Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Lieutenant-Colonel W. J. W. Brackenbury, Indian Army

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, South Africa 1902 (Capt. W. J. W. Brackenbury, 5/Bombay Inf.); British War and Victory Medals (Lt. Col.), official corrections to VM; Delhi Durbar 1911 (Major Brackenbury, 1911) contemporarily engraved naming, mounted as worn, good very fine (4) £600-800

Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, December 2007.

Walter John William Brackenbury was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Suffolk Regiment on 4 March 1891. Promoted to Lieutenant in October 1894, he transferred to the Indian Army in July 1896. Appointed to the 5th Bombay Infantry in September 1897, he served as Adjutant, December 1900-February 1904, and served with them in the Boer War, being promoted Captain on 10 December 1901. In April 1907 he was appointed Double Company Commander of the 42nd Deoli Regiment. Promoted to Major on 4 March 1909, he served as Cantonment Magistrate, Deoli, 1911-13. In May 1916 he was appointed 2i/c of the 43rd Erinpura Regiment, and in February 1917 was appointed Commandant of the 2/42nd Deoli Regiment. Brackenbury attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel on 4 March 1917. On 1 February 1918 he was appointed Permanent Commandant of the 1/43rd Erinpura Regiment whilst remaining Temporary Commandant of the 2/42nd Deoli Regiment. On 15 January 1919 he became the Permanent Commandant of the 1/42nd Deoli Regiment, and in December 1921 Commandant of the 22nd Punjab Regiment (later 3-14th Punjab Regiment). Lieutenant-Colonel Brackenbury retired on 14 May 1923. During the Great War he served in operations against the Marris, 18 February-8 April 1918, and operations with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in Palestine, 13 May-31 October 1918.

Brackenbury is confirmed by the Battalion War Diary as being in command of the 2/42nd Deoli during the Allenby's battle of Megiddo in September 1918. The official history of the Palestine Campaign gives the following account:
 
‘On 20 September, the 31st Brigade, having been delayed by road-making difficulties, began its advance at 8:45 a.m. The 2/42nd Deolis and 2/101st Grenadiers reached the wooded hills east of Haris and south of Kefar Haris, but were there held up. The Deolis made gallant and repeated attempts to capture the double-peaked ridge south-east of Kefar Haris at Deir el Jaly, but every rush was stopped by heavy machine-gun fire, and the battalion suffered over 150 casualties.’