Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: 2nd Lieutenant A. N. A. Boyd, Grenadier Guards, who was killed in action at Escaut in May 1940

1939-45 Star; War Medal 1939-45, both privately engraved, ‘2nd Lieut. A. N. A. Boyd, 3rd Btn. Grenadier Guards’, together with the recipient’s illuminated Buckingham Palace memorial scroll in the name of ‘2nd Lieutenant A. N. A. Boyd, Grenadier Guards’, this framed and glazed, and his Army Council condolence slip inscribed, ‘2nd Lieutenant A. N. A. Boyd’, extremely fine (2) £200-300

Arthur Nicholas Amesbury Boyd was educated at Eton, where he established himself as a fine opening batsman for the School XI and captained the team in one of its famous clashes with Harrow at Lords. Having then attended the R.M.C. Sandhurst, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards, on the Supplementary Reserve of Officers.

V.C. action

Duly mobilised on the outbreak of hostilities, Boyd was ordered overseas with his Battalion in April 1940, where it formed part of 1st Guards Brigade, B.E.F. And with the advent of German invasion of the Low Countries in the following month, his Battalion was allocated to cover the Brigade’s 60 mile retreat to the River Escaut. By 20 May, the 3rd Grenadiers had taken up a defensive line on the Escaut, near Pecq, and it was here, on the 21st, that the Germans launched a massive surprise attack. The Grenadier Guards 1939-45, by Forbes and Nicholson, takes up the story:

'At Pecq the 1st Guards Brigade were digging their positions during the night of the 20 May. The 2nd Coldstream guarded the approaches from the river to the village itself and the 3rd Grenadiers were on their right, with three companies forward on the river bank, and Battalion Headquarters and No. 3 Company a mile behind round Bailleul. The whole sector was overlooked by Mont St. Aubert, which lay in German hands two miles east of the river. From the monastery buildings which crowned its summit, the Germans could observe every movement on the British side. However, at dawn all seemed quiet. A heavy mist lay over the water. The men relaxed after the normal morning stand-to and some of them began to wash and prepare their breakfasts. At that moment, at 7.30 a.m. the Germans attacked.

They had not been observed as they formed up because the mist, the high corn and odd clumps of trees had hidden their preparations on the far bank. The first that the Grenadiers knew of the attack was a sudden and very violent mortar and machine-gun barrage along the whole width of the Brigade sector and though it was soon answered by the British artillery, the Germans were already pouring across the river and beached their rubber boats on the Western bank. The main assault fell on the boundary between the Grenadiers and the Coldstream.

Swinging left-handed, the ‘Storm Troopers’ overran some of No. 4 Company's trenches and pressed on, slightly inland to cut off No. 2 Company from their Headquarters. The Grenadiers immediately launched two counter-attacks.

The first was led by Major W.R.J. Alston-Roberts-West (No. 4 Company) in a great effort to regain his lost trenches; but it failed. He himself and one of his platoon commanders, 2nd Lieutenant A.N.A. Boyd were killed in the attempt.’

As Boyd made his final, gallant charge, nearby a young N.C.O., Lance-Corporal Harry Nicholls, also of 3rd Grenadiers, was in the process of winning the V.C. - four times wounded, he proved instrumental in repelling the enemy with his Bren gun, and, at length, the Germans retreated. But the Grenadiers had paid a heavy price, with nearly 200 casualties, including six officers killed and two wounded, among them Lieutenant the Duke of Northumberland.

Arthur Boyd was buried in the Esquelmes War Cemetery, Belgium.