Orders, Decorations and Medals

Four: Corporal John Gibb, 2nd Battalion, Royal Highlanders, who was awarded a Wauchope Medal for gallantry during the Battle of Loos, subsequently being killed in action in Mesopotamia on 21 January 1916

1914 Star, with clasp (578 Pte., R. Highrs.); British War and Victory Medals (578 Pte., R. Highrs.); Wauchope Medal, for Loos, obverse inscribed ‘For conspicuous gallantry in the capture of German Trenches Sept. 25th 1915’, reverse inscribed ‘2nd Bn The Black Watch, To Pte. J. Gibb from Lt. Col. A. G. Wauchope’, nearly extremely fine (4) £1200-1500

John Gibb was born in Stirlingshire on 6 April 1885. He was one of 32 of the 40 men recommended for the award of a D.C.M. for gallantry at Loos, by Lieutenant Colonel Wauchope, who was not granted an award and as a result was the recipient of a Wauchope Medal.

He was killed in action during the first attack on Hanna on 21 January 1916. The War History gives the following detail of this ill fated and ultimately costly attack: ‘Many of our men fell, and step by step the remainder were forced to give ground until they were gradually squeezed into the corner of the [captured Turkish] trenches nearest to the river bank… For two hours a desperate resistance was put up against hopeless odds. Sergeant Finlay died fighting with the same cool courage that had won him his V.C. on the 9th of May in France. At last, about 10:15am when almost surrounded, the remnants of the shattered platoons, half of whom were wounded, fell back on the British lines, bringing with them one officer and about a dozen Turks as prisoners.

In their retirement they fought fiercely and with discipline, making for an advanced trench fifty yards nearer the Turks than the main line from which they advanced… Almost simultaneously with the retirement the rain descended in torrents, increasing the misery of the wounded, often half drowning in the mud and slime.’

The British suffered the loss of two officers killed and one wounded and 21 other ranks killed and 79 wounded and missing. Casualties in this action were approximately 60% of the fighting strength of the battalion. Sold with detailed copied research.