Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Lieutenant O. Huddleston, Chinese Labour Corps, late West Yorkshire Regiment, who commanded dozens of Chinese labourers in the crucial work of returning the battlefields of the Western Front to a habitable and relatively safe environment, post-Armistice

1914-15 Star (11754 Pte. O. Huddleston. W. York: R.); British War and Victory Medals (2. Lieut. O. Huddleston.) extremely fine (3) £140-£180

Oswald Huddleston was born in Flamborough, Yorkshire, on 13 August 1891. He attested for the West Yorkshire Regiment at Harrogate on 31 August 1914, and served in the Mediterranean theatre from 7 September 1915 to 1 July 1916, and France from 2 July 1916 to 27 July 1917. Appointed to a commission with the 3rd Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment in November 1917, his service was temporarily put on hold when he suffered a bayonet wound to the thumb whilst 'going through a hedge' on exercises at Romford. This necessitated an operation involving bone removal from the terminal phalanx on 7 February 1918. Recovered, he returned to France and was appointed to the 162nd Chinese Labour Corps on 11 April 1919. 

Today, very little is published regarding the Chinese Labour Corps. The story of the largest and longest-serving non-European labour contingent in the war has largely been passed over, indeed the Chinese labourers have been referred to in the British press as 'the forgotten of the forgotten.' In total, 94,146 Chinese labourers served in the Corps as a non-combatant part of the British Army, engaged during hostilities in the building and repairing of docks, railways and airfields, the loading and unloading of supplies and munitions, vehicle repair, and - once the conflict was over - battlefield clearance. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, they had a reputation 'for hard work, ingenuity and improvisation.' 

Deployed in the important work of clearing live ordnance and exhuming bodies from battlefield burials and moving them to the new war cemeteries, the life of British Officers assigned to the Chinese Labour Corps of 1919 was challenging and almost as perilous as during the war. According to author Michael Summerskill in China of the Western Front, many of its officer cadre consisted of missionaries and sinologues. However, for the remainder, the language barrier and lack of knowledge regarding Chinese customs proved a real hindrance to the effectiveness of their units. Nearly 2,000 Chinese labourers died from the Spanish flu and accidents involving heavy machinery, booby-traps, poison gas shells and live grenades. Today, many of these brave men rest in the Chinese Cemetery at Noyelles-sur-Mer on the Somme, which bears a poignant inscription at its entrance chosen by Shi Zhaoji, Chinese Ambassador to Great Britain:
'These are my friends and colleagues whose merits are incomparable.'

Sold with an attractive Birmingham 1920 hallmarked silver and yellow metal shield watch-fob, privately engraved to reverse ‘H.P.C.C.C. O. Huddleston. 1920.’