Mercantile Marine War Medal to a Lusitania Surivor

[azyeoman]

I recently acquired a MMWM officially named to Robert D F Chisholm.  Sadly is it missing it's partner medal, the British War Medal also named to Robert D F Chisholm.  If anyone knows of its location, please contact me as I would very much like to reunite the pair.

 

Robert Daniel Fletcher Chisholm was born in Liverpool 26th July 1882, in 1915 he was serving aboard the RMS Lusitania as Second Steward when the ship was torpedoed by the German Submarine U-20 on 7th May 1915 at 1415 when ten miles from south of the Old Head of Kindle. The torpedo stuck the starboard side and there followed a second explosion, Lusitania took just 18 minutes to sink. Those found alive and retrieved dead were taken to Queenstown, Ireland. A total of 1,201 men, women and children were lost out of a total of 1,962 on board, 94 children perished. Robert remained in the Merchant Navy post First World War, in 1926 he was serving aboard the RMS Mauritania, and 1936 he was serving as Chief Steward aboard the SS Ashantian when he died on board at Koko of Cerebral Malaria and Heart Failure, his home address recorded as 22 Dalmorton Road, Wallasey.

 

Mr. Robert Daniel Fletcher Chisholm, Second Steward
Robert Chisholm, 33, was a second steward aboard the last voyage of the Lusitania. He survived the sinking. His grandfather, Captain Daniel Chisholm, was a ships salvager who dived searching for ship wrecks. A memorial in Rake Lane Cemetery in Wallasey, Merseyside, England, commemorates the elder Chisholm’s achievements.
Robert had seen the torpedo approach the ship and alerted Chief Steward Jones of it before impact. When the ship was sinking, he saw Alfred Vanderbilt on B deck “vainly attempting to rescue a hysterical woman.” At the time, Chisholm had only been running by, shouting, “Hurry Mr. Vanderbilt, or it will be too late!”
Chisholm may have been the same man in the water with Norman Ratcliff, telling Ratcliff about how Vanderbilt gave his lifebelt to save a woman and sacrifice his own life.
Chisholm stayed in the Queenstown area until early June as part of Captain Manley’s expedition to find and recover any remaining bodies of Lusitania victims. Chisholm also responded to inquiries from the family of Richard Preston Prichard on whether Prichard’s body had been recovered. Chisholm responded that he had not seen Prichard’s body.
Later, Chisholm became a steward on the Ophir , a ship that was involved in looking for the wreck of the Lusitania.
Years later, in the 1930s, Chisholm may have been reunited with the woman he saw Vanderbilt rescue. In the early days of the salvage operation of the Lusitania wreck, he met second-cabin passenger Alice Middleton. He mentioned the story of Vanderbilt giving away his lifebelt and showed her a picture of Vanderbilt. Alice did not know who had given her the lifebelt that saved her life until she saw the picture and was convinced it was him.