Chief Petty Officer Albert Balson BEM*,
DSM, RN
Taken
from Antarctic Gold (Edition 22.1 of The Review, Naval Historical
Collectors & Research Association) - information kindly supplied
by Robert Hughes Mullock.
ALBERT BALSON was born on 12 February 1885
at Allington, near Bridport, Dorset. He was an unenthusiastic
scholar and often skipped school to help a local farmer. When the
local school attendance officer found out where he had bunked off
to, Albert set the farmer’s dog on him. Notwithstanding his affinity
with the soil Albert wanted to be a sailor and as a boy he walked to
Portland to enlist in the Royal Navy. He was taken into boy service
on 2 October 1900, then four months shy of his sixteenth birthday,
signing on for twelve years service. By 1911 he was a Leading Seaman
in HMS POWERFUL when on 6 December he transferred to the TERRA NOVA
at Lyttleton for service with Captain R. F. Scott’s British National
Antarctic Expedition 1910-13.
Balson was by now a stocky built young man
some 5ft 7½ins tall with brown hair, grey eyes and a fresh
complexion. While in TERRA NOVA he took part in her second and third
voyages to the Antarctic and as a consequence of his good service
received the Polar Medal (London Gazette 25 July 1913). On the
expedition’s return Albert went back to the RN, became a diver and
had an eventful war.
The London Gazette showed Albert Balson had
received the Distinguished Service Medal during the Great War,
awarded for the Gallipoli landings. He was listed among the petty
officers and men who received special recommendations in
Vice-Admiral De Robeck’s despatch (London Gazette 18 August 1915)
that:
“…covered the operations carried out on the 25th
and 26th April, 1915, during which period the Mediterranean
Expeditionary Force was landed and firmly established in the
Gallipoli Peninsula.”
Balson was in HMS PRINCE OF WALES,
part of the squadron under Rear-Admiral C. F. Thursby CMG,
that landed soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army
Corps, north of Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast of the Gall
peninsula. The PRINCE OF WALES was one of three battleships
delegated to cover the landings. Admiral De Robeck’s
dispatch continues:
“The squadron then approached the
land at 2:56am at a speed of five knots. When within a short
distance of the beach selected for landing, the boats were
sent ahead. At 4:20am the boats reached the land and a
landing was effected... the beach was very narrow and
continuously under shell fire. The difficulties of
disembarkation were accentuated by the necessity of
evacuating the wounded; both operations proceeded
simultaneously. The service was one which called for great
determination and coolness under fire, and the success
achieved indicates the spirit animating all concerned… Many
individual acts of devotion to duty were performed by the
personnel of the Navy…”
Vice-Admiral De Robeck’s despatch
announced the award of five VCs, four DSOs, twelve DSCs,
four CGMs and twenty-four DSMs in respect of his foregoing
despatch, including the DSM for Petty Officer Albert Balson.
His next appearance in the London Gazette came on 1 August
1919, included in a short list of men who had been brought
to the notice of Their Lordships for valuable services in
the prosecution of the war, though the reason remains
unclear.
The White Star Liner LAURENTIC (Captain R. A.
Norton, RN) had set sail from Loch Swilly at 1700hrs on 25
January 1917. Fifty-five minutes later she ran into a
minefield laid by the German submarine U-80 and struck two
mines with deadly consequences. The first exploded on the
port side abreast of the foremast, the second struck twenty
seconds later abreast of the engine room. LAURENTIC sank in
forty-five minutes. Most of the crew made it to the
lifeboats but only seven of fifteen boats were rescued and
there was heavy loss of life.
News of the sinking spread but
the public was not informed that LAURENTIC had taken 3,211
gold bars with her to the bottom. Some £5million in gold –
being transported secretly to pay for US munitions – was now
lying in twenty-three fathoms, off the Irish mainland. The
loss was a financial disaster for the British Treasury so
the Admiralty took immediate steps to recover the lost
bullion. Lt Commander Damant RN was appointed to lead a
small, hand-picked team of divers to recover the gold. They
quickly found the wreck but had great difficulty scrambling
over her steeply sloping decks. During that first summer
they recovered £800,000 worth of gold, but by September the
weather had deteriorated and they were forced to close down
operations. When they resumed the following year the wreck
was considerably altered with far more debris littering the
decks.
Salvage work continued year on year until 1924 by
which time they had accounted for 3,189 of the gold bars.
They missed only twenty-two of them. Commander Damant, who
had been invested with the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
in 1919, was promoted to captain, and the eleven divers,
arguably the Royal Navy’s best, were each awarded the
British Empire Medal and shared a bounty of £6,379.
Consultation of the London Gazette for 9 December 1924 shows
Chief Petty Officer Albert Balson DSM (ON 211943 Po.)
heading the list of the divers for the award of the British
Empire Medal (Civil Division).
He was shore pensioned on 11
February 1925 after twenty-two years adult service and an
award of the Long Service & Good Conduct Medal in 1918. He
joined the Royal Fleet Reserve the following day and
continued to work as a salvage diver around the world. With
the advent of the Second World War he was recalled and in
1941 was awarded a gallantry bar to his BEM for volunteering
to dispose of an unexploded bomb from the supply ship HMS
SANDHURST while that ship was under aerial attack in
Portland harbour.
HMS Sandhurst
The London Gazette of 4 February 1941
records the award of a BEM for Meritorious Service, for
gallantry in diving work under enemy air attacks. No mention
of a previous BEM or his DSM but the service number
confirmed this was indeed the same Albert Balson. A
subsequent correction of 20 January 1942 read:
The King has
been graciously pleased to approve the award of a Bar to the
British Empire Medal, for Gallantry in diving work under
enemy air attacks. This award is made in substitution for
the award of the British Empire Medal (Military Division),
which was published in the London Gazette No. 35062, 4th
February 1941.
In 1945 Albert Balson once again
returned to civilian life, returning to his native Dorset.
On 18 December 1950, Chief Petty Officer Albert Balson BEM*,
DSM, RN died in the Holly Lodge Nursing Home at Parkstone,
Dorsetshire, aged sixty-five. He had served his country in
two World Wars, carrying out the dangerous task of bomb
disposal. He had braved the harsh Antarctic under Captain
R.F. Scott and been challenged by the recovery of thousands
of bars of bullion from the wreck of the LAURENTIC. A truly
incredible life of naval service
Sources: Antarctic gold:
The story of Albert Balson by Herbert J. G. Dartnell,
Edition 22.1 The Review, journal of the Naval Historical
Collectors & Research Association; Service record at The
National Archives (ADM/188/370/211943); Polar Record Volume
VI, No. 42; Dictionary of Disasters at Sea during the Age of
Steam by C. Hocking (1990); The Guinness Book of Records by
E. G. F. Johnson (1986); British Polar Exploration and
Research by N.W. Poulson & J. A. L. Myres (2000)
Notes on Balson: In the Polar Record a number of inaccuracies can be
found, as it states that “Albert Balsom died on 18 December
1950 after a short illness. In 1910 he joined the Terra Nova
as a leading seaman from the Australian Squadron, and was a
member of the ship’s party. He was later promoted chief
petty officer and specialised in diving. He was the senior
diver on the difficult operation of recovering the gold from
the sunken Laurentic off the northern Irish coast, for which
he was awarded the Order of the British Empire.” The Polar
record incorrectly list Balson as Balsom, he joined TERRA
NOVA in 1911 and was awarded the British Empire Medal rather
than the OBE.
