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Auction: 20001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - conducted behind closed doors
Lot: 1003

The campaign group of five awarded to Major I. D. Adams, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who was wounded in the bocages in Normandy in July 1944, he subsequently had a successful career in the Diplomatic Service and appears to have earned an M.B.E. in later life

1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1945-48 (Major. I. D. Adams. Warwick.), mounted as worn, good very fine (5)

[M.B.E. (Civil Division)] London Gazette 12 June 2004 (Chair, Manor of Kennington Residents Association):

For services to Social Housing and to the community in Kennington, London.

Ian Day Adams was born at Hampstead, Middlesex in June 1923 and served with the 1/7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment during the Second World War. Adams was caught in an air attack during the fierce actions for the bocages of Normandy in July 1944, recalled in The 2nd and 1/7th Battalions in Normandy:

'To everybody's surprise and relief, July 17 ended in reasonable peace for the 1/7th. The night was not so peaceful.

Not long after dark Battalion H.Q. was mortared; then a few enemy aircraft came droning over the battlefield, dropped flares, circled, dived and begun to bomb the area. This exploit was remarkably accurate; two direct hits were scored on Battalion H.Q., possibly from 500-kilo bombs. Vehicles and ammunition began to burn and explode; some of the nearby trees took fire; and a good many casualties were incurred from this unlucky night. The carrier officer, Captain R. L. King, was killed with about four other men. The Adjutant, Captain W. J. Dawkins, and the signals officer, Lieutenant I. D. Adams, were wounded of the H.Q. group, plus about 10 other men.'

Adams subsequently took up with the Diplomatic Service, being appointed Consul at Siagon, 10 March 1952 and at Denver, for Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, from 21 August 1960. Upon retirement, he appears to have returned to London and served a number of terms for St Botolph without Bishopsgate Church on the City Deanery Synod. The senior member of that Church, he recited Rupert Brooke's Blow, bugles, blow on Remembrance Sunday, '...which typically he had learned by heart at short notice.' (http://www.botolph.org.uk/2017/08/10/ian-adams-rip/)

Adams also Chaired the Manor of Kennington Residents Association and died in August 2017; sold with copied research.

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Sold for
£450

Starting price
£210