Orders, Decorations and Medals

The 1914-15 Star and Victory Medal awarded to Colonel L. A. Newnham, M.C., Middlesex Regiment, who was posthumously awarded the George Cross for bravery whilst a Japanese prisoner of war before he was executed in 1943
1914-15 Star (Capt., Midd’x R.); Victory Medal, M.I.D. (Major), these very fine, together with the following decorations and medals which represent his full entitlement: George Cross (copy); Military Cross, G.V.R.; British War Medal (name erased); 1939-45 Star; Pacific Star; Defence and War Medals, very fine or better (9)

M.C. London Gazette 1 January, 1917.
M.I.D. London Gazette 1 January, 1916, 20 May, 1918, and 5 July, 1919.
Lieutenant-Colonel Lanceray Arthur Newnham became commanding officer of the 1st battalion, The Middlesex Regiment, in August 1938, after being 2nd-in-command for some time. He left the battalion early in 1940 to take over duties as GSO1 at H.Q. China Command and was taken prisoner at the fall of Hong Kong. On 10th July, 1943, he was taken from Argyll Street Camp on suspicion of organizing communications with Chinese lorry drivers. He, with two others, was moved to Stanley Prison and interrogated under torture. Colonel Newnham, as did the other two officers, refused to implicate anyone else and insisted on assuming the whole responsibility himself. He was severely beaten up, starved, allowed no exercise and no communications with the outside world, and was finally brought before a General Court Martial. The three officers concerned were all sentenced to death. For eighteen days they lay in their cells with no medical attention, no hope of reprieve, and forbidden to write a note of farewell to relatives and friends. The long period between sentence and execution was designed to break their nerve, but it failed utterly. On 18th December, 1943, they were taken out, almost too weak to move, to face a firing party. Colonel Newnham was awarded a posthumous George Cross, announced in the London Gazette 18 April, 1946, for his outstanding courage, both moral and physical, during this terrible ordeal.