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Auction: 19003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 268

(x) 'I remember seeing the lovely Wasbies (Women's Auxiliary Service: Burma) when I was out in Burma all those decades ago. There were not many of them but they performed sterling work; not only at staging points but also when the front-line troops came back to base camp, a team of Wasbies were there working in excessive heat in mosquito-infested jungle clearings. The Wasbies ran the mobile canteens to keep our boys fed and watered and as the saying goes 'an army marches on its stomach'. They always worked with a smile on their faces and were in great demand wherever they went. It's good to know their story is now being told.'

Dame Vera Lynn's tribute to the Wasbies, as published in E. J. Lockhart-Mure's Front Line and Fortitude (2018)

The important and exceptionally rare campaign group of four awarded to 2nd Lieutenant V. V. Stuart, Women's Auxiliary Service (Burma), a talented medic who went on to become a celebrated writer

1939-45 Star, the reverse engraved '2/Lt. V. V. Stuart WAS(B)'; Burma Star, clasp, Pacific, the reverse engraved '2/Lt V. V. Stuart WAS(B)'; War Medal 1939-45, the rim engraved '2/Lt V. V. Stuart W.A.S.(B)'; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, S.E. Asia 1945-46 (2/Lt. V. V. Stuart W.A.S.(B).), good very fine and scarce (4)

One of just eleven 'S.E. Asia 1945-46' clasps issued to unit.

Violet Vivian Stuart, née Finlay, was born on 2 January 1914 in Berkshire, the daughter of Sir Campbell Kirkman Finlay, owner and director of the Burmah Oil Company Ltd. Having spent most of her childhood in Rangoon, she studied medicine at the University of London in the mid-1930s, before obtaining a pathologist qualification at the University of Budapest. She taught in Hungary as an English tutor before the war, marrying the Hungarian doctor Geza Santow and emigrating with him to Australia in 1939. Gaining an ambulance driver's certificate, Stuart joined the Australian Forces Women's Auxiliary Service and was quickly promoted to Sergeant while serving with 4th Army. In October 1945 she was posted to General Slim's 14th Army in Burma, gaining a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant.

The work of the 'Wasbies', as they affectionately became known, is best summed up in Front Line and Fortitude (2018), the recent study by Elizabeth Lockhart-Mure. Overcoming the heat and monsoon mud, the Wasbies ran canteens and served char to battle-weary troops. One soldier of 14th Army recalled:

'The Burma Road was being washed away as my Platoon was marching towards Pegu. In the distance we saw a lone lady standing by a table in the rain, and as we got nearer we saw she had lots of mugs of hot tea on the table. She gave us all tea and a packet of cigs and a wad. She was a lovely Scots lady who must have been 50 years old. I spoke to her and told her she was too near the guns, and she should go to a safer place, after all the Japs were only 4 miles up the road. She would not leave and said, "There will be other soldiers behind you who will want tea. I am just a WAS(B)."'

This story is typical of the courage and determination shown by every Wasbie. They were a tiny unit, formed largely of the wives and daughters of colonial officials. Stuart served in Sumatra until December 1945, hence her General Service Medal with 'S.E. Asia 1945-46' clasp. This is an extreme rarity, one of just eleven believed to have been issued to Wasbies. Stuart went on to become a famous author, writing a series of historical fiction novels on military subjects before later founding the Romantic Novelists' Association in 1960. Stuart married four times and bore five children. She died in Yorkshire in August 1986.

Sold with Stuart's brass 'W.A.S.(B)' shoulder badge, 14th Army cloth shield, Burma Star Association cuff links, and a signed copy of E. J. Lockhart-Mure's Front Line and Fortitude: Memoirs of a Wasbie with the 'Forgotten Army' (2018).


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Sold for
£800

Starting price
£420