Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A well-documented and poignant Chindit casualty’s group of four awarded to Lieutenant A. W. “Dot” Ellis, Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surreys), attached 1st South Staffordshire Regiment, a component of Major-General Orde Wingate’s “Long Range Penetration Force”

1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals, generally extremely fine (4) £400-500

Alfred William Ellis was killed in action leading an attack against a Japanese position in the vicinity of the Chindit base “White City” on 17 April 1944. Writing to his widow in August 1944, his C.O. stated that Ellis was ‘killed instantly and suffered no pain, it was during an attack that he was leading and it was due to him and his bravery that it was a great and successful attack. We buried him there in Henu, which is in Burma, close to Mawlu, which late became known as the White City.’ Another Battalion officer, Major E. Butler, wrote to say that Ellis was shortly to have been appointed Adjutant, and added ‘You have the satisfaction of knowing that his was a duty well and nobly done. In his first action, a counter-attack which undoubtedly saved the position, he was killed - I do not think he knew what hit him.’

In early March 1944, in Wingate’s second and final Chindit operation, three Brigades of highly trained troops were airlifted in gliders or Dakotas to a position on the Mandalay-Myitkyina railway at Henu, about two miles north of Mawlu and many miles behind enemy lines - as a result of the ever growing quantity of parachutes to be seen draped in the surrounding jungle, the position quickly became known as “White City”. Quick to establish themselves among the ranks of these gallant Chindits were the men of the 1st Battalion, the South Staffordshires, not least Lieutenant George Cairns, an attached officer, who won a posthumous V.C. leading an attack on 13 March - he had his left arm severed by his opponent’s sword but killed the Japanese officer, took up his sword, led a successful charge and killed a number of the enemy before collapsing through loss of blood. Between 4-19 April the Japanese mounted a series of ferocious counter-attacks, that on the 17th resulting in the death of Ellis:

‘On the morning of the 17th, by daylight for a change, Hyashi ordered a last desperate attempt to break into White City under cover of an intense artillery bombardment which caused many casualties. Suicide groups with bangalore torpedoes made a wide breach in the wire and, at last and triumphantly, the Japanese swarmed up the slopes of O.P. Hill. The gunners in the valley below elevated their 25-pounders, Durant’s machine-gunners took a shot whenever they had a clear field of fire, and the rest of the garrison watched the fight from the neighbouring hill-tops. O.P. Hill was defended by a platoon of the South Staffords. Its commander was an interior decorator by trade, and regarded in that rugged unit as an Aesthete, if not actually effeminate. But he was now able to confound all those who had chaffed him. He held on until he had only sixteen men out of his forty standing, and so gave time for Hughes’ Nigerians to charge. Soon the whole feature was covered with the Japanese and Africans fighting hand to hand in great confusion. The last Japanese killed was another wounded man who sprang to his feet seeking to take one opponent before he died, and as he ducked and twisted amid a dozen pointed rifles a huge African, arriving with a box of No. 36 grenades, swung it by its rope handle and smashed it on his head. Hyashi, the Japanese Colonel leading the assault, achieved the bushido ideal in a more dignified manner, being killed on the horse he had ceremonially mounted for the occasion. That for the time ended all attempts to take White City ...’ (The Chindit War, The Campaign in Burma 1944, by Shelford Bidwell, refers).

Ellis was originally buried in the Sahmaw Military Cemetery, Burma but after the War his remains were re-interred in Taukkyan War Cemetery.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including five poignant handwritten letters from the recipient to his wife, dating between March and December 1943; original War Office telegram reporting his death in action, and a letter of confirmation from same, this last dated 4 May 1944; letters of condolence from officers of the 1st Staffords, including Battalion C.O. Lieutenant-Colonel R. Legg, Major E. Butler and Captains E. E. T. G. Lindsay and N. Powell, and the regimental padre, Rev. V. Silcock, dating from May 1944 through to September 1944; illuminated Buckingham Palace memorial scroll in the name of ‘Lieutenant A. W. Ellis, Queen’s Royal Regiment’; and War Office letter regarding the recipient’s burial site, dated 16 July 1945.