Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part I)

Seven: Private G. C. Miller, Singapore Volunteer Corps, late 2nd Lieutenant, Middlesex Regiment

1914-15 Star (PS-1332 Pte., Middx. R.); British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut.); 1939-45 Star; Pacific Star; War Medal 1939-45; Efficiency Medal, G.VI.R., 1st issue, Malaya, with Bar for Second Award (3429 Pte.), the second pitted and polished, otherwise generally very fine or better (7) £250-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the collection of Angela and the late Douglas Bertram.

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George Cecil Miller was born in September 1892, and attended Raffles Institution (Public School) in Singapore, prior to enlisting in the Singapore Volunteers’ Cyclist Corps in August 1914. In November of the same year he volunteered for service overseas and was duly appointed to the 16th (Public Schools) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment on his arrival in the U.K., being embarked for France in November 1915.

Miller subsequently applied for a commission and was gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Middlesex Regiment in June 1917. He returned to France with the 2nd Battalion in the same year and was slightly wounded in the back and ‘buried’ by shell fire that November. As a result, he was evacuated to England suffering from shell-shock, and did not rejoin his unit until the War’s end.

Returning to Singapore, where he was employed as a Sales Manager by the Dunlop Rubber Co., Miller - as evidenced by his awards - became an enthusiastic member of the local Volunteer Corps. He appears, however, to have been one of the lucky ones to escape the Japanese on the Colony’s fall in February 1942.