The unusual Second War D.S.C. group of six awarded to Sub-Lieutenant (E.) C. R. Keats,...

The unusual Second War D.S.C. group of six awarded to Sub-Lieutenant (E.) C. R. Keats, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, afterwards Malaya Auxiliary Police Force; decorated for his part in the rescue of British prisoners incarcerated in the German supply ship Alstertor in June 1941, he was himself captured in the following month and, after two determined escape attempts, was dispatched to Colditz Castle Distinguished Service Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse hallmarked London 1940 and officially dated ‘1941’; 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45; Colonial Police Medal for Meritorious Services, E.II.R. (Hon. Insp. Claude Keats, D.S.O. (sic) Fed. Malaya Aux. Police); Federation of Malaya Active Service Medal 1960, good very fine or better (6) £2,000-£2,400 --- Importation Duty This lot is subject to importation duty of 5% on the hammer price unless exported outside the UK --- --- Provenance: Spink, April 2004. D.S.C. London Gazette 2 December 1941: ‘For courage and enterprise.’ Colonial Police M.S.M. London Gazette 1 June 1953: ‘Claude Randolph Keats, D.S.O. (sic), Honorary Inspector, Auxiliary Police, Federation of Malaya.’ Claude Randolph ‘Jack’ Keats was born at Rugeley, Staffordshire on 7 December 1916. and was employed as an engineer on his joining the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in August 1940. Granted a temporary commission as a Sub. Lieutenant (E.) in October of the same year, he initially served at the Liverpool shore establishment H.M.S. Mersey. Shortly afterwards, however, he joined the Marsdale, which had been requisitioned by the Admiralty for use as an ocean boarding vessel from the Kaye Steamship Company. One of Keats’ first actions in her was the capture of the German tanker Gedania in June 1941, but it was for her subsequent part in tracking down the German supply ship Alstertor on 23 June 1941 that he was awarded the D.S.C. Working in liaison with enemy raiders and U-boats, the Alstertor was returning from the Indian Ocean when she was forced by Marsdale, accompanying destroyers and a Catalina of Coastal Command to scuttle herself off Cape Finisterre. In consequence, 78 British prisoners, which had been transferred from the enemy raider Atlantis, were rescued. Soon after this action, Keats transferred to the liner Malvernian and he was likewise employed at the time of her loss in July 1941. Bombed and set ablaze by the Luftwaffe in the North Atlantic, four of her officers and 20 ratings were killed, and the surviving crew took to four lifeboats. One of the latter was picked by the sloop Scarborough and two reached Spain. But the fourth was intercepted by German minesweepers and its occupants, including Keats, taken prisoner. As stated in his P.O.W. debrief in May 1945, he sustained a ‘broken shoulder’ in his final action and, following treatment, was sent to Oflag X-B, south of Hamburg. In April 1942, he made a bid for freedom, exiting the camp and spending eight days on the run, but he was recaptured by civilian police on reaching the Baltic coast. He managed to get away again in June but was recaptured after two days on that occasion. His gallant efforts were duly rewarded by his transferral to Oflag IV-C, better known as Colditz, in August 1942, and he remained there until liberated in April 1945. Keats moved to warmer climes in the post-war era, when he became the Resident Manager of the Bukit Beruntong Estate in Rawang, Selangor, in addition to serving as an Honorary Inspector in the Auxiliary Police. He died in Leeds in July 1968.