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Auction: 18003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 523

Six: Lance-Corporal G. Hope, Royal Artillery, late Welsh Regiment, South Wales Borderers and Royal Military Police

1939-45 Star; Burma Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, S.E. Asia 1945-46 (14319286 Pte. G. Hope, S.W.B.), this last with official re-impressed naming, generally good very fine (6)

George William Douglas Hope was born in Buxton, Derbyshire in 1924, one mile away from his family home in Chapel En Le Frith. Young George was called up to join the General Service Corps on 5 November 1942 and was posted to the Royal Artillery at the year's end. On 3 July 1944 - a month after D-Day - he landed in France and took part in the North-West Europe operations. In May 1945 he was posted to India where, on his arrival, he transferred to the Welch Regiment and thence to the 6th Battalion, the South Wales Borderers.

The end of the war was in sight but in Burma brutal fighting was still raging. One key target for the 6th Battalion, South Wales Borderers was the Mayu tunnels, used by the Japanese as an ammunition depot. British forces had tried to capture the tunnels before but with little success, but Hope and his comrades eventually took them 'by storm'.

Hostilities with Japan over, Hope and his battalion went to Sumatra as part of the reoccupation army in October 1945. Here they were occupied in disarming and evacuating the now fully co-operative Japanese and in protecting the Dutch against Indonesian terrorists. This involved guard and escort duties, patrols and skirmishes with an enemy armed with anything from blowpipes and poisoned arrows to machine-guns. Whilst still in Sumatra in August 1946, Hope transferred to the Royal Military Police as a Lance-Corporal, before finally returning to the U.K. in May 1947.

Discharged to the Army Reserve in November 1948, he re-enlisted in the Gunners the very next day, as 22252819 Bombardier G. W. D. Hope, in which capacity he witnessed further action in Korea in the period October 1950 to March 1952; the whereabouts of his Queen's and U.N. Korea Medals remains unknown.

Sold with the recipient's original Soldier's Release Book, dated 15 November 1948, and his Army Certificate of Service, dated 3 March 1953.


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Estimate
£100 to £120