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Auction: 13003 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals and Militaria
Lot: 10

The Outstanding and Extremely Rare 'E.VII.R.' Tibet D.S.O. Group of Nine to Lieutenant-Colonel R.C. Lye, 23rd Sikh Pioneers, Late Hampshire Regiment, Wounded and Mentioned in Despatches For Service During the Burmese Expedition, 1885-87; He Served as Second in Command of the 23rd Sikh Pioneers Throughout the Tibet Campaign; During Which He Was Severely Wounded Leading His Men at the Storming of Niani Monastery, 26.6.1904. He Died On Active Service During the Great War in 1917
a) Distinguished Service Order, E.VII.R., silver-gilt and enamel, with integral top riband bar
b) Delhi Durbar 1911
c) India General Service 1854-95, one clasp, Burma 1885-7 (Lieut. R.C. Lye 2d Bn Hamps R.)
d) India General Service 1895-1902, V.R., two clasps, Relief of Chitral 1895, Punjab Frontier 1897-98 (Lieutt. R.C. Lye 23rd Bl. Infy.), minor official correction to rank
e) Tibet 1903-04, one clasp, Gyantse (Major R.C. Lye 23d. Sikh Pioneers)
f) India General Service 1908-35, E.VII.R., one clasp, North West Frontier 1908 (Major R.C. Lye D.S.O. 23rd Sikh Pioneers)
g) 1914 Star (Lt: Col: R.C. Lye. 34/Pnrs:)
h) British War and Victory Medals (Lt. Col R.C. Lye.), generally very fine or better, first six awards mounted as originally worn (9)

D.S.O. London Gazette 16.12.1904 Major Robert Cobb Lye, Indian Army, 'In recognition of services with the Tibet Mission Escort.'

M.I.D. London Gazette 13.12.1904 Major R.C. Lye, 23rd Sikh Pioneers (Tibet)

Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Cobb Lye, D.S.O. (1865-1917), commissioned Lieutenant, Hampshire Regiment, February 1885; served with the 2nd Battalion Hampshire Regiment during the Burmese Expedition of 1885-87; he was present at the capture of Minhla Fort (17.11.1885), and for the occupation of Mandalay including the advance to, and capture of Fort Stedman; he served with the 1st Brigade under Brigadier-General C.J. East (wounded; Mentioned in Despatches London Gazette 2.9.1887); transferred Indian Staff Corps 1888; served with the 1st Miranzai Expedition, 1891; Captain 23rd Bengal Native Infantry, 1896; served as Assistant to the Chief Commissary Officer, as part of Major-General Sir Bindon Blood's Malakand Field Force, August-October 1897; served in the same capacity in the operations in Bajour and in the Mamund country, Utman Khel, Buner and in the attack and capture of the Tanga Pass; promoted Major, 23rd Sikh Pioneers, 29.3.1903.

At the end of September 1903 in preparation for the Tibet Mission Escort's entry in to Tibet, the 23rd Sikh Pioneers were ordered up to repair the track leading out of Sikkim over the Jelap La (14,390 feet) into the Chumbi Valley.

Once into Tibet conditions were harsh, and Lye's men suffered, 'though lavish by the standards of those days, the protective clothing issued to the troops - poshteens, Gilgit boots, thick underwear, and so on - bore no comparison with its scientifically-designed counterpart today. It was not wind-proof and it was so bulky that the soldiers had small chance of handling their weapons with precision.... "It seemed impossible," Younghusband recalled, "that the poor sentries at night would ever be able to stand against the howling storm and the penetrating snow, or that our soldiers would ever be able to resist an attack from the Tibetans in such terrific circumstances." In the ranks of the 23rd Pioneers, eleven out of twelve cases of pneumonia proved fatal.' (Bayonets to Lhasa, P. Fleming refers).

Indeed in mid-March, the 23rd Pioneers had an early taste of what was to come (as reported by the Daily Mail's correspondent, Candler), whilst escorting a supply column crossing the Tang La, as part of stockpiling for the advance to Gyantse, 'a convoy of the 12th Mule Corps, escorted by two companies of the 23rd Pioneers, were overtaken by a blizzard on their march between Phari and Tuna, and camped in two feet of snow with the thermometer 18 degrees below zero. A driving hurricane made it impossible to light a fire or cook food. The officers were reduced to frozen bully beef and neat spirits, while the sepoys went without food for thirty-six hours... The drivers arrived at Tuna frozen to the waist. Twenty men of the 12th Mule Corps were frost-bitten, and thirty men of the 23rd Pioneers were so incapacitated that they had to be carried in on mules.'

The 23rd Sikh Pioneers went on to distinguish themselves during the expedition in particular at Karola, 6.5.1904 and at the storming of the Monastery at Niani, 26.6.1904. The latter position was attacked by Colonel Brander's flying column inconjunction with General Macdonald's column:

'He [Brander] started early next morning, and took his four guns and infantry up the enormous heights overlooking Naini [sic] from the Gyantse side, and sent the 1st Mounted Infantry up the ordinary road to block that line of escape. The General's force arrving from the other direction at 9am, the 900 Tibetans were hemmed in on all sides in Naini. The action was opened by Captain Peterson, commanding the advanced guard, composed of the 2nd Mounted Infantry, twenty-one of the 1st, and fifty of the 40th Pathans. They all went at it with a will, and cleared the Tibetans our of several of the outlying houses; but it was soon seen that the thirty-foot wall of Naini monastery required some shelling and guncotton before they could get in. They also found that the village between Naini and the river was strongly held. A company of the 23rd and a company of the 32nd cleared the village, all except one house, which was so strongly barricaded that, although the men of the 23rd were endeavouring to make a hole in the wall with their bayonets, without guncotton they could not get in, and had to retire to give the artillery an opportunity of battering it. Here the 23rd lost two men killed and two men wounded, and Lieutenant Turnbull, of that regiment, greatly distinguished himself in carrying a wounded man to a place of safety. The Tibetans in this house behaved splendidly, and although battered with seven-pounder shells from 250 yards, did not cease fire till the guns had knocked down most of the front face of the house. They lay low in the house till late in the evening, but could not resist firing at the rear guard as it was passing, killing one of the Gurkhas. The rear guard immediately stormed the house and burnt part of it; but when they had marched on about 500 yards, the original Tibetans in the house came to life again and fired away as well as ever.

Meanwhile, Colonel Brander's guns from the heights, and the other four guns of No. 7 Mountain Battery which had arrived with the General, shelled the monastery, and taking the Tibetans in reverse drove them from their loopholes. The 40th Pathans, having worked up to the back wall, found a ladder in position by which they made their entry. The Mounted Infantry, the 23rd, and the 32nd broke in the main gate, and then the hardest of the fighting began. The Tibetans had taken refuge in the houses and cellars, and were, as usual in those places, fighting well. Major Lye, of the 23rd, leading his men into a house thronged with Tibetans, was cut down by them, and very severely wounded on the head and left hand, and was well saved by his own men. Several houses and cellars were blown in with guncotton, and the occupants killed or captured, and now, as the whole place was occupied, the General, not wishing to punish them any further, ordered the march to Gyantse to be continued at 3pm.

The Tibetans lost about 150 in killed, wounded, and prisoners.... Our losses were five men killed, Major Lye, a native officer of the 2nd Mounted Infantry, and nine men all badly wounded.' (With Mounted Infantry In Tibet, Major W.J. Ottley refers)

Members of the regiment were awarded the I.O.M. for their gallantry at Niani, and Lye, who was second in command of the regiment for the expedition, was awarded the D.S.O.

Having recuperated from his wound he served in the Zakka Khel country, 1908; advanced Lieutenant-Colonel, 8.10.1909; appointed Commandant, Line of Communications (graded D.A.A.G.), 17.11.1914, and served during the Great War in this capacity until, 24.1.1916; he died at Sialkot, whilst on active service with the 34th Sikh Pioneers, 28.6.1917, and is commemorated on the Karachi War Memorial.

Lye's D.S.O. is one of only nine awarded for Tibet.

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