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Auction: 7029 - Orders, Decorations, Medals & Militaria
Lot: 435

A Poignant and Enigmatic ´Glorious Glosters´ Imjin River Prisoner of War and Casualty Group of Three to Private V.T. Bowl, Gloucestershire Regiment War Medal; Korea 1950-53, 1st ´Britt: Omn:´ type (14453219 Pte. V.I. (sic) Bowl. Glosters.), name partially officially corrected; United Nations Medal for Korea, edge bruising to War Medal, good very fine, together with a photographic image of the recipient and copies of various newspaper cuttings (3) Estimate £ 1,800-2,200 14453219 Private Victor Thurston Bowl, born, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, 1927, the son of Francis Edward Bowl (who served during the Great War with the Gloucestershire Yeomanry in Egypt and Palestine, and was made Prisoner of War at the Battle of Katia, Easter Sunday, 1916); enlisted in the Gloucestershire Regiment, 1944, and served with the 1st Battalion in India and Jamaica: ´Travel- that´s what I like. I prefer to be abroad, because there is less red tape as far as the Army is concerned.´ (Gloucestershire Echo interview with the recipient refers). Keen to return to Jamaica, Bowl transferred to the Royal Wiltshire Regiment, in the belief that they were headed for the Caribbean, but when he embarked he found they were for Hong Kong; on the eve of the Imjin Battle he was one of 30 who were flown over to Korea to be re-united with his old Regiment; served with ´B´ Company, 1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment, at the Battle of Imjin River, 23-24.4.1951, where he was wounded and made Prisoner. Tragically, he did not survive the War. In May, 1951, his mother received a letter from the War Office that stated: ´I deeply regret to have to tell you that a broadcast has been picked up from Peking Radio, which suggests that your son 14453219 Private V.T. Bowl, 1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment, was killed in Korea on 10th May, 1951. The broadcast purported to be a discussion between Prisoners-of-War, and during this discussion an un-named British Prisoner of War of the Gloucestershire Regiment is reported to have said that on the 10th May, when a party of Prisoners of War were being escorted to the rear areas, a bomb was dropped from a plane, "and Bowl, of our Regiment, was killed". This is thought to refer to your son, but owing to the source of the information it cannot be accepted as conclusive without corroboration. In these circumstances, and until such times as our Prisoners of War are released, or some other corroborative evidence is forthcoming, the War Office has no alternative but to record your son as missing, believed killed, in Korea on 10th May 1951´. At the beginning of 1952 a photograph appeared in a magazine of British Prisoners of War, and one of them was identified as Private Bowl. However, the picture was apparently taken immediately after the Battle of Imjin River, as the Prisoners of War were being moved to the rear lines. In fact Bowl was not killed by a bomb, but completed the march north to the Prisoner of War camp. In his book ´One Man´s War in Korea´, ´Lofty´ Large recalls how he and Bowl were good friends in the camp until ´Vic´ went down with malaria, and, according to his Chinese captors, died in the camp hospital 3.7.1951. However, some weeks later two Americans who had survived the hospital came into the British section of the camp looking for Bowl. They said that he had recovered from malaria and left the hospital in early July, to return to the main camp. But he was never seen again, with the Chinese maintaining that he had died of malaria. Private Bowl is amongst 112 members of the 1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment, who were killed in action or died in captivity in Korea, and are commemorated in Gloucester Cathedral.

Sold for
£3,200