Medals from the Collection of the late Eric Smith

Four: Lieutenant-Colonel Cyril Armstrong, M.B.E., Royal Army Medical Corps, who died as a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese, 19 October 1943

1939-45 Star; Pacific Star; Defence and War Medals, unnamed, extremely fine (4) £100-140

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of the late Eric Smith.

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Cyril Armstrong was born on in Sunderland on 11 May 1893. He studied Medicine at Durham and gained the MB BS in 1914, DPH, Belfast, 1926, and MD, Durham, 1934. He entered the R.A.M.C. as a Lieutenant in 1914, being mobilised in September that year. He was promoted to Captain in April 1915 and served as Acting Major, March 1918-May 1919 and June-August 1919. During the war he served with the B.E.F. in France, 1914-15, then in West Africa, 1916-17. For his military services he was awarded the M.B.E. in 1919. After the war he served in Constantinople, 1922-23 and India, 1924, being invalided. Armstrong was then employed as a specialist at the Royal Herbert Hospital Woolwich, 1926-27, being advanced to Major in September 1926. He was then employed in the B.M.H. Tientsin, 1927-30; the Military Isolation Hospital Aldershot, 1930-31; the Connaught Hospital, Aldershot, 1931; in Mauritius, 1931-35; the Royal Hospital Chelsea, 1935-39, being advanced to Lieutenant-Colonel in September 1937. In China again, he served in the B.M.H. Shanghai and Hong Kong, 1939-41. Captured by the Japanese Lieutenant-Colonel Cyril Armstrong, Royal Army Medical Corps, died on 19 October 1943, aged 51 years, as a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese. He was buried in the Stanley Military Cemetery, China.

He was the son of John Henry and Ethel Armstrong, and the husband of Elizabeth Childs Armstrong of Fleet, Hampshire. Sold with card medal forwarding box addressed to ‘Mrs E. C. Armstrong, 2 Dorling House, Dunmow Hill, Fleet, Hants.’ and with condolence slip named to ‘Lieutenant-Colonel C. Armstrong, M.B.E.’ With copied research including two modern photographs of his grave stone..