[BIOGRAPHY]
Charles Stanley Sim was an Australian citizen from Ballarat, Victoria, and was born into a Presbyterian household on 25th May 1889, the eldest son of Charles Robert Sim & Helen Taylor Sim (nee Smith). He initially served in the merchant naval service from the age of about 16 in 1905 as an aapprentice in the Loch Carron and eventually in the capacity of third officer in the merchantman Ainsdale. He later gained a masters certificate in London and subsequently at age 28 was accepted for a commission in the British Royal Naval Reserve with naval seniority from 18th September 1917.
He was married in Ballarat on 2nd August 1919 to Violet Sim (nee Farmer).
During the Great War he served aboard the Royal Naval Mine Laying Submarines E.34 and L.14 as Navigation Officer, a role for which in 1918 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and four times Mentioned in Despatches (see citation).
[CITATION]
Lt Charles Stanley Sim. L.G. 20th February 1919.
“ This Officer has served in minelaying submarines since 7th November 1917 and has been responsible for the navigation on 17 trips. He is an officer of exceptional ability and I have been much impressed by the manner in which he has carried out his duties in minelaying submarines”.
He apparently returned to Australia just before the end of the Great War and was issued with an official “Returned from Active Service” lapel badge by the Royal Australian Navy
He then served in J5 “Australian Gift Submarine”
He also served in World War Two as an Australian Naval Reservist, being mobilised from May 1943 until the end of the war in 1945. He was awarded the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Decoration on 15th September 1944.
Having been pre-deceased by his wife,Violet, he was a widower with no family. He died at Point Lonsdale, near Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia on 15th August 1966 at age 77.
[ NAVAL AND SEAFARING CAREER]
Leaving his home at Ballarat six years ago, as a humble mate on a trading vessel, Charles Stanley Sim, son of Mr Charles R. Sim, principal of the Arm of R. Sim and Company, timber merchants, is now homeward bound, as Lieutenant Charles Stanley Sim, R.N.R., officer commanding one of the submarines lately presented to the Commonwealth by the Imperial Government.
Lieutenant Sim originally left home in 1905, bent on a maritime career, as an apprentice on the ship Loch Carron. He afterwards became successively third and second mate oil the barque Ainsdale, and third officer on the Port Lincoln. Thus ended one phase of the young seaman's life on the ocean waves.
Entering a maritime school in London, Mr Sim qualified as a master mariner, which achievement almost synchronised with the outbreak of the Great War. There being no sea command available at the time he, after formally offering his services to the Admiralty, became, as a temporary expedient, first officer of the Ariadne, which trader was afterwards captured and sunk by the enemy raider Moewe.
Mr Sim,- who had already been registered as a Royal Naval Reservist was not then on the Ariadne. He had been called upon to take up his burden on the active list of His Majesty's Royal Navy, having qualified after three months' tuition at the Chatham Naval College, and was doing duty on the converted liner Macedonia, now an auxiliary cruiser engaged In policing the Atlantic. After some months' service In this way, Lieutenant Sim was transferred to the submarine arm of the service. Then followed the most thrilling phase of his career.
[LT SIM’s ROYAL NAVAL RESERVE SWORD BELT & BUCKLE]INCLUDED WITH THE GROUP
Between 1915 and 1918, until the signing of the armistice, he was charged with the responsibility of mine-laying in the Heligoland Bight. He made as many as 18 mine-laying expeditions to the Bight, between March and September 1918, when special efforts were made by the Admiralty to blockade the foe. He was transferred to the L14 in September, but the armistice was signed before he had a trip in the submarine, which was then the latest and largest submarine produced by the Admiralty. Instead of taking his submarine into enemy waters, however, Lieutenant Sim had the honor of receiving the surrendered U-boats of Germany on behalf of the British Government. That is, he was one of the staff officers thus engaged. When writing to his father in February of this year he stated that he was about to take over another surrendered submarine from the enemy. Lieutenant Sim had a great deal of luck in coming through such hazardous enterprises as mine-laying. For Instance, he was for some time on the E34, and the last trip this submarine made before being sunk by an enemy warship was the one that followed Lieutenant Sim's final expedition in her. The lieutenant was then on the L14. The crew of the E34 were so pleased with Lieutenant Sim's management of the vessel through thrilling periods that they presented him with a! gold cigarette case.
As an indication of the official view of the dangerous work carried out by the 20th mine-laying flotilla, of which Lieutenant Sim was a member, he forwarded a report of Sir Eric Geddes' speech as First Lord of the Admiralty, in which Sir Eric said, “that the men of the 20th were the best, bravest, and pluckiest of the great British Navy”. Our mine-laying submarines night after night had to proceed through great German mine-fields for 30 miles off, Heligoland in order to determine which channels the enemy had traversed, and to mine these passages.
During the first half of 1918 more than 100 German vessels were thus trapped. On one occasion four of the British flotilla going into the Bight were observed by six enemy outpost vessels, but the British by subterfuge got inside the Bight, laid their mines, and took the crews of the German boats prisoners on the return journey, capturing also the six enemy vessels. The British dummy mines caused much fun, as the Germans steered wide of them, and the British light craft went straight through the barrage. In one month 17 German submarines were trapped by the British mines laid across the Channel, below Ostend.
A younger brother of Lieutenant' Sim, Lance-Corporal Leslie Sim, is in the A.I.F. and is still serving in France, where he has now been for three years.
[THE SUBMARINES]
H.M. Submarine E34 was a British E class submarine built by John Thornycroft. She was commissioned in March 1917, and her complement was three officers and 28 men.
She sank the U-Boat UB-16 off Harwich in the North Sea on 10 May 1918.
E34 was mined near the Eijerlandse Gronden, the sands between the Frisian islands Texel and Vlieland, on 20 July 1918. There were no survivors.
Royal Navy submarine, E 34, leaving Harwich Harbor, England. She was sunk by German mine on July 20, 1918.
The L boats were armed with four 21-inch torpedo tubes in the bow and two 18-inch (45 cm) in broadside mounts. They carried four reload torpedoes for the 21-inch tubes for a grand total of ten torpedoes of all sizes.[5] They were also armed with a 4-inch (102 mm) deck gun.
L14 was fitted with 16 vertical mine chutes in her saddle tanks and carried one mine per chute.
HMS L14 was built by Vickers, Barrow. She was laid down on 19 January 1917 and was commissioned on an unknown date. The boat was sold to John Cashmore Ltd in May 1934 for scrapping at Newport. The periscope from L14is preserved at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum at Gosport. It may be the only surviving example of a World War I periscope. It was manufactured by Grubb & Co. in 1918.
[ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY]
Lieutenant Charles Stanley Sim, R.N.R., navigating officer on J5, one of the gift submarines now in Australian waters, has been decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross. He is credited at the Admiralty with having made the greatest number of mlne-laying trips to enemy waters, and was four times mentioned in dispatches.
A Very Rare & Totally Exceptional Submarines DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS, MID & RNVRD group to an extraordinary Australian sailor who served both Australia & the United Kingdom in two world wars.
£5550 with part exchanges welcome.