship, Clay would be Mentioned in Despatches in the London Gazette of 1st January 1944
Clay would leave the ship on 14th September 1944, and would serve ashore until released on 7th November 1945 during which time he would be granted two months compassionate leave on 28th February 1945.
He would join again on 12th February 1951 serving a further short period until 30th May 1951 when he would receive a free discharge ashore.
