ROCKET Apparatus Volunteer Long Service Medals are quite often found as 'singles' in dealers' lists and at medal fairs, but they appear far less frequently in groups, especially when they bear the scarcer George VI second type obverse, issued only between 1949 and 1952.

More important, however, than fine numismatic distinctions is the story behind the medals. In this case the group is a 1914-15 Star trio, plus the rocket apparatus medal, issued to 198520 Ldg Seaman (later Petty Officer) James Mundy, bought in a Dix, Noonan Webb auction in April 2001. A visit to DNW's website and a search of their archives will reveal details of the sale.

James, who was born in 1881 at Abbotsbury, near Portland, Dorset, signed papers as a Boy 2nd Class in 1898 and went on to have a busy time afloat during the Great War. More recently I discovered that his father, James Emblen Mundy, born in the same village in 1838, also saw service in the Royal Navy, which he joined as a Boy in 1853. He was sent to the Gorgon on 11 July 1855 and was still serving in her when he became an Ordinary Seaman in 1857.

After their naval service - which ended in 1876 for James Snr - both men became fishermen at Abbotsbury, living in Rodden Row. The elder James went on to a grand age - he was 91 when he died in 1930.

Young James joined the navy in 1895, going first to the Boscawen, quickly followed by other training ships - the St Vincent, Minotaur and Agincourt. In 1899 he was posted to the battleship Rodney, then on Coastguard duties at Queensferry, becoming ordinary seaman on 12 December 1900. After returning briefly to Portsmouth he was sent in February 1901 to the armoured ram turret ship Hotspur, guardship at Bermuda from 1897 to 1903. He was promoted to able seaman in August 1902 and was rated as a Telegraphist.

Subsequent postings included the yacht Firequeen, the Iris (which was then tender to St Vincent), followed by the cruisers Gibraltar and Royal Arthur, both on the North America and West Indies station. Promotion to leading seaman followed in August 1905, eight months after which he went to the Portsmouth gunnery school Excellent. In September 1906 he was rated as seaman gunner and the following year he was posted to the battleship Prince George, flagship of the Portsmouth division of the Home Fleet. In August 1907 he went to yet another battleship, the King Edward VII class Hindustan, flagship of the Channel Fleet.

After further spells at Excellent and Pembroke, the Chatham base, he went back in November 1910 to the Prince George, then undergoing refit before joining the Home Fleet at Devonport. In August 1911 he was posted to the 1904 pre-dreadnought New Zealand, another King Edward VII class battleship. She was renamed Zealandia later that year to release the name for a new battlecruiser.

This posting was an important one for James because he was still with her when war broke out in 1914 and it was September 1917 before he was sent elsewhere - a total of more than six years in the same ship. He was promoted to petty officer and was awarded his third good conduct badge in December 1913 but in September 1914 he blotted his record when he returned from shore to ship while drunk. He was reduced to leading seaman and lost his third badge until it was restored in March 1915. It was July 1919 before he was again promoted to petty officer, the rank in which he was shore pensioned in December 1922.

Dave Stevens, chairman of Abbotsbury Heritage Research Project, who lives in Rodden Row, knew about James' drunken return to his ship. He recalls: "When I was young I can always remember a Jimmy Mundy lived in a house at the bottom of Rodden Row. I believe he was in the Navy and spent most of his life to do with the sea, as he was a local fisherman.

"He has no grave in the churchyard as he died in a nursing home in Weymouth and his ashes were scattered on his wife's grave. He was reduced in rank in 1914 when after going ashore went back on board whilst drunk when England was at war with Germany."

Jimmy stayed on the straight and narrow for the rest of the war. In September 1914, just a few days before he was disrated, the Zealandia claimed to have sunk a U-boat during operations in the North Sea, but this was not substantiated. The ship's time was filled with patrols with the rest of the Third Battle Squadron in support of cruisers on the Northern Patrol until 5 November 1915 when Zealandia was lying in the Firth of Forth with Hibernia (flagship of Rear-Adm Sydney Fremantle) and the Albemarle. That evening the admiral suddenly received orders to take his three ships to the Aegean. The next day the squadron got underway in darkness and at about 9pm encountered a fierce wind blowing against the spring tide running through the notorious Pentland Firth. The Hibernia took a tremendous sea followed by two or three more. The Albemarle's bridge was swept away with those in it and the ship filled with water.

Adm Fremantle wrote later: "I told Zealandia to go on, and turned around myself to look after the Albemarle - none too easy a job... I decided to stand by her and hope for the best."

Both ships managed to get into Scapa, where Zealandia arrived later, after being damaged and forced to turn back. On 13 November 1915, leaving Albemarle behind, the Hibernia and Zealandia left Scapa. Passing down the Irish Channel they called at Milford Haven where they were joined by the battleship Russell. Making their way south they were hit by another bad storm in the Bay of Biscay. The battered squadron reached Malta on 18 November and thirty-six hours later steamed for the Aegean to deter the Greeks from supporting the Austro-Hungarian forces in Salonika. The mixed fleet, including Russian and Italian warships, anchored in the harbour at Milo, only ninety miles from Athens, where the British ships continued drilling until the Greeks took the hint and agreed to withdraw from Salonika.

While this was going on there was chaos and disappointment for Allied troops at Gallipoli. In mid-December 1915 Adm Fremantle was ordered to bring his squadron up the Aegean to help cover the withdrawal that marked the end of the campaign at Gallipoli. The three ships took up an uncomfortable anchorage at Kephalo Bay at the south-east end of Imbros island.

The Zealandia returned home in January 1916 and was refitted at Portsmouth in February and March, after which she rejoined the Grand Fleet. On 29 April 1916 she moved to Sheerness under the Nore Command before undergoing a more extensive refit at Chatham between December 1916 and June 1917.

Jimmy continued serving in Zealandia until September 1917 when he briefly went into barracks at Portsmouth before being sent again to Excellent. He emerged seven months later with gunnery qualifications for petty officer. His time in battleships was now over. In July 1918 he was on the books of the destroyer depot ship Hecla at Belfast for service in the 883-ton M-class destroyer Minos, which after the war was moved first to Portland and then Queenstown. Jimmy was still with her when he was eventually restored to the rank of petty officer on 1 July 1919. Just over three months later he was sent to the Portsmouth naval base and there he remained until he was shore pensioned on 11 December 1922. He joined the Royal Fleet Reserve the following day.

At about this time Abbotsbury's war memorial, a 2.4-metre high Celtic-style granite cross in the churchyard of the parish church of St. Nicholas, was being erected. It bears the names of thirteen lives lost in the First World War, six of whom served in the Royal Navy. Two of them were brothers, neighbours of Jimmy's in Rodden Row. Both were stoker petty officers and both died at Jutland. Frederick Dunford was killed in the destroyer Fortune and John Dunford died when the cruiser Black Prince blew up.

After his return from naval service, Jimmy became a part-time fisherman and is remembered locally as helping out with the haymaking. Apart from that he appears to have lived on his naval pension. He became one of the rocket apparatus team based on Abbotsbury coastguard station and he received his long service medal in the late 1940s or early 1950s, judging by its obverse. It was awarded for 20 years' service during which time the recipient's conduct had to be continuously good. He must always have been prompt when called out for duty and had to have attended all drills and training.

Since the days of sailing ships there had been a strong coastguard presence along Chesil Beach with lookouts and cottages at Chiswell, Wyke Regis, Chickerell, Langton Herring, Abbotsbury, East Bexington, Burton Bradstock and West Bay. Today coverage is provided by Portland Coastguard and there are no manned lookouts along the beach. At Abbotsbury the coastguard cottages have been turned into luxury holiday homes.

Jimmy's rocket volunteer award was one that went through various changes. It was instituted by the Board of Trade in 1911 and there were eventually four different types of reverses to the medal. The first referred to the Board of Trade but when that department handed over responsibility to the Ministry of Transport in 1942, the wording was amended to read as it does on Jimmy's medal. In 1953 the inscription was changed to 'Coast Life Saving Corps' and in 1968 to 'Coastguard Auxiliary Service'. The silver medal has a watered blue silk ribbon with broad scarlet edges.

Sources not mentioned in the text include: http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Dorset/Abbotsbury.html; Medal Year Book; The Naval Long Service Medals, by Capt Kenneth Douglas-Morris; British Battleships, by Oscar Parkes (Leo Cooper); The National Archives (ADM 139 and ADM 188); FreeBMD website; censuses.

James (Jimmy) Mundy's medals - the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal, all named to him as a leading seaman, and his named Rocket Apparatus Volunteer Medal.

The battleship Zealandia in which Jimmy Mundy served from 1911 to 1917
 

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