Five: Sergeant Irene E. M. Howe, Women’s Royal Army Corps, late Auxiliary Territorial Service

Italy Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Malaya, E.II.R. (W/26287 Sgt. I. E. M. Howe. W.R.A.C.) minor official correction to unit; Army L.S. & G.C., E.II.R., 1st issue, Regular Army (W/26287 Sgt. I. E. M. Howe. W.R.A.C.) rank officially corrected; good very fine (5) £160-£200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Norman Gooding Collection.

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Irene Edith May Howe was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, on 30 August 1908. She entered the ATS in December 1939 and served in the UK and Italy, before transferring to the WRAC and serving in Malaya against communist guerilla forces. Awarded the LSGC Medal in List No. 39 of 1958, she was the fifth woman of the WRAC to receive this honour, her medal being presented at the Corps Headquarters and Training Depot, Guildford, by Lady Isobel Barnett - at that time Honorary Colonel of No. 308 (Northern Command) Battalion, WRAC/TA.

Retired in 1961, Howe returned to Gloucestershire and lived in Abbots Leys Road, Winchcombe. She later married William P. Lamble, a former Royal Navy Chief Shipwright Artificer, and the couple moved to New Meadow Cottage on the Brockhampton Road. She died in 1999.

Sold with a fine original photograph of the recipient receiving her LSGC Medal, and another of her in later life; the recipient’s driving licence in her married name; and a number of news clippings and items of ephemera.