Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Tibet 1903-04, no clasp, silver issue (Sub. K. Singh, 32nd Pars. (sic)), engraved in running script, possibly a later issue, nearly extremely fine £200-250

Subadar Kesar Singh, 32rd Pioneers, was awarded the Indian Order of Merit, 3rd Class. ‘For conspicuous gallantry at the assault on the village of Palla, on the 26th May 1904. This Indian Officer personally superintended the laying of four mines against the walls of buildings in the village, on each occasion under heavy fire, and, after effecting a breach in the most formidable house in the village, he was the first to enter the building which was crowded with the enemy, shooting one of them.’

‘Before dawn on 26 May a village called Palla, 1100 yards from Chang Lo (S.E. of Gyantse), was attacked and, after six hours of desparate fighting, much of it hand-to-hand, carried. The storming parties had to blast their way with gun-cotton into the stout-walled houses, in which a bloody hide-and-seek ensued. One of these parties was led by O’Connor ... he was shot through the shoulder. Garstin, a newly arrived subaltern of the Sappers and Miners, was killed outright, two other British officers were wounded, and three sepoys killed. Of the Tibetans, fighting in their burrows of masonry with the clumsy tenacity of badgers, three or hour hundred were loosely estimated to have lost their lives.’ (Extract from Bayonets to Lhasa, by Peter Fleming).

Kesar Singh, served in Afghanistan at the occupation of Kandahar and Giriskh in 1880 for which he was awarded a medal. He served on the N.E. frontier at Sikkim in 1888 and on the N.W. frontier at Hazara in 1891, for which he was awarded the I.G.S. 1854 medal with two clasps. For services leading to the relief of Chitral in 1895 and in Waziristan during 1901-2 he was awarded the I.G.S. 1895 medal with two clasps. In the Tibet campaign 1904-5, he served in the operations at and around Gyantse between 5th May and 6th July 1904 and was awarded the I.O.M. 3rd Class.