Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An interesting Great War ‘Egypt operations’ M.M. group of four awarded to Acting Corporal J. G. Butcher, Army Service Corps - who served as a Driver in the Light Armoured Car Brigade and was wounded in the Alexandrian riots of March 1919

Military Medal, G.V.R. (M2-120788 Pte., A.S.C.); 1914-15 Star (M2-120788 Pte., A.S.C.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (M2-120788 A. Cpl., A.S.C.) second and fourth gilded, slight edge bruising, fine and better (4) £600-700

M.M. London Gazette 17 April 1917.

M.I.D. London Gazette 6 July 1917 (Egypt Expeditionary Force).

John George Butcher was born in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire on 16 January 1888. A Chauffeur by occupation, he enlisted into the R.N.A.S. as a Petty Officer Mechanic on 25 October 1914. Employed as an Armoured Car Driver. Discharged to the Army in September 1915. As an Acting Corporal in the R.A.S.C. he entered France on 5 September 1915 and travelling on, disembarked at Alexandria on 13 January 1916.

Was employed as a Rolls Royce Armoured Car Driver. His service in Egypt when serving with No. 3 Battery Light Armoured Car Brigade, earned him a M.I.D. and M.M. In the Gazette entry of 6 July 1917 (in which Butcher is ‘mentioned’) General Sir Archibald Murray, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., C.-in-C. of the E.E.F. says of the armoured cars, ‘I have already referred to the excellent work of the armoured cars and light car patrols on the western front. Their mobility, and the skill and energy with which they are handled, have made them an ideal arm for the western desert, where the sand is not so heavy as on the east. It is not too much to say that the successful clearance of the western oases and the satisfactory state of affairs which now exists on the western front is due more to the dash and enterprise of the armoured car batteries and the light car patrols than to any other cause, and the enemy has found many times to his cost that their range of action is far beyond that of any troops mounted on horses or camels.’

He was still in Egypt just after the war, at the time of pro-Independence Egyptian Riots of March 1919. The War Diary of the 3rd Battery L.A.C.B. based in Alexandria, reads - 13th March] ‘Both cars dispersing crowds & rioters’; 14 [March] ‘No. 1 Car under Lt. Stains (?) kills 12 & wounds a few in ?. Ptes Crabb & Butcher wounded’; 15/16 [March] ‘Both cars patrolling day & night in respective districts’; 17 [March] ‘No. 3 Car under Lieut. Turner meets a mob wrecking station 38 (approx) killed, many wounded’.

With copied service papers, gazette and war diary extracts and other research.