Orders, Decorations and Medals

Six: Temporary Major F. D. Wade, Southern Rhodesia Armoured Car Regiment, attached 6th and 11th South African Armoured Divisions and the Pretoria Regiment - having been wounded in the face by shrapnel in Italy in October 1944, he was mentioned in despatches

1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf; Africa Service Medal 1939-45, this last officially inscribed ‘SR. 597702 F. D. Wade’, good very fine (6) £150-200

Francis Deacon Wade, who was born in November 1911, enlisted in the Southern Rhodesia Forces in June 1940, attended training courses in Bulawayo and Umtali and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in February 1941. Having then attended another training course in Pretoria, he was appointed Temporary Captain and, in November 1942, joined ‘E’ Squadron of the Southern Rhodesia Armoured Car Regiment, in which capacity he was embarked for the Middle East at the end of the year.

Subsequently attached to the 6th and 11th South African Armoured Divisions, he transferred to the Pretoria Regiment as a Temporary Major in the summer of 1943 and went on to see further action in Italy, where he was wounded in the face by shrapnel in October 1944 - he was duly mentioned in despatches ‘for gallant and distinguished services’ in that theatre of war. Wade was released from the Union Defence Forces in September 1945 and duly qualified for the Africa Service Medal - his remaining campaign awards being issued unnamed by the Rhodesian authorities; sold with copied service record and a piece of shrapnel.