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Auction: 23001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 165

'The situation of the 60th was desperate. A death-struggle at the bridges. Barricades of burned-out lorries and trucks off the Rue Edison and Place Richelieu were manned by the surviving officers and riflemen. Houses in the area had long been devastated by the flames and blown by shellfire into heaps of rubble behind which the defenders fired on the Germans. The mortar bombs came in an endless stream exploding dead on the road-blocks.
The 60th, lying without cover in the streets, had little protection from the Stukas.

No one who experienced the attack on the morning of the 26th is ever likely to forget it. A hundred aircraft attacked the Citadel and the old town in waves. They dived in threes, with a prolonged scream, dropping one high explosive and three or four incendiaries. They machine-gunned the streets and dropped a few heavy bombs between the 60th H.Q. in the Rue des Marechaux and the docks. The first effects on the defence were paralysing but, as others had experienced with Stukas, the damage was moral rather than physical. Within a few minutes, the riflemen eagerly fired Bren guns and engaged the Stukas, one of which was brought down on the seashore ...'

The Flames of Calais, by Airey Neave, refers.

The well-documented Second World War campaign pair awarded to Rifleman H. Halsey, King's Royal Rifle Corps, who was taken P.O.W. at the fall of Calais in May 1940

In a desperate attempt to take pressure off the retreat to Dunkirk, Winston Churchill ordered the 2nd Battalion K.R.R.C. to defend Calais to the last round of ammunition: they did not disappoint, the battalion being all but annihilated in one of the most courageous actions of the war

1939-45 Star; War Medal 1939-45, together with his metalled P.O.W. identity tag, attached to its original metal chain and leather button-hole, extremely fine (3)

Hubert Halsey was born at Potters Bar, Hertfordshire on 19 April 1916 and enlisted in the King's Royal Rifle Corps in July 1936.

A Rifleman in the 2nd Battalion at the outbreak of hostilities, he was embarked for France with the British Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.) and was present at his unit's gallant defence of Calais in May 1940. It was here - on the 26th - that he was taken P.O.W.

He was subsequently incarcerated in camps in Poland and Germany, initially in Stalag XXID at Posen and, from April 1941, in Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf, later renamed Stalag 344. Liberated from the latter camp in April 1945, he was released from military service at the year's end; Sold with a quantity of original photographs and documentation, including:

(i)
The recipient's Certified Copy of Attestation form, with completed entries, his signature and dated 20 July 1936.

(ii)
Five family portrait photographs, as sent to the recipient when held in Stalag VIIIB, the reverse of each with handwritten annotation and German stamps.

(iii)
The recipient's Record of Service card, with Winchester Rifle Records' stamp and dated 24 December 1945.

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Sold for
£400

Starting price
£100