Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An interesting collection of documentation appertaining to Major-General G. P. B. “Pip” Roberts, C.B., D.S.O., M.C., C.O. of 11th Armoured Division 1943-45, including an annotated typescript proof copy of his book From the Desert to the Baltic, including related correspondence, maps and picture research notes, the whole contained in a William Kimber Ltd. file; the General’s British and Spanish driving licences, 1968 and 1971 respectively; assorted letters from the period 1971-84, including examples from Major-Generals A. M. Taylor and F. E. Kitson, as Commandants, Sandhurst, and others from the Belgian Ambassador in London and the British Ambassador in Brussels; a selection of photographs from a formal gathering for 50th Anniversary of the Liberation of Antwerp in September 1994, together with menus from this and other post-war events; certificate of award for commemorative medal marking the 50th Anniversary of the Normandy Landings, in the name of ‘Major General G. P. B. Roberts’, dated 13 June 1994, and signed by the President of the Regional Council, together with a similar document for a Medal of Merit from the Union Nationale des Combattants, in the name of ‘General Roberts’, undated, with printed signature of the Union’s President; Order of Service for his funeral at Mayfield, Sussex, 17 November 1997; and speaker’s copy of a tribute read out at a Memorial Service at Sandhurst, 8 December 1997, generally in good condition (Lot) £200-300

George Philip Bradley “Pip” Roberts was born in Quetta, India, in November 1906, and was educated at Marlborough College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Commissioned in the Royal Tank Regiment in 1926, he went on to hold senior command in the 1939-45 War, initially as C.O. of the 3rd Battalion, and thence of 22nd, 26th and 30th Armoured Brigades in North Africa, and latterly as C.O. of the 11th Armoured Division in North-West Europe. He was awarded the D.S.O. with 2 Bars and the M.C., and rose to the Directorship of the Royal Armoured Corps before retiring in September 1949. The General, one of the great leaders of armoured warfare to emerge from the last War, died in East Sussex in November 1997.