WEBB, Robert Walter (#252)

Alan Pollock’s Rough Notes:

A work in progress – the fuller biographies will emerge in due course: please sign up to the Newsletter (bottom of the page) and we’ll let you know when we’ve done more justice in writing up our extraordinary signatories.

P/JX 168938 Petty Officer Robert Walter WEBB DSM, born in Ramsgate 14 Feb 1919, volunteered in Jun 1939, then a cinema operator, and began his RN training in Nov 1939 (at HMS Royal Arthur, the Butlin’s Camp at Skegness – two to a chalet and six weeks of rifle drill and training).

With his “hostilities only” service and excellent record on DESTROYERS, a CORVETTE and a FRIGATE, in gunnery and as a HIGHER SUBMARINE DETECTOR,’ he signs for these ships’ defensive and offensive roles, specifically .for the development/ training and OPERATIONS of all NAVAL ASDIC OPERATORS.

An extract from the Admiralty Honours & Awards letter 145/43 to Able Seaman R W Webb DSM, dated 22Apr43, reads…

“On the advice of the First Lord, the King has been graciously pleased to award you the Distinguished Service Medal for your devotion to duty as an Operator of the Anti-Submarine devices of H.M.S. QUENTIN during many successful engagements with the Enemy, and for your outstanding skill in an action when a U-boat was sunk off Bone in November, 1942”.