Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare inter-War North-West Frontier ‘V.C. Action’ D.S.O. group of three awarded to Lieutenant G. J. Hamilton, 5th Battalion, 12th Frontier Force Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Own Corps of Guides), for his gallant conduct on 29 September 1935 when he advanced under heavy fire across a narrow Col in an attempt to support two platoons of Guides Infantry under the command of Captain G. Meynell that occupied a summit point and were in grave danger of being overwhelmed; having secured his own objective he realised the small supporting force of HQ Wing and two platoons of Guides Infantry were pinned down on an adjacent peak and unable to offer support.

On his own initiative Hamilton then led a gallant charge across a narrow ridge linking the two peaks, but fell severely wounded at the head of his men, the ground being swept by fire from all sides. With the tribesmen above and around the flanks of Meynell and his few remaining men, the gallant Captain Meynell was overwhelmed and died fighting to the last in fierce hand-to-hand combat. For the ‘fine example Meynell set to his men, coupled with his determination to hold the position to the last, maintain the traditions of the Army, and reflect the highest credit on his fallen comrades’, Meynell was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Hamilton’s position was now critical. Attacked by overwhelming numbers, severely wounded and hardly able to move, he organised a defensive position to cover the withdrawal of the supporting troops, remaining in position for over three hours, during which ‘he emphatically refused to be evacuated until a final retirement was ordered’

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, with integral top riband bar, in Garrard, London, case of issue; India General Service 1908-35, 1 clasp, North West Frontier 1935, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Lt. G. J. Hamilton, 5-12 F F R); India General Service 1936-39, 1 clasp, North West Frontier 1936-37 (Lt. G. J. Hamilton, 5-12 F F R) minor edge bruise to IGS08, otherwise nearly extremely fine (3) £4,000-£5,000

D.S.O. London Gazette 24 December 1935:
‘For gallant and distinguished service in action in connection with the recent Mohmand operations, North West Frontier of India, 1935’.

The official Recommendation, published in The Times on 26 October 1935 states: ‘Lieutenant Hamilton led two Platoons in support of forward companies attacked by overwhelming numbers. Severely wounded and hardly able to move, he organised a defensive position to cover the withdrawal, holding it for three hours, during which he emphatically refused to be evacuated until a final retirement was ordered. It was entirely through the action of this gallant officer that the enemy were held in check and the wounded evacuated.’

M.I.D. London Gazette 8 May 1936:
'For distinguished services rendered in the field in connection with the Mohmand Operations, North West Frontier of India, during the period 15/16 August to 15/16 October 1935.’

Godfrey John Hamilton was born on 31 March 1912, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel F. A. Hamilton, O.B.E., and was educated at Radley and the Royal Military College Sandhurst. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant, Unattached List, Indian Army, on 1 September 1932, and was posted to Queen Victoria’s Own Corps of Guides the following year, being promoted Lieutenant on 1 December 1934. He served with the 5th Battalion, 12th Frontier Force Regiment in the operations against the Mohmand tribesmen on the North West Frontier in 1935, and was severely wounded and awarded the D.S.O. for his gallantry in the action at Point 4080 on 29 September 1935, for which Captain Godfrey Meynell was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

The Attack on Point 4080, 29 September 1935
Documents at the India Office Library make reference to the following code names given to prominent rocky features used in official narratives; (i) high ground at Point 318367 - ‘Teeth’; (ii) rocky pinnacle East of Point 4080 - ‘Nipple’; (iii) small rocky feature about three hundred yards West of ‘Nipple’ - ‘Pimple’.
The purpose of the operation was ‘clean up sniping parties which came from the head of the Wucha Jawar Valley, the direction of Muzi Kor and Zanawar China, and inflict the maximum possible loss on these elements’. The plan was for the Guides to seize and hold Teeth and from there to capture Point 4080, the object being to catch the enemy flushed from Muzi Kor and the Wucha Jawar in enfilade fire.
The advance to Point 4080 was carried out in four phases; (i) the approach march from camp to the foot of the spur; (ii) Capture of ‘Teeth’ by Hamilton; (iii) Capture of ‘Nipple’ by Rendall; (iv) Capture of Point 4080.

The Guides left Wucha Jawar camp at 0200 hours and strength of the force was as follows; ‘A’ Company (Lieutenant A. P. S. Rendall), 3 Indian officers and 76 Indian other ranks; ‘B’ Company (Lieutenant G. J. Hamilton), 3 Indian officers and 86 Indian other ranks; ‘C’ Company (Honorary Lieutenant Shadi Khan), 2 Indian officers and 82 Indian other ranks; HQ Wing (Major S. Good) with Captain G. Meynall Adjutant, Doherty Medical Officer, 2 Indian officers and 86 Indian other ranks; the total force consisting of 4 British officers, 1 British MO, 10 Indian officers and 330 Indian other ranks.

The first phase was completed by 0400 hours, with Hamilton occupying ‘Teeth’ by 0520 hours. The third phase began with ‘C’ Company acting as advanced guard moving up a spur leading to ‘Nipple’ which was occupied at 0545 hours. The final phase then began with Shadi Khan leading two platoons from ‘C’ Company, with Rendall in close support bringing up two platoons of ‘A’ Company plus an advanced HQ party which included Meynell. The remainder of the small attacking force under Good remained on Nipple. The approach to 4080 was along a long and narrow Col which restricted the advance to single file. With daylight approaching and the tribesmen now fully alerted and in far greater numbers than anticipated, the two platoons under Shadi Khan became pinned down by heavy fire after covering a distance of two hundred yards. Having reached a position where the Col broadened out slightly, Shadi Khan formed a fire position from which the final assault could be made. At this point, Rendall and Meynell came forward, and ordering Shadi Khan to remain in his present position to give covering fire, led the final assault with two platoons from ‘A’ Company and two sections from ‘C’ Company.

Despite the growing hostile fire and the difficult nature of the ground, Rendall reached one of the points of 4080, which is best described as a coxcomb being made up of several small peaks, with the two platoons of ‘A’. Battalion HQ had now established themselves across the Col and on the east face of 4080. But it was now broad daylight and in the face of such heavy fire, the supporting sections of ‘C’ were unable to scale the cliff face, with the result that Rendall and Meynell were left isolated. Major Good now realised the seriousness of the situation but was unable to communicate with the 3rd Light Battery for covering fire as the Forward Observation Officer had been wounded and the telephone lost. However a helio message was sent to Hamilton who was ordered up with two platoons, at which point the signaller was shot dead.

Hamilton then advanced in an attempt to reach Rendall and Meynell but fell severely wounded at the head of his men having reached the rocky outcrop codenamed Pimple, from which point no further advance was possible, the ground being swept by fire from all sides. It was now somewhere between 0700-0800 hours and the tribesmen were above and around the flanks of the two platoons of ‘A’ Company. Rendall had been killed but Meynell, although wounded, was still engaged in hand-to-hand fighting and the use of hand grenades and stones. The result, however, was inevitable and Meynell with the few remaining men of ‘A’ were over-run with the enemy now in possession of 4080 and threatening Battalion HQ and the two remaining platoons of ‘C’. Good was himself wounded and gave the order to withdraw.
Meanwhile, Hamilton having now realised all was lost, had organised the defence of Pimple and by giving covering fire to Good was able to hold the enemy in check, thereby enabling the safe withdrawal of HQ and the two platoons of ‘C’. Hamilton remained in position from 0800-1100 hours and did not withdraw until 6 inch howitzers and aeroplanes started action on 4080. Hamilton withdrew his men in good order under cover of this fire, and according to the official account, his actions ‘undoubtedly stopped the tribesmen’s advance from 4080’.

The following extract, taken from ‘Afghan Frontier - At the Crossroads of Conflict’, by Victoria Schofield, includes extracts from Hamilton’s own account of the assault on Point 4080 (A Guide Goes Home - Piffer Journal 1980):
‘Goff Hamilton also joined the Guides for family reasons. His father had been in the Guides; so too had his grandfather’s first cousin, Lieutenant Walter Hamilton, who was killed in the massacre at Kabul in 1879. Since life in camp was rather routine, there was great enthusiasm when the soldiers knew they were going out to confront the tribesman. Three wars against the Afghan’s and the fierce fighting of the previous century had not dulled the desire for battle. “If you were sitting in Mardan and heard there was trouble brewing,” enthused Hamilton, “there was this sense of great excitement. Your life was totally taken up with your profession and when you went to battle you knew that your men would follow you.”
Goff Hamilton had experience of bitter fighting against the Mohmands which, like so many times before, turned out to be another military disaster which never should have happened. He recalled a day’s events, “There were no bugles that morning on 29 September 1935. My Pathan bearer and friend, Kashmir Khan, leant down into my dugout and shook my shoulder -Ek baj gia, Sahib - one o’ clock - he muttered, as he thrust a tin mug of steaming tea in my hand, and departed as silently as he had come. No lights in the camp, of course, and no moon yet. No noise either except for the shuffle of sandals on loose stones, the muttered curses, and the snorts of shackled mules sniffing the cold night air: all the age-old sounds of infantry girding themselves for battle in the dark. Except for the roar of a dozen or more oil cookers heating the early morning meal of chupattees and sweet tea, it might have been early dawn at a Roman staging post on the way to Hadrian’s wall”.
For the past few weeks Mohmand tribesmen had been attacking cavalry posts and firing into the British camps; and so the object of the mission on which Hamilton and the Guides infantry were engaged was to capture a strategic ridge with the object of dominating the surrounding country: “It all boiled down to the Nowshera Brigade, of which we were part, having to capture a 1500 foot high ridge of rocky peaks ending at the cross of a T with the hill top - Point 4080 - at the junction of the two ridges”.
Major Syd Good was the acting Commanding Officer of the Guides, Captain Godfrey Meynell, the Adjutant, Lieutenant Tony Rendle was in charge of one company of platoons, Lieutenant Goff Hamilton in command of another; as they were missing one British officer who had been wounded in an earlier battle, the Subadar-Major, a Khatak Pashtun, was in charge of the third. There was also just one doctor from the Indian Medical Service. On the Guides’ left were the other regiments of the Nowshera Brigade. The Peshawar Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Claude Auchinleck was to cover their right flank. The two nearer peaks on the ridge which they had to capture before the assault on Point 4080 were code named Teeth and Bare Nipple.
As they wolfed their porridge at 1.30 am Hamilton chatted with Tony Rendall: “Don’t forget! If anything happens I want you to go through my things”, Tony said quietly. “You can have my silver cigarette case”. Same here! I replied as was our custom. We always said it. It blunted the thought of disaster somehow. Good joss, too - like taking out an umbrella to ensure against rain. We plodded along in such silence as we could muster, but it was chilly at that time in the morning and our teeth were chattering. As I shuffled along in the dust and gravel, I pondered on death and women. Queer how the two tend to jostle in one’s mind for priority in times of crisis! I had thankfully discarded the former trend of thought and was getting well into the latter when Godfrey [Meynell] jerked me out of my reverie. He whispered that we had reached the spur that led up to the vast cathedral - like outcrops that were Teeth.”
In spite of the steep climb in the dark, taking the first two peaks went unopposed according to plan. Hamilton and his company were to hold Teeth, while the second company with two machine-guns made for Bare Nipple. But when the third company, under Tony Rendall, advanced on Point 4080, it was clear that the element of surprise had long since been lost. In the fighting which ensued on Point 4080, Rendall was killed at the head of his men; a few minutes later Godfrey Meynell, who went forward to take command of the company, also died in fierce hand-to-hand fighting. Syd Good and the gunner officers were all wounded. Hamilton then decided to go forward; he took the Khatak and Dogra platoons with him, leaving the other two platoons to hold Teeth. “We went like hunted chamois over the rocks, sliding down the dips on our backsides and scrambling up vertical cliffs with an ease that was the gift of youth and much practice”.
Once they had reached Bare Nipple, they went on to try and get to the lower slopes of Point 4080. “I had only gone about a hundred yards when I was hit by what felt like the kick of a horse, and which spun me round in my tracks. I paused, and I suppose stood gazing with fatuous amazement at Point 4080 from whence the bullet must have come, for I heard my Pathan orderly shout at me, saying you can’t stand there, we must go forward. He had received his wound in the stomach, but decided he could carry on and make for the relative safety of a small outcrop further forward named Pimple. I found I could still move on all fours and covered the next 200 yards or so to Pimple like a chimpanzee.” Several of Hamilton’s men had also been wounded; one of them, a Khatak, was hit near the edge of the ridge and fell rolling a thousand feet to the bottom, beyond help. “He was captured by the tribesmen later that day but was returned during the night on a donkey given to him by an ex-Guide who was now in retirement fighting with his friends.” One of his Dogras was not so fortunate. He was hit in the chest and rolled down the lower foothills of the ridge. “He did not survive and his body, being Hindu, was found later, badly mutilated.”
“For the next two or three hours we did our best to be aggressive and fired at anything that moved on the hill and spurs to our front, but the tribesmen were some hundred feet above us and well concealed. We saw little.” Hamilton was expecting a counter-attack to be launched, if only to recover the wounded. “We all knew what happened to them if captured. Was there not an age-old unwritten law of the Frontier never to leave wounded in enemy hands if humanly possible?” At about mid-day, the artillery far down in the valley began to shell Point 4080. The counter-attack was never launched. Even so, the Mohmand tribes “had had enough for the time being and sued for peace the following day. The bodies of Tony and Godfrey and of twenty other Guides were collected and either buried or burnt.” In addition to Good, Hamilton and the two gunner officers, eighty-two others were either captured, wounded or badly injured falling down the mountainside. The tribesmen returned to their villages and the Guides went back to their home in Mardan in the Yusufzai plain. Meynell was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously, and Hamilton received the D.S.O.’

Captain Meynell’s V.C. citation gives further details (London Gazette 24 December 1935): ‘On 29 September 1935, while operating against Mohmand tribesmen in the attack on Point 4080, Captain Meynell was Adjutant of the Battalion. In the final phase of the attack the Battalion Commander was unable to get information from his most forward troops. Captain Meynell went forward to ascertain the situation and found the forward troops on the objective, but involved in a struggle against an enemy vastly superior in numbers. Seeing the situation he at once took over command of the men in this area. The enemy, by this time, was closing in on the position from three sides. Captain Meynell had at his disposal two Lewis guns and about 30 men. Although this party was maintaining heavy and accurate fire on the advancing enemy, the overwhelming numbers of the latter succeeded in reaching the position. Both the Lewis guns were damaged beyond repair and a fierce hand-to-hand struggle commenced. During the struggle Captain Meynell was mortally wounded and all his men were either killed or wounded. Throughout the action Captain Meynell endeavoured by all means to communicate the situation to Headquarters, but determined to hold on at all costs and encouraged his men to fight with him to the last. By so doing he inflicted on the enemy very heavy casualties which prevented them from exploiting their success. The fine example Captain Meynell set to his men, coupled with his determination to hold the position to the last, maintain the traditions of the Army and reflect the highest credit on the fallen officer and his comrades’.

The outcome of the operation proved contentious and details were presented to Parliament the following October. In reply to a question by Lord Hartington, Mr. R. A. ‘Rab’ Butler, the Under-Secretary of State for India, said that he wished to make it clear that the battalion did not fall into an ambush which should have been detected, or that it had failed to take proper precautions during its advance. The task given to the Guides, who numbered four British officers with 340 Indian officers and rank and file, was to occupy a point on the ridge commanding the Nahakki Pass. That involved difficult climbing, which gave the opposition an advantage, but it was a task which the Guides were pre- eminently fitted to carry out. They proceeded with all due precautions, and on achieving their object they encountered 1,800 tribesmen and, after a protracted hand-to-hand fight, were forced to give ground. Withdrawal under cover of artillery fire and Royal Air Force action was successfully carried out, and the hill was reoccupied within 24 hours without opposition. Within a few hours the tribesmen were suing for peace, said Mr. Butler. All ranks behaved with the greatest gallantry. The Guides had 24 killed, 49 wounded, and nine missing. The tribesmen's casualties were estimated at 150.

Hamilton was promoted Captain on 15 January 1940 and served as Adjutant of the 5th/12th Frontier Force Rifles from July 1940 to May 1941, being promoted Acting Major on 7 August 1940, and temporary Major on 7 November 1940. He attended the Staff College at Quetta from May to September 1941 and served as Second in Command, Training, at the Royal Military College, Dehra Dun, from August 1942 to January 1945. Promoted temporary Lieutenant-Colonel, he was appointed Commanding Officer, 16th Punjab Regiment, and served with them in Burma in 1945, for which service he was Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 19 September 1946). He transferred to the Royal Irish Fusiliers as a Major on 4 January 1948, and subsequently served in Palestine, 1948-49, where he was again Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 7 January 1949). Promoted Lieutenant-Colonel on 10 April 1954, he served as Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers, from 1954-56, serving with them in Kenya in 1955, for which services he was created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (London Gazette 31 January 1956).

Promoted Colonel on 10 April 1958, Hamilton subsequently served as Commander of the Berlin Infantry Brigade, and was advanced Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1958 Birthday Honours’ List (London Gazette 12 June 1958). He was promoted Brigadier on 10 April 1962, and Major-General on 19 September 1963, and was latterly Chief, Joint Services Liaison Organisation, British Army of the Rhine, from September 1963 to October 1966. Created a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1966 (London Gazette 11 June 1966), he retired on 2 January 1967, and died on 15 July 1986, aged 74.