A poignant assortment of fire-damaged relics recovered from Sandakan in Borneo, comprising:
Victory Medals 1914-19 (2) (Capt. J. A. Houston; T. Kelly, B.R.C. & St. [?]); Royal Engineers’ lapel badge and a rank shoulder pip; British North Borneo Company’s button and badge; the remnants of a lady’s bracelet and a Turkish “Gallipoli Star”, this last lacking enamel work and all badly fire-damaged, the Victory Medal to Kelly especially so (Lot)
£40-60

James Alexander Houston served in the Royal Engineers during the Great War, first entering the French theatre of war as a 2nd Lieutenant in 201 Field Company, R.E., in early November 1915. He later attained in the rank of Captain in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, with whom he no doubt obtained his souvenir “Gallipoli Star”, and was married to Theresa Kelly of the British Red Cross at Marylebone in late 1916.

Settling in British North Borneo soon after the War, initially at Jesselton, Houston was employed by the Railways Department, but the fate of husband and wife at the time of the Japanese invasion in 1942 remains unknown. As shockingly related in publications such as Lord Liverpool’s Knights of Bushido, however, it is clear the region’s inhabitants, European or otherwise, suffered greatly amidst much looting and destruction, some of them being executed in cold blood. Sandakan, from where these relics were recovered many years ago, was the scene of a P.O.W. camp, from which, in early 1945, the Japanese forced-marched nearly 2500 British and Australian prisoners to Ranau - by August 1945, just six were still alive; sold with research.