The Jack Webb Collection of Medals and Militaria

Five: Private H. G. Challen, 20th Middlesex (Artists) Rifle Volunteers and City of London Imperial Volunteers, later Major, 12th (City of London) Battalion (Kensington), London Regiment, who, with command of the Battalion devolving on him, was severely wounded at the Second Battle of Ypres leading a critical counter attack, 8 May 1915

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill (31 Pte. H. G. Challen, C.I.V.); 1914-15 Star (Major H. G. Challen. 12-Lond. R.) unit unofficially re-engraved; British War and Victory Medals (Major H. G. Challen); Territorial Decoration, G.V.R., silver and silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1918, complete with integral to riband bar, court mounted, lacquered, generally very fine or better (5) £500-£700

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Jack Webb Collection of Medals and Militaria.

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Howard Gartney Challen was born in Romford, Essex in July 1876. He joined the Artists Rifles on 16 February 1897 and served with their detachment in South Africa during the Boer War in the Infantry Battalion of the City Imperial Volunteers.

Challen was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 22nd Middlesex (Central London Rangers) Volunteer Rifle Corps in 1902, was promoted Captain on 28 August 1906, and on 1 April 1908 was appointed Captain in its successor unit, the 12th Battalion, County of London (The Rangers) Regiment.

On 31 August 1914, following the outbreak of the Great War, Challen was advanced Major, 12th Battalion (Kensington), London Regiment and served with them on the Western Front from 24 December 1914 until severely wounded at the Second Battle of Ypres on 8 May 1915.

The foreword to the war history of the Rangers cites the counter attack by the 1/12th at the Second Battle of Ypres as the finest ever witnessed by the commander of 85 Brigade - a regular brigade of the British Expeditionary Force to which the Rangers were Territorial Force troops attached. The account describes how Challen took command of the Battalion after the C.O. had been wounded and consequently commanded the vital counter attack which saved Ypres, being severely wounded himself in so doing.

‘24 April 1915: During the advance, the C.O., Lieut.-Colonel A. D. Bayliffe, was wounded in the leg, the command of the Battalion devolving on Major H. G. Challen.

8 May 1915: At 11.15am came the order to advance in support of the Monmouth, the right of the Brigade line having been broken by the German advance. The Battalion, now about 200 strong, led by Major Challen and Major Foucar, and D Company under Captain Jones, in support, the Machine Gun Section with only one gun left, moving independently on the left flank. The Battalion had to pass through a gap in the barbed wire in front of G.H.Q. line on which the German machine guns were trained, and suffered heavily in its passage. The whole of the ground over which the further advance took place was heavily shelled, and in places exposed to heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, so that the Battalion rapidly dwindled. A small remnant pushed forward. Of survivors there were ultimately collected by Sergeant W. J. Hornall (every officer having been either killed, wounded or taken prisoner), 53, mainly pioneers and signallers. The determination of the attack, it is said, was such that the Germans thought it could only have been made by troops sure of speedy and strong support, not, as in fact had been the case, by practically the last remaining troops between them and Ypres, and so the enemy dug in without further advance, and thus was achieved the object for which so many gallant souls gave up their lives.’ (Historical Record of the Rangers by Captain A. V. Wheeler-Holohan and Captain G. M. G. Wyatt refers)

Challen was so badly wounded that he spent the rest of the war at a training establishment in England, serving with 3/10th, London Regiment. He was awarded his Territorial Decoration in 1919 (London Gazette 30 May 1919).