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Auction: 20003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 1124

Australia Service Medal 1939-45 (NX 71943 W. E. Pepper), good very fine

Wallace Edwin Pepper was born on 23 December 1920 at Enfield, New South Wales, Australia. A labourer by trade, he enlisted at Paddington on 10 February 1941, giving his sister Iris Langley of 66 Vaucluse Road, Sydney, as his next of kin. Posted to the 3rd Reserve Motor Transport Company, he was sent to Singapore in April 1941 and soon thereafter admitted to the 10th Australian General Hospital on 28 July 1941 suffering from haemoptysis. On 27 November 1941 Pepper was detached to 'L' Force for duty in Malaya, witnessing extensive fighting as Allied forces attempted to stave off the Japanese 25th Army under Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita. Forced to retreat under the weight of Japanese naval and air superiority, Pepper disembarked for Java on 8 February 1942, a week before the surrender of Singapore.

On 27 April 1942 Pepper was recorded as missing, later confirmed five months later as a Prisoner of War, having been sometime captured on the island of Java. Interned at a camp in Thailand on 23 December 1943, his records note that he was reported missing for a second time, later believed deceased on or after 12 September 1944 when the Japanese transport in which he was being transferred back to the Japanese mainland was torpedoed at sea and sunk. He was presumed dead for official purposes on 12 September 1945.

Pepper is commemorated on panel 22 of the Labuan Memorial, north-west Borneo. His medals were claimed in 1990 by his sister Iris.

For full service details, please see:
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Gallery151/dist/JGalleryViewer.aspx?B=4660279&S=2&N=19&R=0#/SearchNRetrieve/NAAMedia/ShowImage.aspx?B=4660279&T=P&S=1


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Sold for
£85

Starting price
£20