Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War Italy operations M.C. group of five awarded to Lieutenant H. L. Swire, Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Regiment, who was decorated for a daring attack on an Austrian strongpoint on the Asiago Plateau in February 1918

Military Cross, G.V.R.; 1914-15 Star (R-5501 Pte. H. L. Swire, K.R. Rif. C.); British War Medal 1914-20 (2 Lieut. H. L. Swire); Victory Medal 1914-19, naming erased; Italy, Altipiani Medal 1918, polished and lacquered, otherwise generally very fine (5) £1000-1200

M.C. London Gazette 16 September 1918:

‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He led his platoon out about 1000 yards to a group of houses. Disposing his men to cover necessary points, he himself searched the houses with a Sergeant and one man, shooting a sentry, entering a room from which a bomb had been thrown, and capturing three of its occupants, the others being shot. He brought his platoon back without casualties’.

Herbert Livingstone Swire was born at Hayfield, Derbyshire, in 1890, and, having studied Law at Manchester University, was working as a solicitor’s articled clerk at Glossop on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914.

Enlisting in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, he first went out to France in July 1915, where he served in the 12th Battalion and was advanced to Corporal.

Having then been commissioned in the 11th Battalion, Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Regiment, in September 1917, he joined his unit out in Italy before the year’s end, and, as confirmed by regimental sources, won his M.C. for the above cited deeds during a night patrol through Coda and Morar, near Granezza, on the Asiago Plateau on 29-30 February 1918. Two days later, the Battalion received notification of awards of Italian Silver Medals for Valour to Swire and his Sergeant, H. W. Redfern (London Gazette 29 November 1918 refers), together with Bronze Medals to two other men from his platoon.

Having then seen further action on Asiago Plateau, including the enemy attack on his Battalion at San Sisto Ridge on 15 June 1918, when his C.O., Lieutenant-Colonel C. E. Hudson won a V.C., Swire departed Italy for France, where he saw further action as a Lieutenant and was wounded at Beauvois on 5 October 1918, possibly on attachment to the 3rd Battalion.

Post-war, he returned to work as a solicitor in Glossop, but, having married Yolanda Ada Maria, an Italian, eventually settled in her home country, and died there, at Casa Albergo, near Milan, in April 1957.

Sold with a gilt and enamel County Council long service medal, inscribed to ‘Coun. T. Swire, J.P., 1923’, the recipient’s father Thomas, together with an extensive file of research.