Nine: Lieutenant-Colonel D. W. Boileau, Royal Army Service Corps

1914 Star, with clasp (2.Lieut: D. W. Boileau. A.S.C.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. D. W. Boileau.); General Service 1918-62, 2 clasps, Kurdistan, Iraq (Capt. D. W. Boileau.); 1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Coronation 1937, unnamed as issued, generally very fine (9) £200-£240

Digby Whicher Boileau was born in Blackheath in 1893 and educated at Cranbrook School and the Royal Military College Sandhurst. Appointed to a commission in the Army Service Corps in September 1912, he served at Woolwich and Aldershot under training. Posted to France on 16 August 1914, Boileau initially acted as Requisitioning Officer to No. 5 Brigade and was present at the Retreat from Mons and supply and transport duties on the Aisne, Ypres Salient, Neuve Chapelle and La Bassee until January 1915.

Transferred to Egypt in April 1915, he witnessed brief service on the Gallipoli Peninsula as officer commanding a mule transport company tasked with supplying ammunition to the Royal Naval Division. Returned to Egypt a few days later, he was invalided to England with enteric fever in November 1915 and later crossed the border to Scotland as officer commanding A.S.C. Forth Defences at Edinburgh. In 1917, Boileau joined the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force as Adjutant and officer commanding a draft of 650 A.S.C. motorised transport recruits; sent to Amara and Basrah, he later transferred to Persia as part of ‘Dunsterforce’, charged with maintaining lines of communication and anti-Bolshevik resistance. This work involved feeding 80,000 Jelu refugees from the Lake Van District and protecting minority groups from persecution at the hands of the Kurds.

Placed in command of a mule transport company of the Indian Army Service Corps until February 1921, Boileau took the opportunity to qualify in Urdu and colloquial Persian; he likely used these languages whilst commanding his company in Baghdad and defending the Baquba railhead as Chief Supply and Transport Officer. Engaged in ‘mopping up’ operations at Hillah on the Euphrates, he faced fairly stiff resistance from the Shia tribesmen, most notably at the capture of Diwaniyeh - an important strategic town 60 kilometres downstream.

Returned to Aldershot, Northern Ireland, York and Edinburgh between 1921 and 1931, Boileau later acted as Commandant of the Indian and Burmese Contingents Camp at Hampton Court at the time of the Coronation of His Majesty King George VI. Raised Lieutenant-Colonel in July 1939, he crossed to France in September 1939 in command of a motorised transport company of 250 vehicles tasked with maintaining GHQ artillery units under 2 Corps with ammunition, petrol and rations. Moved south following the German Blitzkrieg, he departed Marseilles for Gibraltar on 19 June 1940 and sailed around the Cape for India in the winter of 1941-42; appointed Deputy Director of Transport at Delhi, Boileau spent the remainder of the campaign concerned with the supply of 14th Army, including everything from jeeps to tank transporters, ponies and donkeys for pack transport, camel and bullock cart companies, and the elephant company in Burma. Returned home to England as ADST Eastern Command in February 1945, he was named upon the retired list in April 1948 and spent the next few years compiling The official history of Supplies & Transport in the British Army, 1939-45. Relocating to Stoke Abbott in Dorset, Boileau died in 1976.

Sold with extensive copied research.