Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An outstanding Great War ‘Somme 1916’ D.S.O. and ‘Arras 1917’ Second Award Bar group of seven awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel G. B. Daubeny, Royal Artillery, who was also Mentioned in Despatches four times, before being seriously wounded and evacuated home in 1918

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., with Second Award Bar, silver-gilt and enamel, minor green enamel damage to wreaths; 1914-15 Star (Capt. G. B. Daubeny, R.F.A.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Lt. Col. G. B. Daubeny); Defence and War Medals 1939-45; France, Third Republic, Croix de Guerre, reverse dated 1914-1918, with bronze palm on riband, lacquered, good very fine (7) £2,000-£2,400

D.S.O. London Gazette 14 November 1916:
‘For conspicuous gallantry in action. He conducted the fire of his battery from the advanced trenches under heavy fire with great skill and determination. He also sent in accurate reports throughout the day.’

D.S.O. Second Award Bar London Gazette 27 September 1917:
‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. During an extremely critical period when the situation was by no means clear, he kept up continual fire with his battery and rendered invaluable support to the infantry, although his brigade was exposed to constant and heavy fire and suffering many casualties for two days. His behaviour during this period was beyond praise, and it was in a great measure due to his coolness, courage and personality that fire was kept up.’

Giles Bulteel Daubeny was born at Stentaway, Plymstock, Devon, on 19 November 1882, the son of Captain Giles Andrew Daubeny, late 82nd (Prince of Wales's Volunteer) Regiment of Foot. In his early life he moved with his family to Germany, where his father had taken up employment, and on one occasion was mistaken as the future Kaiser:
‘The Emperor had a son called Willy, Prince Wilhelm. We stopped in Hess at Kassel [one day] and my mother and I went out for a drive. On our return to Wilhelmshohe, the crowd assembled on the sidewalk and kept calling “Hoch” which is a signification of applause, having mistaken me for the Kaiser's son and my Mother presumably for a governess.’ (recipient’s own account refers).

Returning to Devon, Daubeny was educated at Kelly’s College, before passing into the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. His first posting was to a battery in Portsmouth, with a C.O. ‘who was a dreadful fellow really and quite useless.’ It wasn't long before Daubeny was placed in command of guarding the destroyers brought up to the boom, and it seems his first challenge was dealing with the Highland Light Infantry troops under him, limiting their access to the dockyard workers who were generous with their drink: ‘I flung them into a wet dungeon which cured them.’ His unhappy appointment at Portsmouth ended with a reprimand for ordering one of his infantryman ‘to put a bullet about a yard in front of a destroyer's bows for failing to display the correct lights.’

Having been advanced to Lieutenant, Daubeny served as Adjutant of the East Anglian Royal Garrison Artillery, before transferring to the Royal Field Artillery in the rank of Captain. He served with the R.F.A. during the Great War on the Western Front from June 1915, and was present at the Battle of Loos, and at the Battle of the Somme, where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. By his own modest account, ‘I did some good work there in squashing machine-gun nests and things like that. I also discovered that there was a woman on the opposite side of the scarp and that all ammunition was being brought in a thing marked Red Cross. I very soon put a stop to that.’

In the latter stages of the Somme, Daubeny's battery came under fire from a German battery in High Wood:
‘As anyone might get hit any day and as my senior subaltern was killed shortly before, I took Bunbury, an awfully good fellow, to show him round. There was a German battery on the other side but the two of us were together in a shell hole. The thing burst in the air. He was about two feet away from me and got hit in the lung and weakened very quickly. I knew what it was but if I had put him on my back the pressure would have been too great so I held him up by the back of his neck and I struggled down to where there was a dressing station. They took him into a dugout and I said, “I suppose I have killed him,” and the doctor replied, “we shall see.” Anyway, he left there and I heard from him at the base at Boulogne but in the end pneumonia supervened and that was the end of Bunbury. As a result of all of these escapades they gave me a D.S.O., which was very kind of them.’

Appointed to the command of 70th Brigade R.F.A. in 1917, Daubeny led his batteries with distinction at Arras and beyond, including at the Battle of Cambrai and at Passchendaele. He also took to the skies with the Royal Flying Corps to gain the latest intelligence for his guns:
‘Before that - the push towards Cambrai - I had been back to Amiens and had gone up in an aeroplane, single pilot, to fly over Germany. We practised first with our guns mounted but not with ammunition. When I looked over the side of the plane when he was turning, I couldn't see the sky but only the earth. However, we turned back and when we reached the aerodrome at Amiens, there was an awful fuss because they had got all the casualty things there. It appeared that we were followed by a German fighter who, of course, did not know, with the machine-gun sticking up in the air, that we were only taking photographs. However, we got away with it.’

For his ‘coolness, courage and personality’ over a critical two day period in which his Brigade took serious casualties, Daubeny was awarded a Second Award Bar to his D.S.O. Of his subsequent investiture, he wrote:
‘It was my turn to go on leave and when I arrived at Victoria, I was told to go to Buckingham Palace. There was no proper investiture at that time. Three of us were ushered into a room with a window seat overlooking the pond. We sat down and on my right was a fellow I didn't like who had got the Victoria Cross and the Military Cross, and on the other side was a fellow whose name I think was Watson. He hadn't got anything yet but he was about to have the V.C. He was simply dripping with funk because he hadn't had a decoration before! However, we calmed him down. George V, with a sailor's punctuality, turned up at 10 a.m. and that was the whole investiture. When the King handed me the Bar I didn't know what to do with it - so I shoved it into my pocket.’

Daubeny returned to the front in early 1918, and in the final stages of the War was seriously wounded:
‘I went forward for fresh positions and I was shot by a Bavarian - good shot too - through my leg so much so that it spun me round and I saw the fellow. I very quickly got weak and fell down where I was. It was quite a long time before anything happened. However, eventually a doctor came up and he put on a tourniquet to stop the blood, but I had already stuck my leg up into the air and shouted to the German, “Nein, nein.” He had a second shot at me and [luckily] it hit the ground.’

The bullet had punctured his femoral artery. Although he did not know it at the time, the doctor had placed a red ticket on his jacket which signified immediate operation, and eventually he was carried away on a stretcher by four German prisoners, overseen by a Canadian. He was immediately operated on at a Casualty Clearing Station before being placed on a hospital train back to base, where he was operated on for a second time on a very hard marble table:
‘They gave me an anaesthetic I suppose, but apparently I kicked the orderly who was taking care of me in the stomach and shot him right across the room. I wasn't completely under and he broke a lot of bottles and became a casualty too!’

Evacuated home, Daubeny was placed in the care of Lady Somerleyton's hospital at 17 Park Lane, London, where he remained for three months. A fellow officer wrote to say how sorry he was to hear that ‘Fritz had perforated’ him, but that on reflection ‘I always thought that you would get it sooner or later … an enforced rest will probably do you a lot of good!’

Daubeny managed to return to the Western Front in November 1918, even though he was still on crutches, and witnessed the Germans retiring to the Rhine. For his services during the Great War he was four times Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazettes 14 November 1916, 4 January 1917, 14 December 1917 and 21 May 1918), as well as being awarded the French Croix de Guerre. He subsequently saw service in Murmansk in May 1919 during the Russian Intervention, before relinquishing his commission, with the rank of Colonel, in August 1920.

In civilian life Daubeny later served as a King’s Messenger, and on one visit to Constantinople he met Mustapha Kemal: ‘He was a great man and the boss of everything. It was he who prevented the Dardanelles campaign being successful during the war period. Our people were still backing the Sultan who was a dead or dying horse, when everybody else was going to Ankara and dealing with the man who really mattered.’

Daubeny subsequently retired to Christchurch, Hampshire, and died on 21 September 1967, aged 84.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including an original typed manuscript of autobiographical recollections, including family circumstances, education, war experiences and his post-war role as King's Messenger, 13pp.; Three Mentioned in Despatches certificates; various letters from his friends wishing him a speedy recovery from his Great War wounds; a portrait photograph of the recipient and other photographic images; copy of the Statutes of the D.S.O.; and other ephemera and copied research.