Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Private D. McDougall, Gordon Highlanders

1914 Star (3-6992 Pte. D. McDougall, 1/Gord. Highrs.); British War and Victory Medals (3-6692 Pte. D. McDougall, Gordons), together with related Silver War Badge, the reverse officially numbered ‘50332’, good very fine (4) £80-100

Duncan McDougall enlisted in the Gordon Highlanders in September 1914 and went out to France as a reinforcement for the 1st Battalion in early November, the Battalion’s war diary noting that recent drafts included men with as little as three weeks training, or, in one case, a veteran of the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir. All fought bravely in a number of costly actions in the Ypres sector over the coming weeks, the survivors mustering in ‘the worst trenches yet held’, near Kemmel, shortly after Christmas Day. Here, then, the type of conditions that resulted in McDougall’s discharge as a result of sickness in June 1915.