TOPIC:

HMS Forte arrived at Simons Bay from Zanzibar to decommission at the beginning of April 1902. Decommissioning was delayed due to Smuts' activities at Port Nolloth and HMS Forte was sent there to assist. According to Singlehurst in Afloat and Ashore

" A small landing party from HMS Forte under command of Lieutenant JD Kelly also landed and joined the landing party from HMS Barracouta that was already ashore manning some of the defences of Port Nolloth".

Feyver and Wilson lists 30 recipients from Barracouta of the QSA with clasps Cape Colony and South Africa 1902 which presumably includes this landing Party. Strangely there is no matching list for HMS Forte with only Lt Kelly and a Surgeon called Bunton shown with this entitlement. I have a vested interest having just bought a medal to a Forte with a CC clasp but no proof of entitlement. I cannot think why the Fortes that landed would not have received clasps but inspection of Kelly's entry on the original Forte roll shows that his claim was originally refused twice



so I guess the poor tars were similarly refused but didn't have the means to persist! Has anyone got a better explanation?

Hi Dunnboer

My initial thought was that some 122 officers and men of HMS Forte had already qualified for a QSA with single clasp Natal and that as the CC and Natal clasps couldn't legitimately be on the same medal the others in the landing party must have been among those 122.

However, this doesn't explain why these men wouldn't have qualified for the SA1902 clasp so it's a bit of a mystery. Unless the 'small party' was really so small that it consisted only of Kelly and Bunton.

David

Dunnboer,

Persistence was certainly a part of it and I also think Kelly's rising rank was also a key factor in the late decision to issue clasps to him.