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Auction: 3016 - Orders, Medals, Decorations & Militaria
Lot: 618

An Emotive D.C.M. Group of Three to Corporal J.G. Waldron (Queen Victoria's Rifles), King's Royal Rifle Corps, for the Heroic Defence of Calais, 1940.
Distinguished Conduct Medal, G.VI.R. (6589356 Cpl.); 1939-45 Star; War Medal good very fine (3)


D.C.M. London Gazette 18.10.1945. 6539356 Cpl J.G. Waldron. K.R.R.C. (Queen Victoria's Rifles) (Northampton). 'For gallant and distinguished services at the defence of Calais in 1940.'

'The Rifle Brigade, the 60th Rifles and the Queen Victoria's Rifles, with a battalion of British tanks and 1000 Frenchmen -in all about 4,000 strong- defended Calais to the last. The British Brigadier was given an hour to surrender. He spurned the offer, and four days of intense street fighting passed before a silence reigned over Calais which marked the end of a memorable resisitance. Only 80 unwounded survivors were brought off by the Navy, and we do not know the fate of their comrades. Their sacrifice was not , however, in vain. At least two armoured divisions, which otherwise would have been turned against the British Expeditionary Force, had to be sent there to overcome them. They added another page to the glories of the Light Division, and the time gained enabled the Gravelines waterline to be flooded and held by the French troops, and thus it was that the port of Dunkirk was kept open.........' Winston Churchill, 4th June 1940.
Corporal J.G. Waldron one of the few survivors of the Defence of Calais, was taken prisoner, and held in Stalag 383 at Hohen Fels.



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