Orders, Decorations and Medals

A post-war C.B.E. group of five awarded to the Rev. D. D. L. Evans, Royal Army Chaplains’ Department, onetime Honorary Chaplain to the Queen and Deputy Chaplain-General to the Forces: he had earlier won a “mention” in the pre-war Palestine operations

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, C.B.E. (Military) Commander’s 2nd type neck badge, silver-gilt and enamels, in its Garrard & Co. Ltd. case of issue; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Palestine, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Rev., R.A. Ch. D.); Defence and War Medals; Coronation 1953, together with related Honorary Chaplain to the Queen Badge, E.II.R., gilt and enamel, in full-size and miniature, a set of related dress miniature awards (the General Service Medal with additional clasp for ‘Malaya’), and assorted tunic riband bars, the whole contained in a Goldsmiths Co., London case, generally good very fine (Lot) £400-450

C.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1959. The original recommendation states:

‘Appointed Deputy Chaplain-General on 1 January 1957, the Reverend D. D. L. Evans has devoted his whole energies to the furtherance of the unified administrative scheme to which the majority of the denominations represented in the Army have agreed. His dealings with individual chaplains of varying denominations have been quite excellent and this has added greatly to the unity of purpose and work of several Churches whose ministers are commissioned in the Royal Army Chaplains’ Department. His thoroughness in detail and his magnanimity in outlook and practice have shown him to be a chaplain of exceptional qualities. Throughout the years, Mr. Evans has given outstanding service to his country and the Church in the Army, and his sense of duty and loyalty has been an example to all his colleagues. The award of the C.B.E. would be welcomed by his Church - Mr. Evans is Congregationalist - as a mark not only of the personal worth and work of their most senior chaplain, but also of appreciation of the general contribution to the work of the Royal Army Chaplains’ Department made by the smallest denomination represented in the Army.’

David Douglas Lloyd Evans, who was born in February 1905, entered the Royal Army Chaplains’ Department as a United Board Chaplain in July 1934. Active service followed in Palestine 1936-39, for which he was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 15 September 1939 refers), and he was appointed a 2nd Class Chaplain to the Forces in January 1940. Thereafter, he appears to have served on the home establishment, although he was serving as Senior Staff Chaplain, Middle East Land Forces by the War’s end. Advanced to 1st Class Chaplain to the Forces in January 1953, shortly after a posting to the British Army on the Rhine, he served as Assistant Chaplain-General to Far East Land Forces in the mid-1950s and was advanced to Deputy Chaplain-General (ranking as Brigadier), and awarded the C.B.E., shortly before his retirement in January 1960. Evans, who had earlier been awarded the O.B.E. (London Gazette 13 June 1946), was onetime Honorary Chaplain to the Queen.