Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family group:

A Great War M.M. group of four awarded to Sergeant C. Daly, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)
Military Medal, G.V.R. (290151 Sjt. C. Daly, 8/Sco. Rif.); 1914-15 Star (9095 Pte. C. Daly, Sco. Rif.); British War and Victory Medals (9095 Sjt. C. Daly, Sco. Rif.), together with his brother’s Memorial Plaque 1914-18 (John Daly), the second with crudely re-riveted suspension, contact marks, edge bruising and polished overall, thus fine

A Second World War campaign group of three awarded to Guardsman J. A. Daly, Scots Guards, who died of wounds in April 1945
1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; War Medal 1939-45, in their original addressed card forwarding box, with related Army Council condolence slip in the name of ‘Gdsn. J. Daly’, and his identity disc, late claims, extremely fine (9) £400-500

M.M. London Gazette 24 January 1919.

Charles Daly landed at Helles beach in Gallipoli as a Private in the 1/8th Scottish Rifles in mid-June 1915. An excellent summary of his unit’s subsequent part in that campaign is to be found in The Scottish Regiments - A Pictorial History 1633-1987, by P. J. R. Mileham:

‘The 7th and 8th Battalions [Cameronians], as part of 52nd Lowland Division, left Britain in May 1915 and landed at Helles Beach, Gallipoli in mid-June. A week later, while preparing for an attack on the enemy at Gully Spur, which dominated Cape Helles, intensive Turkish artillery fire was brought down on the 8th Cameronians in the concentration area and 7th in reserve positions. When the attack went in the 8th was caught in the open and, within five minutes, had lost 400 rank and file and all but one of the battalion officers. The 7th Battalion was ordered forward and it, too, sustained heavy casualties - 14 officers and 258 other ranks. The battalions had to be amalgamated for subsequent operations. In the early hours of 12 July the 7/8th Cameronians were moved up in the reserve brigade for the 52nd Division’s attack on the Achi Baba Nullah sector. 155 Brigade was severely cut up in the morning’s fighting and the 7/8th Battalion was ordered to assault, with a company of the Royal Scots, part of the enemy’s line. The companies worked their way forward along the communication trenches, past wounded and dead Scotsmen, and cleared objectives with the bayonet. The fighting was intense and confused, the captured trenches giving little cover from the enemy. The Cameronians linked up with the Royal Scots and King’s Own Scottish Borderers, establishing the line and holding it against counter-attacks during the night. The cost to the division had been extremely high, but the new line formed part of the front until the evacuation at the end of the year.’

Withdrawn to Egypt after the Gallipoli campaign, the 8th Cameronians moved to Romani as part of the Suez Canal defences in May 1916 and, after holding off a Turkish assault by seizing nearby Wellington Ridge that August, participated in the advance over the Sinai Desert and the second battle of Gaza. Again engaged at Gaza in October, the 8th Battalion suffered further casualties in capturing the objectives of Umbrella Hill and El Arish Redoubts, and in the close-quarter fighting at Nebi Samwil during the advance on Jerusalem. Having then participated in the crossing of the Auja in December 1917, the Battalion was ordered to France in April 1918, where, in the final months of the War, it fought in the advance from Ypres to Courtrai, and beyond. Daly - a lucky survivor by any standards - was awarded the M.M.

John Aloysius Daly died of wounds on 25 April 1945, while serving with the Scots Guards in North-West Europe. Just 19 years of age, he is buried in Becklingen War Cemetery, Germany; sold with original photographs of ‘Corporal L. Archer’s Squad, Scots Guards Depot, January 1944’, including Daly, another of his wartime grave, and his copy of the Small Missal, with presentation inscription for his 12th birthday in April 1938, together with a wartime local newspaper cutting describing an action against the enemy in dense forest near Lingen, in which Daly is described as a member of his regiment’s Bren Group; the above described card forwarding box is addressed to his mother, ‘Mrs. C. Daly, 229 Auckland Street, Possilpark, Glasgow.’