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I’ve often written that naval officers, as a general rule, do not seem to either come from Portsmouth or live there. Lieutenant-Commander William Hussey DSO DSC is obviously an exception from the Second World War.
But I have come across a rather distinguished officer from Portsmouth who, although he did not die during the Great War ‘proper’, was decorated for bravery at Jutland, and was killed in anti-Bolshevik operations in the Gulf of Finland in 1919.
Joseph Alfred House was born in Southampton on 22 June 1879. House actually joined the Royal Navy in the ranks, serving as an Artificer Engineer earlier in his career. He joined the battlecruiser HMS Princess Royal in November 1913, and was present when she was in action at Heligoland Bight in 1914, Dogger Bank in 1915 and Jutland in 1916. At Jutland she received numerous hits, and suffered casualties of over 100 men, many of them from Portsmouth.
For bravery at Jutland, Joseph House was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross. House’s DSC was announced in the London Gazette on 15 September 1916:
When the ship was hit and badly damaged, he efficiently made repairs to pipes under very difficult circumstances of smoke and darkness, whereby fires were got under control which otherwise must have been a very grave danger.
In October 1917 House was drafted to HM Submarine P17. After being promoted to Engineer Lieutenant he was posted to the Destroyer HMS Verulam. The Verulam hit a mine in the Gulf of Finland on 3 September 1919, and was sunk in two minutes. Only eight bodies were washed ashore, of which three were identified – one of those being House’s. He is buried in Styrssud Point War Cemetery, on a hill among pinewoods a quarer of a mile from the sea.
House’s medals – Distinguished Service Cross, 1914-15 Star, British War and Victory Medals – were auctioned at Dix Noonan and Webb in December 2007. With a guide price of £3500-£4000, they went under the hammer at £4,500.
I must confess I had always thought that the DSC was an officers award, but it seems that in some cases it was awarded to warrant officers who performed particularly bravely at sea. Reaching Warrant rank and earning a DSC at Jutland obviously earnt house his full commission in due course.
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Daly History Blog 
I’d love to see a lot more on the Allied participation in the 1919 “White Army”. I’ve gotten a fair amouont of information from my various Polish history books, but most WW1 books don’t include anything after 1918, and even Russian history books tend to go from Czar to Soviet in just a few paragraphs. It was always a cool piece of trivia to throw around during the Cold War, that the US had indeed invaded Russia! (Especially apt after the movie “Red Dawn” came out – the Soviets were just looking for payback, right? 😉 )
I think my WW1 book will have a chapter on Portsmouth men killed in the Russian Civil War – its a conflict that has been vastly overlooked, and I think it deserves a bit of attention.
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