Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry

An interesting Great War ‘Egypt operations’ M.M. group of four awarded to Acting Corporal J. G. Butcher, Army Service Corps, who both started and ended the war driving a Rolls Royce, and was wounded in the Alexandrian riots of March 1919

Military Medal, G.V.R. (M2-120788 Pte. J. C. Butcher A.S.C.); 1914-15 Star (M2-120788 Pte. J. G. Butcher. A.S.C.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (M2-120788 A. Cpl. J. G. Butcher. A.S.C.) minor edge bruise to last, generally very fine (4) £500-£700

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M.M. London Gazette 17 April 1917.

M.I.D. London Gazette 6 July 1917 (Egypt Expeditionary Force).

John George Butcher was born in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire on 16 January 1888. A Chauffeur by occupation, he enlisted into the Royal Naval Air Service as a Petty Officer Mechanic on 25 October 1914, and was employed as an Armoured Car Driver. Transferring to the Army in September 1915, as an Acting Corporal in the Army Service Corps, he served during the Great War initially on the Western Front from 5 September 1915 and, travelling on, disembarked at Alexandria on 13 January 1916, where he was employed as a Rolls Royce Armoured Car Driver.

For his service in Egypt when serving with No. 3 Battery Light Armoured Car Brigade, Butcher was awarded the Military Medal and was Mentioned in Despatches. In the Gazette entry of 6 July 1917 (in which Butcher is ‘mentioned’) General Sir Archibald Murray, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., C.-in-C. of the E.E.F. says of the armoured cars, ‘I have already referred to the excellent work of the armoured cars and light car patrols on the western front. Their mobility, and the skill and energy with which they are handled, have made them an ideal arm for the western desert, where the sand is not so heavy as on the east. It is not too much to say that the successful clearance of the western oases and the satisfactory state of affairs which now exists on the western front is due more to the dash and enterprise of the armoured car batteries and the light car patrols than to any other cause, and the enemy has found many times to his cost that their range of action is far beyond that of any troops mounted on horses or camels.’

Although the War Diary for Butcher’s M.M. did not survive the War, he was almost certainly awarded the Military Medal for his role in the attack on Bir Kakim in March 1916, carried out by the Armoured Car Brigades led by the Duke of Westminster in his Rolls-Royce touring car to successfully rescue the crew of H.M.S. Tara who were being held prisoners deep in the Libyan Desert.

Butcher was still in Egypt just after the war, at the time of pro-Independence Egyptian Riots of March 1919. The War Diary of the 3rd Battery L.A.C.B., based in Alexandria, reads:
13 March: ‘Both cars dispersing crowds and rioters.’
14 March: ‘No. 1 Car under Lieutenant Stains kills 12 and wounds a few. Privates Crabb and Butcher wounded.’
15-16 March: ‘Both cars patrolling day and night in respective districts.’
17 March: ‘No. 3 Car under Lieutenant Turner meets a mob wrecking station 38 (approx) killed, many wounded.’

Sold with a copy of The Sanusi’s Little War, by Russell Kirk; and copied research.