Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The outstanding ‘Iraq 2003’ C.G.C. group of seven awarded to Corporal, later Warrant Officer Class 2, S. G. Jardine, King’s Own Scottish Borderers, later Royal Regiment of Scotland, a Quick Reaction Force fire-team leader who, having found himself pinned down with no reinforcements in an increasingly untenable position near Al Uzayr security base, Maysan Province, took the initiative and, ordering covering fire, assaulted three enemy positions in succession, allowing his men to move forward and prompting the enemy to withdraw.

Charging directly in the face of automatic rifle fire from an enemy in well prepared positions whilst also under intense and accurate heavy machine-gun fire from range, he single-handedly assaulted the first position, killing two of the enemy, capturing their weapons and causing a third man to flee:

‘I started running across the bridge and they had seen me immediately. They were lying down, prone position, and firing at me as I ran; I saw their fingers on the triggers, then the muzzle flashes and then I could hear the rounds zipping past. I remember thinking, Why are they not hitting me?... I got to within 15 or 20 metres of them and just thought, I’m going no further, here. I dropped to one knee, aimed, fired one round, quickly moved onto the second, and fired again... I just aimed at the body and in both cases my rounds went into the chest, under the arm, and came out the back of the neck. Both guys were instantly dead.’

Proceeding to suppress the depth machine gun, Jardine then called his team forward and, with a third enemy position also having now been identified, ordered heavy fire to be laid down on both positions until the enemy disengaged: his courage, leadership and quick thinking in the face of a determined enemy attack undoubtedly preventing casualties among his own team and other supporting units.

Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, E.II.R., reverse officially inscribed ‘25090313 Cpl S G Jardine, KOSB’ and officially dated ‘2004’; General Service 1962-2007, 1 clasp, Northern Ireland (25090313 L Cpl S G Jardine, KOSB); Iraq 2003-11, no clasp (25090313 Cpl S G Jardine KOSB); Operational Service Medal 2000, for Afghanistan, 1 clasp, Afghanistan (Sgt S G Jardine, Scots, 25090313); Jubilee 2012, unnamed as issued; Accumulated Campaign Service Medal 1994 (Cpl S G Jardine KOSB); Army L.S. & G.C., E.II.R., 2nd issue, Regular Army (C Sgt S G Jardine CGC Scots 25090313) mounted court style as worn, some minor contact wear, otherwise generally good very fine (7) £120,000-£140,000

The Conspicuous Gallantry Cross was instituted as a result of the 1993 review of the British honours system and is second in seniority only to the Victoria Cross. The C.G.C. was awarded for the first time as a result of the Bosnian War in 1995 and to date 60 such awards have been made, of which 15 were for the Iraq War. The award to Jardine is unique to the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and is the only C.G.C. to have been awarded to any Scottish Regiment.

C.G.C. London Gazette 23 April 2004:
‘In recognition of gallant and distinguished services in Iraq during the period 1st April to 30th September 2003.’

The original recommendation states:
‘Corporal Jardine was commanding a Fire Team employed as the Immediate Quick Reaction Force for the Al Uzayr Security Force Base in Maysan Province on the morning of Saturday 9th August 2003. At 0815hrs a prolonged and intense mix of Heavy Machine Gun and small arms fire was heard 300m to the north of the base and Corporal Jardine and his fire team deployed to investigate.
Corporal Jardine and his team advanced North on foot until they were engaged by two enemy positions 100 metres to their West. The first was occupied by three men armed with automatic rifles, the second by a Heavy Machine Gun. Corporal Jardine immediately ordered his team into what limited cover was available. Simultaneously, other elements of the Al Uzayr Multiple, which had also deployed came under fire to the South. Realising that no reinforcements were available and assessing that his team’s position was becoming untenable, Corporal Jardine decided to take the offensive.
Corporal Jardine ordered the remainder of his team to provide covering fire, and despite intense and accurate HMG fire, assaulted the first position alone, killing two of the enemy and capturing their weapons. The third enemy fled in the face of his determined action. Corporal Jardine then proceeded to suppress the depth machine gun position, whilst calling forward the remainder of his own team to join him. At this point a third enemy position was identified to him by the Platoon Commander. Corporal Jardine’s team located this position and proceeded to lay down fire on both positions, allowing the remainder of the Multiple to move forward. At this point the enemy disengaged from the action and withdrew to the North.
Corporal Jardine’s quick thinking and total disregard for his own safety undoubtedly served to prevent casualties amongst his own team and the remainder of the Multiple. His courage and inspirational leadership in the face of a determined enemy attack deserve recognition.’

Shaun Garry Jardine, a native of Dumfries in south-west Scotland, joined the King’s Own Scottish Borderers at the age of 16 and was deployed to Iraq with the 1st Battalion on TELIC 2 after the initial invasion, in mid-June 2003 at the age of 21. The following extracts relating to Jardine’s service in Iraq, in particular the action for which he was awarded the C.G.C., are taken from an 8 page interview with Corporal Jardine which appears in the book In Foreign Fields by Dan Collins:

‘We arrived in Basra and then drove down to Kuwait to get acclimatised for a couple of weeks. Coming from Scotland, we definitely needed that. It was roasting hot, around 100 degrees in the shade, and a wee bit different to the weather back home...A week after we arrived the six Royal Military Policemen got murdered in Al Majar Al Kabir, so we were fast tracked to move up earlier than planned. There was a lot of activity to try and find the killers, and make sure everyone knew the British Army was in control, and so they needed plenty of boots on the ground.

We made our way up through Basra towards Camp Abu Naji. The way it worked was we rotated on a four week basis...The fourth week was spent down at the Al Uzayr Security Force Base, an out station roughly 70 or 80 km south of Al Aamarah and the same distance north of Basra.

It was a very small camp, an old police station in the shape of a squared-off figure eight, with courtyards in the middle. Around the whole compound, five or ten metres from the building, there was a perimeter wall. If you looked over the wall you would see Al Uzayr itself. Its a pretty poor place sitting on the banks of the Tigris there in the middle of the marshland that runs down to the Iranian border which isn’t far away at all...

We would patrol the immediate area of the village and then strike out into the other villages and the marshland round about. We were just showing a presence, and obviously looking for weapons and insurgents. You have to remember, Saddam’s own police and Army had sort of vanished, so there wasn’t that much formal law and order apart from us.

Of course there were people who didn’t want us there. It had all kicked off two nights before. I had taken a six man patrol out around the village in a Land Rover, and we had been shot at from a number of rooftops. The rounds were close enough, probably AK, and we de-bussed from the vehicle and tried to locate the shooters. But we couldn’t so we went back and reported it. There were no casualties, but we were slightly shaken up...

The next night, another patrol was out and as they pulled out onto Route Six - the main road from Basra through to Al-Amarah - they got heavy incoming fire from the other side of the road, again from the village. They also de-bussed and started to return fire. Its always sketchy, particularly in the dark, but from the muzzle flashes and noise they thought there were between ten and twenty insurgents. I deployed with six more guys towards the south, and we swept them out of the village, on to the other side of the road and over around 300 metres of flat, open ground to a farm complex. They were firing at us all the way. [An M.C. and an M.I.D. were were awarded to men of the regiment for this action.]

It was the next morning when the main thing happened. A team went out to clear the area and as they were returning, just as they got back to control base, there was a lot of gunfire to the north east of our position. It was a mixture of heavy machine gun and small arms. You can hear the difference. Heavy machine gun is an awful lot louder and when it is fired over your head you hear the thump of the weapon and then a much louder crack as the round passes over. I was on Quick Reaction Force, dressed and ready to go, so I grabbed my guys. The sentries on our roof shouted down and they’d spotted some enemy up to the north east of the camp, on the other side of the river.’

There was only one bridge across the river, and Corporal Jardine and his men had to cross it to get to the enemy. This was extremely hazardous; the bridge would channel them into a narrow killing ground in front of the enemy guns. Despite knowing this, Cpl. Jardine and his men did not hesitate.

‘I moved out with my team - there were five of us, including myself. As we were moving up the road, we received incoming fire from the opposite side of the river, which was about 100 metres from our position. We started fire-manoeuvring over some waste ground until we came to the river. We were still unclear as to exactly where the enemy were, or how many of them there were. Because it was broad daylight, the muzzle flashes were much less vivid, but we were seeing clouds of dust come up as people ran about. However, we couldn’t just fire willy nilly into those clouds because this is a village and there are innocent people and even kids about. So we would try to work out where the rounds were coming from, then scan the area through our rifle sights and, if we saw someone armed, we would then fire back. We’d also move around ourselves, trying to draw their fire so that we could observe or hear where it was coming from. Eventually we fought our way over to the river. Many of the rivers in this part of Iraq have raised banks to prevent flooding, so that offered us some cover. There were cracks in the mud eroded by the weather or high water, and I got myself in one of them and located four positions on the opposite side of the river.

There was a bridge across to my left, about 100 metres away. It was raised up 15ft or so over the water, and a heavy machine gun - a Dushka, I think - was set up underneath there. It was firing diagonally towards us and our camp. There were three guys at that position and a pick-up truck parked close by. On the bridge itself was one guy with an AK47, lying behind a small mound of earth. There was another guy 30 metres to his right and a fourth one further down the river bank. They were on raised ground in good positions. I identified all the targets to my four guys and we started suppressing them. The idea is that you kill them if you can, but if you can’t you put enough rounds down on them that you either scare them away or keep their heads down while someone else can get close enough to kill them.’

As the KOSB soldiers began suppressive fire, the insurgents with small arms closed up, with two men now on the bridge and one just to the side, leaving two positions. Cpl. Jardine allocated three of his soldiers to suppress these, and then assessed the situation. The enemy were in well-prepared positions and were proving very hard to hit. If his men stayed where they were, they risked other enemy forces potentially outflanking them and assaulting them from the rear. Retreat was not an option. He decided he had to get across the bridge.

‘Myself and Pte. John Clark, now L. Cpl. Clark, got up on top of the ridge and started running along to the bridge. We were very exposed at that point but that was the only way onto it. As we got up there, another group opened up on us from a large military building further north but on the same side of the river as we were on. They were 200 metres away, we estimated there were 15 to 20 weapons involved and they were accurate - the rounds started landing around our feet, in amongst the pair of us. I grabbed John and we slid back down the steep bank and crawled over to a pile of rubble for cover. I poked my head up and had a look and saw there were loads of people in this building firing at us. I got on the radio to the platoon commander and said, “We need some support here... we’re getting contact from this military building in the north... I suggest you move on to Route Six and cover us from the school.” There was a school building which looked directly into this new insurgent position. So Cpl. Tony Currie and L. Cpl. Chris Potts deployed a few privates to this building and started suppressing them. Meanwhile, John Clark was using his Minimi on them. The other guys were still suppressing the original three positions - there was a lot of gunfire going off all around. Once Tony Currie’s team were in position, they took over suppressing the building and I started thinking about getting back up on top of the bank and trying to get onto the bridge. It was one of those moments when you just have to do it. No-one else was able to get across there, so it had to be me.

I was probably half scared to death but, to be honest, I can’t remember how I felt. I just knew that something had to be done.
Around this time, a white pick-up truck moved up towards us, had a look and then turned and drove away. I kind of saw it out of the corner of my eye, but well enough to see that there were armed men inside. They could have been the local police - who we thought we could trust - but they could also have been more insurgents, so they forced my hand. As soon as I saw it I thought I’ve got to do something now just in case.

I left John with the Minimi to cover my rear. The Minimi is quite inaccurate if you’re trying to fire it on the move anyway, and it offers a lot of fire support - 5.56 belted, up to 1000 rounds a minute with a range of 800 metres. So he was better employed where he was; if the vehicle came back, or the guys in the building had another go at me, he’d give me a chance.’

Corporal Jardine’s citation explains what happens next: he charged three men who were firing automatic weapons at him. “Despite intense and accurate heavy machine gun fire, he assaulted the first position alone, killing two of the enemy and capturing their weapons. The third enemy fled. Jardine then proceeded to suppress the depth machine gun position, whilst calling forward the remainder of his own Team to join him. At this point a third enemy position was identified to him. Jardine’s team located this position and proceeded to lay fire down on both positions, allowing the remainder of the multiple to move forward. At this point the enemy disengaged from the action and withdrew.”

‘I got back up there and just ran as quick as I could until I got to the bridge. The lads doing the suppressing were brilliant, they kept the enemy down until I actually got on there. I started running across the bridge and they had seen me immediately. They were lying down, prone position, and firing at me as I ran; I saw their fingers on the triggers, then the muzzle flashes and then I could hear the rounds zipping past. I remember thinking, Why are they not hitting me? But they were firing on automatic and while the AK is a good weapon it is quite inaccurate. Luckily. Obviously, I was moving as well, which made their job harder.

I’m a reasonable shot, but the sight system on the SA80 is such that, at that range... well, you could miss, but you’d almost have to be trying to. I just aimed at the body and in both cases my rounds went into the chest, under the arm, and came out the back of the neck. Both guys were instantly dead. I didn’t see what happened to the third guy, but apparently he ran away and vanished behind some mud huts. I did see the truck that was next to the machine gun drive away. It hit the road and just kept going, and we were on foot so we couldn’t chase them to make an arrest.

The truck was still in range, but the fact that it had disengaged meant that we couldn’t fire upon it. It was frustrating, of course; they can drive away, come back the next day and kill five of your mates. But I can understand the reasons for the rules. Everything was done with the aim of minimising death or injury to anyone. We would never fire unless fired on first. I think it spoke volumes for our discipline.

I moved back across the river, and Chris Potts was firing UGL grenades into the military building, because they were still engaging us. Obviously we needed to clear it. One of the Scimitar armoured fighting vehicles came up and we parked it in the middle of the waste ground observing the back exit. But while we doing that they must have extracted because when we actually went to clear through there was no-one left. There was a lot of blood, but no bodies or weapons - they had obviously taken them with them. We recovered the bodies of the two men I’d killed, together with their weapons. You can’t just leave bodies in the middle of the desert. You have got to pick them up and deal with them... I’d done what needed to be done when I shot those blokes. It was either them or one of us, probably me, so it never bothered me. Even now, while its not something I like to ponder over, I think I made the right decision...

Once we came back from TELIC 2, we moved straight across to Northern Ireland and I was told I had to go back and see the CO. I thought, Oh no what have I done? It turned out that he told me I was getting an award for my actions... I’m very proud to get it but John Clark and Chris Potts and all the other guys in the team played their parts... I feel that everyone should have been recognised in some way... if it wasn’t for them, who knows what would have happened.’

Jardine was invested with his C.G.C. by H.M. The Queen at Buckingham Palace on 29 October 2004.

Following his time in the 1st King’s Own Scottish Borderers, Jardine served for a time as an Infantry Instructor at the Infantry Training Centre Catterick and he spent the majority of his career serving with the Highlanders, 4th Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Throughout his service he was deployed on Operations in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan and he took part in major overseas exercises in the Falkland Islands, Cyprus, Jordan, Kenya, Canada and Germany. Most recently he was employed as the Senior Permanent Staff Officer Instructor at Glasgow & Strathclyde Universities’ Officer Training Corps. He was awarded the Long Service & Good Conduct Medal in 2016 and left the Army in 2021 in the rank of Warrant Officer Class 2 after completing 23 years of loyal and dedicated service.

Sold together with a hardback copy of ‘In Foreign Fields - Heroes of Iraq and Afghanistan in their own words’ by Dan Collins; a print of David Rowland’s painting of the recipient winning his C.G.C. (the original oil on canvas painting, entitled ‘Corporal Shaun Jardine CGC at Al Uzayr, Maysan Province, Iraq, 9th August 2003’ is owned by The Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland); and a file containing 14 letters of congratulation including those sent by Brigadier J. Cooper DSO MBE., Colonel, King’s Own Scottish Borderers; Lieutenant General Sir John Reith KCB CBE, Chief of Joint Operations, Permanent Joint Headquarters; Major-General G. C. M. Lamb CMG DSO OBE, General Officer Commanding, 3rd (UK) Division; Brigadier W. G. Cubitt OBE, O.C. 8th Infantry Brigade; Lieutenant General Sir Alistair Irwin KCB CBE, Colonel Commandant, HQ Adjutant General; Lieutenant General P. C. C. Trousdell CB; and Brigadier C. G. Mattingley CBE.

For the recipient’s related miniature awards, see Lot 590.