Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. Including a superb collection of medals to the King’s German Legion, Police Medals from the Collection of John Tamplin and a small collection of medals to the Irish Guards

Five: Acting Lieutenant-Colonel R. Stonestreet, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, late Middlesex Yeomanry, The London Scottish, The Gordon Highlanders, The Royal Scots and The Seaforth Highlanders

1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals; Efficiency Medal, G.VI.R., Territorial (Lt., Gordons), together with related dress miniature medals, including 8th Army clasp and Bar to the Efficiency Medal, good very fine (10) £80-100

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals to The Gordon Highlanders and Associated Units from the Collection of A.J. Henderson.

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Collection

Rodney Stonestreet was the subject of a front page feature in The London Scottish Gazette in February 1948, from which the following notes have been extracted:

He was born at Dulwich in June 1904 and joined the National Provincial Bank in 1921. Having previously seen service as a Trooper in the Middlesex Yeomanry, he joined ‘C’ (Support) Company of the 1st Battalion the London Scottish in 1934, and was advanced to Lance-Corporal in 1936, to Corporal in 1938 and, on the formation of the 2nd Battalion, to Sergeant.

Mobilised with the Battalion on the outbreak of hostilities, he was originally posted as a Training Sergeant to the Depot at Bridge of Don, but was quickly selected for a commission and joined an O.C.T.U. at Salisbury Plain in November 1939 (‘Siberian salt mines would have been heaven to this’). Appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the Gordons in March 1940, he joined the 4th Battalion with the B.E.F. and was among the lucky ones to get back to the U.K. on the fall of France.

In 1941 Stonestreet transferred to the Royal Scots and in the following year he went to the 5th Seaforths as a Captain, serving with them in the Middle East. He later contracted diphtheria and, upon recovery, served as a Staff Captain at G.H.Q. Allied Liaison Staff, attached to 9th Army, Beirut (‘Mutiny of Greek Brigade not his fault’), and then as G.S.O. III 25 Corps in Cyprus. In January 1945 he was posted to Palestine as an Intelligence Officer (‘Annoyed when terrorists started blowing things up near his bungalow’), returning to the U.K. in August of the same year.

After the War, he rejoined the London Scottish, soon becoming C.Q.M.S. and then C.S.M. He later left the Scottish and joined the R.A.O.C., rising to the rank of Acting Lieutenant-Colonel. Stonestreet, who was entitled to two Bars to his Efficiency Medal, retired to Somerset and died in November 1993, aged 89 years.

Sold with a copy of an amusing typed letter sent during his time at O.C.T.U.