Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Captain D. F. P. Coles, Royal Garrison Artillery, late Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps

1914-15 Star (2077 Pte., Ceylon Plr. R.C.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt.), official correction to initials on Victory Medal, very fine (3) £160-200

M.I.D. London Gazette 4 January 1917.

The Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps was a volunteer corps consisting of planters, government officials, business men and others. On declaration of war in 1914 they left for Europe. With Turkey having entered the war the volunteers were detained for service in Egypt and were attached as a 5th Company to the Wellington Infantry Battalion of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces in the ANZAC Division. As many of the volunteers later received commissions in other units, the total number of the contingent shrank, and though a remnant did serve in Gallipoli, within a year the contingent had ceased to exist.

Private Denys Francis Park Coles, Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps, entered the Egypt theatre of war on 17 November 1914. In 1916 he was seconded for service with the Trench Mortar batteries as a Temporary Lieutenant. Later with the East Yorkshire Regiment, he was transferred to the R.G.A. in 1917 and in October 1917 was second-in-command of a Siege Battery. Sold with copied research.