Orders, Decorations and Medals

A good Second War ‘escape and evasion’ M.M. group of four awarded to Lance Corporal H. Murray, No. 2 (Railhead Company), Royal Army Service Corps

Military Medal, G.VI.R. (T./62411 L. Cpl., R.A.S.C.); 1939-45 Star; War Medal; Efficiency Medal, Territorial, G.VI.R. (T.62411 Pte., M.M., R.A.S.C.) good very fine or better (4) £800-1000

M.M. London Gazette 12 February 1942. The recommendation for this award is an abridged version of the following M.I.9. report given by Murray on his return to England. ‘I was captured on 21 May 1940 at Lumbres, 40km from Boulogne on the St Omer Road. I was out searching for a vehicle that had engine trouble when my vehicle was spotted by a German patrol. The patrol fired on us with machine-guns and a tank also fired shells. I was wounded, and the driver was killed just after I had been captured.

After capture I was kept in a chateau for about ten days with very little food and no medical treatment for my wounds. I then escaped alone one evening when I had been sent to fetch water. For about six weeks from early June I lived in woods and isolated places near Lumbres, going to a house there to have my wounds treated by a refugee Belgian doctor. For the next four weeks I worked on a farm near Lumbres and for six weeks after that on another farm at Auchel.

At Auchel I met two other British soldiers who had escaped from the Germans. Together we left Auchel on about 10 September 1940. Our route was by St Pol, Amiens and Paris to Moulins. We went on foot avoiding bridges and cross-roads, where there were nearly always German patrols on motorcycles. We did not know of the existence of a Zone Interdite.

Two miles before Moulins we met a Frenchman who drew us a sketch map and gave us verbal instructions for crossing the Line of Demarcation. After crossing the boundary near Moulins, we went to Vichy during the first week in October, and then on to Lyon, where we stayed one night, and Marseilles (27 October). We jumped off the train before it got into the city, as we had heard there was a police check on passengers leaving the train.

We were however, arrested in Marseilles some time later and sent to St Hippolyte internment camp (8 January 1941. I was recommended by a medical commission for repatriation and was released with 26 others. We were sent via Barcelona and Madrid to Gibraltar.’