Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Second World War O.B.E. group of six awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel A. O. Dennistoun, Black Watch, who as a young subaltern was wounded at the battle of Loos

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 2nd type, breast badge, with its Royal Mint case of issue; 1914-15 Star (Lieut., R. Highrs.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut.); Defence and War Medals, mounted as worn, together with a set of related miniature dress medals and Black Watch Association lapel badge, gilt and enamels, good very fine or better (13)

O.B.E. London Gazette 27 August 1946.

Alexander Dennistoun served out in France and Belgium in ‘B’ Company of the 9th Battalion, Black Watch from July until October 1915, and was wounded at the battle of Loos. On that day, 25 September, in a head-on attack in the face of devastating enemy fire, an attack ‘that no one present will ever forget’, the Battalion was decimated, only 98 men out of an original strength of 940 being fit enough to report for duty by the following morning (Regimental history refers).

Dennistoun, who returned to the Front in September 1918, was appointed an A.D.C. to Lieutenant-General Sir T. L. N. Morland, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., in September 1920 and served in that capacity on the strength of the British Army of the Rhine. Placed on the Reserve of Officers in the rank of Captain in the course of 1922, he was recalled in the 1939-45 War and served, from May 1943, as an Assistant Military Secretary in Southern Command. Dennistoun was advanced to Lieutenant-Colonel in August 1943.

Sold with original Buckingham Palace forwarding letter for the recipient’s O.B.E., and Army Council campaign medal issuance slip.