Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Boer War D.S.O. and Great War O.B.E. group of six awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel R. V. K. Applin, 14th Hussars, formerly a District Officer with the British North Borneo Company during the Syed and Mat Salleh rebellions of 1895-97, a machine-gun expert who commanded the machine-guns of the 2nd ANZACs at the battles of Messines, Passchendaele and 3rd Ypres in 1916-17; he later confided that he had “found out in 1904 all that the Germans taught us at such a cost in human lives in 1914, and which culminated in 1917 at Messines, when our 280 machine-guns, firing over the heads of our attacking infantry, rained one hundred thousand bullets a minute upon the German trenches with terrible effect

Distinguished Service Order, V.R., silver-gilt and enamels; The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 1st type breast badge; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901(Capt. R. V. K. Applin, Lanc. Fus.); British War and Victory Medals, with MID oak leaf (Lt. Col. R. V. K. Applin); British North Borneo Company Medal, silver, clasp, Punitive Expedition (R. V. K. Applin, Supt. N.B.C.) this last excessively rare, together with a copy of his autobiography Across the Seven Seas (published 1937), wreaths and lower arm of D.S.O. chipped, otherwise nearly very fine or better (6) £5000-6000

Reginald Vincent Kempenfelt Applin was born at Alphington, Devon on 11 April 1869 and educated at Newton College and Sherborne. He entered the British North Borneo Company service as a Cadet in December 1889, becoming Police Magistrate and J.P. for Crown Colony, Labuan, 1894; and District Officer, Interior, 1897. He served through the Syed and Mat Salleh rebellions of 1895-97 (Medal with clasp, one of about 12 awarded) and twice received the thanks of the Board of Directors, B.N.B. Co., for services against the Tumnunam tribes.

He became Captain in the 6th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, and served throughout the South African War. He was District Commissioner at Bloemfontein from 1 June 1900, and Staff Officer and Acting Provost Marshal, Orange River, in October and November 1900. He was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 10 September 1901, and 29 July 1902); awarded the Queen’s medal with 4 clasps, and was created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (London Gazette 31 October 1902) in recognition of his services during the operations in South Africa.

He became Captain in the 14th King’s Hussars in July 1905, a Major in 1911, and temporary Commandant of the School of Musketry. In the Great War Lieutenant-Colonel Applin commanded the machine-guns of 2nd A.N.Z.A. Corps at the battles of Messines and Passchendaele, and the Third Battle of Ypres, in 1916-17. He headed the British Machine-Gun Mission to the U.S.A. , and received the thanks of the Secretary of State for War, U.S.A., 1918. He was twice mentioned in despatches and awarded the O.B.E. in 1919, which, however, some sources say he refused with thanks.

Applin was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in command of the 14th King’s Hussars, 1919-22, and was returned to the House of Commons as Conservative Member for Enfield from 1924-29, and for a second spell from 1931-35. He emigrated to the Union of South Africa in the mid-1930s, settling in Howick, where he died on 3 April 1957.

In addition to his autobiography Across the Seven Seas, which contains a lengthy and detailed account of his many adventures in Borneo, he was author of Machine Gun Tactics, the first book ever to deal exhaustively with this subject, published by Hugh Rees in 1907, which went through many subsequent printings as machine-guns came to dominate the battlefield, until Applin’s writings were eventually subsumed almost word for word into British army doctrine by 1917. It is somewhat ironic that this work was originally largely ignored by the War Office for being ‘ten years ahead of its time’, the bulk of the 1st edition being sold to the American War Department. It was at Bloemfontein in 1904 that Applin had gained his extensive knowledge of machine-guns and their effective use; ‘in fact,’ he later wrote, ‘we found out in 1904 all that the Germans taught us at such a cost in human lives in 1914, and which culminated in 1917 at Messines, when our 280 machine-guns, firing over the heads of our attacking infantry, rained one hundred thousand bullets a minute upon the German trenches with terrible effect.’