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Auction: 19002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 344

Six: Private J. R. Cairns, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, late Black Watch, who was wounded in the battle of El Alamein in October 1942

1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Korea 1950-53 (2756433 Pte. J. R. Cairns. R.A.O.C.); U.N. Korea 1950-54, good very fine (6)

At 9.40 p.m. on 23 October 1942 the battle of Alamein opened with a huge artillery barrage along a front of some 50 miles. Three Black Watch battalions of the 51st Highland Division were in the van of the opening attack - among them Cairns in the 5th Battalion - and they advanced close behind the barrage through wire and minefields and in the face of heavy machine-gun and rifle fire. By dawn next day all their objectives had been reached albeit with heavy casualties: Cairns was wounded and 51 of his comrades from the 5th Black Watch lie in the El Alamein Cemetery; sold with copied copy notification of his wound.

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Sold for
£130