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Auction: 20001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - conducted behind closed doors
Lot: 711

A scarce Second World War 'Malaya' M.M. awarded to Private H. P. Carroll, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

Decorated for repeatedly knocking out the fanatical crews of an enemy machine-gun position, he was later captured and likely forced to work on the notorious Thai-Burma railway

Military Medal G.VI.R. (2977683 Pte. H. Carroll, A. & S. H.), good very fine

M.M. London Gazette 23 January 1942.

A newly discovered citation published in The Straits Times states:

'A light machine gunner, he picked out the enemy machine gunners for his target during an enemy encircling attack. Before they could open fire he knocked out the crew. Each time they were replaced he shot them. He did this six times and not once did the enemy gun fire effectively. His platoon was able to withdraw without any casualties.‘

Henry Patrick Carroll was born on 25 December 1910 at Bishop Briggs, Glasgow, Scotland. He served in Malaya with the 2nd Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and was captured by Japanese forces on 21 April 1942. Initially incarcerated at Singapore, he was transferred to Thailand and sent to Chungkai, Tamarkan and Kanchanburi camps, the latter under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Philip J. D. Toosey, who was formerly the senior Allied officer in the Japanese prisoner of war camp at Tha Maa Kham (known as Tamarkan). He was in command of the men who built Bridge 277 of the Burma railway - later fictionalised in the book The Bridge over the River Kwai by French novelist Pierre Boulle in 1952.

Carroll arrived at Tamarkan soon after the completion of the bridge. He would however have known the men involved and was most likely engaged in the forced-labour construction of the infamous 258 mile long Thai-Burma railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma, by 61,000 Allied P.O.W.'s and local civilian labourers. Surviving the ordeal, Carroll was released on 2 August 1954; sold with copied M.I.9. debrief, Japanese P.O.W. card, and private research.



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Sold for
£3,500

Starting price
£1000