Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Great War ‘Western Front’ M.C. group of eleven awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas Welsh Hendin, Pioneer Corps, late East Kent Regiment and Royal Engineers

Military Cross, G.V.R., reverse inscribed, ‘1st Buffs, 2nd Lieut. D. W. Hendin, Vaux Andigny Oct. 17th 1918’; 1914-15 Star (22837 Spr., R.E.); British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf; Coronation 1953; France, Croix de Guerre 1914-1915, bronze palm on ribbon, mounted for display, contact marks, worn and better (11) £900-1100

M.C. London Gazette 4 October 1919. ‘2nd Lt., 1st Bn. East Kent R.’ ‘In the attack near Vaux Andigny on 17th October, 1918, he showed great courage and dash. His platoon being held up by barbed wire he went forward under heavy machine-gun fire and cut the wire, thus enabling his men to go forward. On the objective being taken he went out with a patrol under heavy fire and brought back valuable information’.

M.I.D. London Gazette 13 January 1944.

Douglas Welsh Hendin was born in Southampton on 30 June 1891. He enlisted into the Royal Engineers in June 1912. As a Sapper he entered the France/Flanders theatre of war on 14 December 1914. He was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Buffs in November 1917 and for his services in the latter part of the war, was awarded the M.C. and Croix de Guerre. Hendin was seconded to the Sierra Leone Battalion W.A.F.F. in October 1919 and transferred to the Gold Coast Regiment in April the following year. Returning to the East Kent Regiment in October 1924, he was seconded to the R.A.S.C., June 1925-August 1926. He retired with a gratuity in January 1928. In October 1939 he was recalled from the Reserve of Officers and seconded to Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps as an Acting Major. In June 1941 he was appointed to command 61 Group Pioneer Corps at Quassasin, Egypt and in September received the war substantive rank of Major with the temporary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. With 61 Group he disembarked at Syracuse in July 1943 and Taranto in September 1943. Lieuteenant-Colonel Hendin relinquished command of 61 Group at his own request on 11 October 1943 and retired from the Pioneer Corps with the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in October 1945. Lieutenant-Colonel Hendin died in Folkestone, Kent on 18 November 1965.

Sold with a quantity of copied research.