Royal Navy Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, GVR awarded to Sailmaker A.L. Greenland, Royal Navy who was awarded his Long Service and Good Conduct Medal on 6th January 1913 whilst serving aboard H.M.S. Implacable. He would see Great War service off of the coast of Belgium and Northern France in support of the land forces in late 1914 before taking part in action in the Dardanelles during 1915 including during the landings on the Helles Peninsula on 25th April 1915.
Royal Navy Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, GVR, (187377 A.L. GREENLAND. SAILMAKER. H.M.S. IMPLACABLE.)
Condition: Good Very Fine
Alfred Lewis Greenland was born in Lambeth, London on 28th December 1879 and giving his trade as a Celler Boy joined the Royal Navy on 29th January 1896, initially serving as a Boy 2nd Class aboard Impregnable on 29th January 1896, before being advanced to Boy 1st Class on 26th November 1896 before he formally joined for 12 years service on his 18th birthday on 28th December 1897.
He would serve aboard HMS Repulse from 13th August 1897 initially serving as an Ordinary Seaman before being advanced to Able Seaman on 15th March 1900. He would be appointed a Sailmaker’s Mate with Pembroke on 1st April 1905, and then a Sailmaker aboard Bulwark on 10th October 1911.
Transferring to Implacable on 25th April 1911, he would be awarded his Long Serivce and Good Conduct Medal on 6th January 1913, and would still be aboard upon the outbreak of war initially supporting the forces in northern France and Belgium using her guns for shore bombardment. In 1915 Implacable would support operations in the Dardanelles.
Along with H.M.S. Queen, The Admiralty ordered Implacable to transfer to the Dardanelles, and they left England on 13 March 1915 and arrived at Lemnos on 23 March 1915. By the time they arrived, the British had lost two battleships in the 18 March attack, prompting the Admiralty to send the last two ships of the 5th Squadron to join the fleet. On her arrival off the Dardanelles, Implacable joined 1st Squadron, which included seven other battleships under the command of Rear Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss. Over the course of the next month, the British and French fleet began preparations for the landings at Cape Helles and at Anzac Cove, the beginning of the land portion of the Gallipoli Campaign.
Late in the day on 23 April, the Allied forces began to move into position for the landing; troop transports made their way to the concentration point off Tenedos. Wemyss followed in the armoured cruiser Euryalus, and Implacable and the battleship Cornwallis accompanied him. On the night of 24–25 April, soldiers transferred from the troopships to Implacable, Cornwallis, and Euryalus, which then steamed to their landing beaches under cover of darkness. Implacable arrived off X Beach, part of the landings at Cape Helles, and started sending men ashore at 04:00 under cover of her own bombardment of Ottoman defences. In the course of the bombardment, she fired twenty 12-inch shells and 368 rounds of 6-inch. In recognition of the critical support she had provided the troops as they attacked Ottoman positions, they named the landing site "Implacable Beach".
Over the course of the following days, Implacable continued to bombard Ottoman positions around the landing beaches. As Ottoman forces began to gather at Krithia to launch a counterattack against Y Beach on 26 April, Implacable opened a heavy bombardment that completely dispersed the Ottomans. Two days later, she was again off X Beach, and she and several other British and French battleships bombarded Ottoman troop concentrations during the First Battle of Krithia. She helped to break up an Ottoman attack on Y Beach on the night of 1 May and supported an unsuccessful British and ANZAC attack on Krithia five days later, the Second Battle of Krithia.
Implacable, along with the battleships London, Prince of Wales, and Queen, was detached from the Dardanelles on 22 May 1915 to become part of a new 2nd Detached Squadron in the Adriatic Sea to reinforce the Italian Navy after Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary. Implacable arrived at Taranto, Italy, her base for this duty, on 27 May 1915.[17][21] In November 1915, Implacable transferred to the 3rd Detached Squadron. Based at Salonika, this squadron was organised to reinforce the Suez Canal Patrol and assist the French Navy in blockading the Aegean coasts of Greece and Bulgaria. She shifted her base to Port Said, Egypt, later that month. Implacable departed on 22 March 1916 for a refit in the United Kingdom, arriving at Plymouth Dockyard on 9 April 1916.
Greenland would leave the ship on 11th April 1916, and would be posted to Pembroke, before on 12th February 1917 he joined Wellington where he would remain until 27th March 1918, subsequently returning to Pembroke and seeing short periods ashore before being pensioned on 3rd March 1920.
