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

A good Order of St. John, K.P.M. group of seven awarded to Brigadier F. H. Miller, Intelligence Corps and Deputy Inspector-General of Public Safety for the Control Commission for Germany (British Zone), late Palestine and Tripolitania Police
The Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Serving Brother’s breast badge, silvered metal and enamel; King’s Police Medal, G.VI.R., 1st issue, for Distinguished Service (Lt.-Col. Frederick H. Miller, Commr. Police & Prisons, Tripolitania); General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Palestine (Deputy Supt., Pal. Police); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star, clasp, 8th Army; Defence and War Medals, generally extremely fine (7) £400-500

Order of St. John (Serving Brother) London Gazette 4 January 1949.
K.P.M. London Gazette 14 June 1945.

Frederick Henry Miller, who was born in October 1899, served in the Palestine Police from 1923 until his retirement in the rank of Deputy Superintendent in 1938. The advent of hostilities, however, witnessed his return to uniform, initially as Commissioner of Police in the International Zone, Tangier, but in March 1941, he was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps. According to one letter of reference he was subsequently ‘promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and appointed Commissioner of Police, Ethiopia’, and ‘saw service in Madagascar and in the Middle East with the Eighth Army’. Then from 1943-45, he raised and trained the Tripolitania Police, services that were rewarded with a K.P.M. in the latter year.

In May 1945, however, he embarked upon a new career with the Public Safety Branch of the Control Commission for Germany (British Zone), and in January 1946 was advanced to Brigadier in the appointment of Assistant Inspector-General commanding ten Police Forces in Westphalia. Demobilised in November 1946, he remained in Germany as a Deputy Inspector-General at the Commission’s H.Q. and did not relinquish this appointment until 1949. In June of the same year, Major-General W. H. A. Bishop, C.B., O.B.E., wrote to Miller in the following terms:
‘ ... I believe that by your united efforts you have made a great contribution towards the construction of a sound democracy in Western Germany, and that the value of your work will remain long after the time when we shall all have left this country.’
While Brigadier G. Ingham, Director of the Penal Branch of the Control Commission for Germany, revealed in a similar letter of approbation a little of the undercover nature of some of Miller’s work - who, incidentally, was a qualified Barrister at Law:
‘ ... More recently he has been employed on a series of Judicial Enquiries into secret matters of a most delicate and complicated nature in which I have been closely associated in my present capacity. These have required a high standard of legal aptitude for which reason he was specially selected to conduct such Enquiries.’

Miller’s daughter, Susan, was married to world motor racing champion James Hunt (marriage dissolved) and to the actor Richard Burton (marriage dissolved). Sold with a small quantity of original documentation, including War Office forwarding letter for the recipient’s K.P.M., dated 21 July 1945, and one or two original photographs, invitations, etc., together with a file of research which contains copies of numerous letters of reference and much besides.