A Great War ‘Mesopotamia’ M.C. group of five awarded to Major H. D. Cloete, Indian Army, late Middlesex Regiment, murdered by an outraged husband, 29 February 1920

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (2/Lieut., Middx. Rgt.); 1914-15 Star (Capt., 92 Punjabis); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt.) some contact marks, very fine and better (5)
£1600-2000

M.C. London Gazette 22 December 1916.

M.I.D. London Gazette 19 October 1916.

Henry Drurie Cloete was born on 13 January 1882, the son of Sir Henry Cloete, Indian Civil Service. Educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Middlesex Regiment with whom he served in the latter part of the Boer War. In May 1903 he was promoted to Lieutenant and in September the same year was seconded for service in the Indian Army to serve with the 92nd Punjabis.

In 1915 he was promoted to Captain and Adjutant, his regiment serving in the Mesopotamian theatre of war. Cloete served with the Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’ in and around Kut during the first six months of 1916. He was mentioned in despatches and awarded the M.C. for his services leading to the recapture of Kut in April 1916. During the course of the action, Cloete was wounded, resulting in the loss of an eye.

In May 1917 he was advanced to Major and he was transferred from the war in Mesopotamia to take up the command of a company in the newly formed Assam Rifles in order to police that unsettled area. Major Cloete took part in operations in the Manipur area against the ‘Kuki’ Rebels, leading a force from Silchar to Imphal in 1918. By 1919 the rebellion was more under control and Cloete was placed in charge of the remote outpost of Sadiya in order to maintain the fragile peace. In 1920 the Chulikatta Mishmis tribesmen were more than active in their raiding activities against the densely inhabited and fertile valleys of the Abor border, and a punitive expedition to curb the raiders was organised, commanded by Major Cloete and his 2nd Battalion Assam Rifles.

By early February 1920 the situation was quieter in the immediate area of the Sadiya Station; however, within the station, all was not as it should be.

Within the safe confines of the Station were the barracks and cookhouse for the men, and a small number of bungalows - one of which housed Major Cloete, another an American missionary couple, the Rev. L.W.B. Jackman and his wife and two children, who had set up a small charitable hospital administered by the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society.

The ‘eternal triangle’ manifest itself in that remote region and on 29 February 1920 a tragedy unfolded.

It was reported that forty year old the Rev. Lyman Ward Beech Jackman, a former law student before taking up the ministry, took up his revolver, loaded it and marched across the compound in an agitated state to Major Cloete’s bungalow. There he shouted for Major Cloete to ‘come out’, which he did. As soon as he appeared Jackman raised his revolver, shouting that the dastardly Cloete had ‘misbehaved’ with his wife. He thereupon shot Cloete in the chest, killing him. Even as Cloete fell, Jackman spun round and strode directly to the Assistant Political Officer’s bungalow where he handed himself in.

In the ensuing trial, Jackman’s plea was inevitably that his actions were those of a temporarily deranged, wronged and provoked husband. The Judge found him guilty of ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’ and he was sentenced to a mere two years imprisonment. Jackman appealed against having to serve his sentence in India. This appeal was turned down. The Commissioner said that while admitting the homicide had been committed in a state of extreme mental affliction, it not be overlooked that Jackman was a strong man, armed with a revolver, while Major Cloete, who had fought in the war, was blind in one eye. The Commissioner continued, ‘If Jackman had said: “Cloete, you ruined my wife, I have brought a revolver; get out yours. One of us must die” and if in the ensuing fair fight Jackman had killed Cloete, I would have reduced the sentence from two years to two weeks. As the facts were, the sentence seemed to err grievously on the side of leniency. In two similar cases Indian hillmen were sentenced to transportation for life. There cannot be one law for an American missionary and another for Indian hillmen.’ The commissioner added that if he had been the trial judge he would have imposed a sentence of seven years rigorous imprisonment.

Harry Cloete was buried in the Sadiya Cemetery and is also commemorated on the Madras 1914-18 War Memorial. With copied research.