Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Captain L. W. Armstrong, Army Service Corps, late Imperial Yeomanry, wounded in action in the ‘V.C. Action’ at Tafel Kop, 20 December 1901

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Lieut., Imp. Yeo.); 1914-15 Star (Capt., A.S.C.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.) mounted as worn, good very fine and better (4) £300-400

Lionel Wellesley Armstrong was born on 18 June 1880. He served two years in the Queen’s Westminster Rifle Volunteers and then over two years in the Imperial Yeomanry during the Boer War. Serving with the 91st Company (Sharpshooters), he acted as Transport Officer to Colonel Damant’s Column for the greater part of his time in South Africa. Lieutenant Armstrong was wounded at Tafel Kop on 20 December 1901 - his C.O. Captain Gaussen was killed there and Shoeing-Smith Ind, R.H.A. Pom-Poms won a V.C. for that action.

In the action, a large Boer force, disguised as British infantry, infiltrated a smaller British force composed of about 90 men. In the action that followed, the artillery horses and limbers were saved but at a cost - out of the 90 men, 78 were casualties (33 killed; 45 wounded). Lord Kitchener, in his despatch, stated that the ‘91st Coy. Imp. Yeo. which sacrificed itself almost to a man yet pushed back the enemy.’

During the Great War he served as an officer in the Royal Army Service Corps from 20 September 1914 until August 1916 when he relinquished his commission due to ill-health. Though never fully fit thereafter, he was re-gazetted to the A.S.C. in April 1917 and served until demobilized in March 1919. With copied WW1 service papers and research on the action at Tafel Kop. With an original group photograph.