Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War D.S.O. group of three awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel J. V. P. O’Donahoe, C.O. of 87th Battalion (Canadian Grenadier Guards), late 60th Battalion and 199th Battalion (The Canadian Irish Rangers): ‘Of proper Guards’ stature - standing at 6 feet, 5 inches’, he was decorated for gallantry on the Somme in the 60th Battalion in late 1916, commanded out in Ireland in early 1917, and died of wounds in May 1918

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamel; British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Lt. Col. J. V. P. O’Donahoe), obverse centre on the first somewhat recessed, otherwise good very fine (3) £1400-1600

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the Canadian Expeditonary Force 1914-1918.

View
Collection

D.S.O. London Gazette 4 June 1917.

James Vincent Patrick O’Donahoe, who was born in Brackville, Ontario, in May 1881, was a pre-war officer in the 3rd Regiment (Victoria Rifles), Militia, who joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force in May 1915.

Embarked for France as a Major and 2nd-in-command of the 60th Battalion (Victoria’s Rifles of Canada), Canadian Infantry, in February 1916, he remained actively engaged in that capacity until being posted to the U.K. to assume command of the 199th Battalion (The Irish Canadian Rangers) in January 1917, during which period he was present in heavy fighting on the Somme, winning the D.S.O. and a brace of “mentions” (London Gazettes 4 January and 1 June 1917 refer).

As C.O. of the Irish Canadian Rangers, he led his unit on a tour of Ireland in early 1917, prior to being appointed C.O. of the 87th Battalion (Canadian Grenadier Guards) in France in early May 1917. He subsequently led the Battalion in the Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele operations, but, as described in official records, was wounded in April 1918:

‘Lieutenant-Colonel O’Donahoe had started out to make the rounds of the companies of his battalion in the early morning of 4 April 1918. When not far from Battalion H.Q., he was hit by a small piece of shrapnel in the thigh. It did not seem at all serious, as he walked back to the H.Q. and then out to the advanced dressing station ... ’

Alas, the wound was obviously more serious than believed, for the Colonel died at the Liverpool Merchants’ Hospital, Etaples, on 8 May 1918, when his brother, an officer of he 10th Canadian Infantry Brigade, was at his side; sold with copied service record.