CHAPTER XII 



DRIFTERS AND CRUISERS : A SKIPPER'S V.C. 



Three years of war passed before a Victoria 

 Cross was awarded to a fisherman. During that 

 period the awards of 306 Crosses had been gazetted , 

 the vast majority of these having gone to the Army, 

 and a small minority to the Navy. In all the num- 

 ber of Crosses won by the Navy was 15, and of 

 these 5 went to the Royal Naval Reserve, of which 

 the Trawler Section formed a part. 



There had been many uncommonly brave deeds 

 by sweepers and patrollers, acts which had been re- 

 cognised by the bestowal of distinctions ; but the 

 hope that the greatest honour of all would fall to 

 one at least of the heroic fishermen was slow of reali- 

 sation, and it was not until the affair of drifters and 

 cruisers in the Adriatic occurred that a member was 

 chosen as a recipient of the Cross. This was Skip- 

 per Joseph Watt, R.N.R., who had joined the naval 

 service on January n, 1915, and his valour was re- 

 corded in the London Gazette of August 20, 1917, in 

 the following details : — 



" For most conspicuous gallantry when the Allied 

 drifter line in the Straits of Otranto was attacked 



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