WW1 medal pair – British War Medal & Victory Medal – awarded to HENRY JOHN EAGLAND Royal Navy

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WW1 medal pair – British War Medal & Victory Medal – awarded to HENRY JOHN EAGLAND Royal Navy 

You are looking at a WW pair of medals, British War Medal and Victory Medal, awarded to HENRY JOHN EAGLAND of the Royal Navy. 

The medals are inscribed ‘J.56945 H.J.EAGLAND. ORD. R.N.’

HENRY served in the Royal Navy from the 11^th of August 1916 to the end of hostilities.

From his naval service record, we know he served aboard a number of ships, including:

8^th October 1916-5^th April 1917 - The battleship HMS Prince of Wales, with whom he served at Taranto in Italy, supporting the Italian Navy in the Adriatic.

4^th June 1917-14^th September 1917 – The destroyers HMS Violent followed by HMS Victor.

Circa November 1917-31^st December 1918 – The destroyer HMS Norsman.

HENRY is listed in the ‘National Roll of the Great War’, that describes how he joined in June 1916, trained at Devonport, was posted to HMS Prince of Wales with whom he sailed to Italy, and was later involved in patrol and escort duties in the North Sea, being wounded off the Belgian Coast in September 1917. He also took part in the raid on Zeebrugge that took place in the September of 1917..............This information needs clarification, however, and would appear to be wrong.

We know from the WW1 service of HMS Prince of Wales, that it did travel to Italy in support of the Italian Navy.

We also know HMS Victor was with the 4^th Destroyer Flotilla and did patrol the North Sea off the coast of Belgium. No record of enemy action taken against this ship can be found, but the ‘National Roll of the Great War’ provides that HENRY was injured in September 1917, and he was at the base depot HMS Pembroke I by the 15^th of September, and interestingly, HMS Pembroke was also a recovery station for injured sailors, although we cannot say for sure HENRY was there because he had been injured, we simply don’t know.

As for the ‘Raid on Zeebrugge’. There was a famous and daring commando raid on the port of Zeebrugge that took place in the April of 1918, but HENRY was not involved in that, and there was a major bombardment of Zeebrugge and the Belgium coast in September, however, at that time, HMS Norsman was serving with the 14^th Destroyer Flotilla, providing protection and convoy duties in the northern North Sea area, and operating out of Rosyth in the Firth of Forth. It was NOT part of the southern UK naval set up that provided ships to carry out the September bombardment of the Belgium coast.

The ‘National Roll of the Great War’ can be great source of information, but the information within it is often provided by servicemen and family based on their knowledge and memory of events, and the information does not always match with what actually happened, and this may be the case with HENRY and his naval service, in that, concentrating on the Zeebrugge connection alone, it appears his ship was not part of any of the Zeebrugge actions in 1918, the commando action in the April referred to as the ‘Zeebrugge Raid’, or the bombardment in September 1918, because his actual service record provides that his ship and the destroyer flotilla it was part of were serving elsewhere at the time.  

The claims made within the ‘National Roll of the Great War’, in the case of EAGLAND, should be treated with caution.

HENRY, the son of HENRY and MATILDA EAGLAND, was born at Mile End in London on the 23^rd of January 1895 (96), and he died on the 22^nd of September 1950.

SELLER NOTE = Supporting documentation obtained and / or created during my research into this medal will be provided.