Auction Catalogue

2 April 2004

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Lot

№ 266

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2 April 2004

Hammer Price:
£2,300

A fine Salonika operations M.C. group of four awarded to Captain C. N. Crawshaw, Royal Scots Fusiliers, who was killed in action in the same theatre of war on 18 September 1918

Military Cross
, G.V.R.; 1914-15 Star (2 Lieut., R. Sco. Fus.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt.), with related Memorial Plaque (Charles Neville Crawshaw), and a silver watch fob, the reverse engraved, ‘Crawshaw’s XI, 1908’, extremely fine (5) £1200-1500

M.C. London Gazette 3 June 1918 (Salonika). The following information was taken from an official source:

‘For conspicuous good work and exemplary devotion to duty. This officer has been Adjutant of the Battalion since October 1916, and by his unremitting energy and skill has been of the utmost assistance to his Commanding Officer. His cheerful tact and thoroughness is an example and a powerful incentive to good work on the part of all with whom he comes in contact.’

Mention in despatches
London Gazette 28 November 1917 (Salonika).

Charles Neville Crawshaw, who by profession was a schoolmaster, originally enlisted in the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment at Blackpool in December 1914, aged 23 years. He was, however, quickly discharged to a commission in the 8th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers, and arrived in France in September 1915.

The Battalion was subsequently embarked at Marseilles for Salonika, where Crawshaw was appointed Adjutant in October 1916, and his handiwork from this period is preserved in regimental records - pages of careful planning and instructions for trench raids, in addition to war diary entries, many of them signed by him. By the time of his departure from the Balkans on home leave in July 1918, he had won the M.C. and a mention in despatches.

Crawshaw caught up with his unit on 15 September 1918 but just three days later he was killed in action in a disastrous assault on Grand Couronne in Salonika, the 8th Royal Scots forming the centre of the attack:

‘The attack began at 5.20 a.m. on the 18th [September 1918], and in the face of a heavy artillery and machine-gun fire barrage it carried the point known as “The Tongue”. But the enemy at once counter-attacked, and the Greeks on the right were driven from the objective they had won, while the French on the left had apparently never moved from their place of assembly. The result was that the brigade had both flanks in the air, and as the enemy was pushing forward enveloping attacks, it was compelled about 10.30 a.m. slowly to withdraw. The commanding officer of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, Lieutenant-Colonel G. G. Lindsay, was wounded, and most of the officers were already casualties. Accordingly the battalion retired to a ravine, where it was reorganised under two subalterns ...’

2nd Lieutenant Andrew McCrindle, one of the few officers to return from the attack, stated of Crawshaw’s fate:

‘When I last saw this officer he was lying in the bottom of the trench on “The Tongue”. He was very badly wounded in the back and lower part of his body. I spoke to him but he did not reply, nor did he seem to recognise me ...’

And according to his widow, who received a letter from his C.O., Lieutenant-Colonel Lindsay, her husband ‘was severely wounded in both arms, both legs and the spine.’

Whatever the nature of his wounds, certain is the fact Crawshaw has no known grave and is commemorated on the Doiran Memorial.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s memorial scroll; M.I.D. certificate for Lieutenant-General G. F. Milne’s despatch of 25 October 1917; official telegram reporting him missing, believed killed, date stamped 27 September 1918; War Office letter forwarding his M.C. to his widow, dated 15 April 1919, with enclosure ‘statement of services’ for which it was awarded; Privy Purse letter of condolence on behalf of the King and Queen, dated 12 June 1919; and War Office forwarding letter for his campaign awards, dated 25 January 1923.