Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Lieutenant M. T. Allan, Royal Scots Fusiliers, killed in action, battle of Loos, September 1915

1914-15 Star (2 Lieut., R. Sc. Fus.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut.) extremely fine (3) £400-500

Marshall Thomson Allan was born on 12 January 1889. A Glasgow University Medical Student, his home address was Fernbank, Killvinie, Ayrshire. He requested an appointed to the Special Reserve of Officers Infantry in August 1914. As a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Scots Fusiliers, he entered the France/Flanders theatre of war on 11 May 1915. Serving with the 6th Battalion he was killed in action on or about 27 September 1915, aged 26 years. Having no known grave, his name is commemorated on the Loos Memorial.

A report on the death of Lieutenant Allan states: ‘On the morning of September 27th 1915, we were attacked by the Germans, between the hours of nine and ten, about 900 yards in front of the [Hoheonzollern] redoubt. There was an order along the trench for bombers. We could not get the bombers out quickly enough that way. The bombers, along with Lieut. Allan, got out of the trench, and ran along the parapet to our right flank, and came face to face with the Germans. The German bombers were throwing bombs in all directions and Lieut. Allan got hit in the chest. I think there was no possibility of his being alive. He was not brought in. We got out of the trench shortly afterwards, I being hit myself.’ (Statement of Lance-Corporal Robinson, 17404, 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers).

Lieutenant Allan was the son of the late Dr. George R. Allan and Jessie Cross Thomson Allan. With copied papers including several reports re his death. With original (damaged) medal card boxes of issue.