Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The important Victory Medal awarded to Lieutenant-General Sir W. S. Delamain, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O., Indian Army, late Royal Berkshire Regiment, who was at the forefront of the fight against Ottoman forces in Mesopotamia from 1914-16, and personally signed the surrender document at the fall of Kut, in the absence of General Townshend who was beset with sickness

Victory Medal 1914-19, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Maj.Genl W. S. Delamain) nearly very fine and rare to rank £300-£400

K.C.B. London Gazette 3 June 1922.

C.B. London Gazette 1 January 1914.

K.C.M.G. London Gazette 23 August 1918.

D.S.O. London Gazette 14 April 1905:
‘In recognition of service during the operations in connection with the protection of the Aden Boundary Commission, 1903-04.’

Sir Walter Sinclair Delamain was born in Saint Helier, Jersey, on 18 February 1862, the son of Charles Henry Delamain and a direct descendent of Sir Nicholas Delamain who was appointed to a Knighthood by King Charles I. Admitted to the Royal Military College Sandhurst, he was commissioned into the 1st Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment (Princess Charlotte of Wales’s) on 22 October 1881 and seconded for service with the Indian Staff Corps on 13 January 1885. Raised Lieutenant in the Bombay Staff Corps 1 February 1885, he served in Burma from 1885 to 1888; with the Zaila Field Force in 1890; and was placed in command of the Native Military Base Depot during the Boxer Rebellion with the temporary rank of Major. For this work, Delamain was Mentioned in Despatches in the London Gazette of 14 May 1901.

Joining the Waziristan Expedition of 1901, Delamain later served on the Aden Frontier in 1905, his valuable work being recognised with the award of the D.S.O. and a Mention in Despatches, the latter being published in the London Gazette of 17 February 1905:
‘Major W. S. Delamain, 123rd Rifles, commanded the escort of the Boundary Commission for about eight months, during which time the Commission marched from Kotaba to the coast, a distance of at least 160 miles. He has been highly spoken of by Colonel Wahab in his letter to the Government of India, dated 10 June, 1904.’

Returned to India as Brevet Colonel, Delamain is recorded in the London Evening Standard of 1 January 1914 as Assistant Adjutant-General, Indian Army Headquarters. For this work he was appointed C.B. in the 1914 New Year’s Honours list.

The Mesopotamian Campaign

The outbreak of the Great War saw Delamain placed in command of the convoy containing Indian Expeditionary Force “D”. Departing Bombay on 16 October 1914, it steamed straight to the head of the Gulf, Delamain’s objectives being to secure for the British the oil terminal and refineries at Bahrein and the strategic Basrah oil terminal. Upon making landfall at the former, two Battalions - 104th Wellesley’s Rifles and 117th Mahrattas - embarked immediately for Iraq, entering Basrah in the early evening of 21 November 1914. Events relating to this time soon caught the attention of the Daily Mirror on 17 November 1914:

‘On the 15th [November], hearing that a strong force of the enemy, with mountain artillery, were occupying a pass about four miles distant, sent General Delamain with three battalions and two mountain batteries to evict them. After a sharp action, in which H.M.S. Espiegle and Odin co-operated, that was successfully accomplished. The enemy’s entrenched camp was captured and his losses were very heavy, several prisoners, including a Turkish Major, were taken, and two of the enemy’s machine guns were destroyed.’

It was these deployments that succeeded in the British securing oil production in the Middle East. Commanding the 16th (Poona) and 17th (Ahmednagar) Brigades at the Battle of Es Sin on 28 September 1915, Delamain was once again Mentioned in Despatches by General Fry, but his luck was soon to run out; despite the best efforts of Aubrey Herbert and T. E. Lawrence to negotiate a secret deal with Ottoman forces at Kut, the besieged British garrison of 8,000 men was eventually forced to accept a ceasefire on 26 April 1916 and full surrender of the town three days later. Taken Prisoner of War alongside General Townshend and Major-General Sir. C. J. Melliss, V.C., it fell to Delamain’s hand to sign the official surrender document and facilitate the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners; large numbers of men were subsequently barged down the River Tigris to hospitals under British control, whilst the uninjured were marched in scorching heat to Aleppo where many died.

Released from captivity at the cessation of hostilities, Delamain remained in the service of the Indian Army. Raised Lieutenant-General on 1 April 1920, he served as Adjutant-General in India from 10 November 1920 to 28 March 1923, when he took his retirement to Brockenhurst in Hampshire. One of the highest-ranking Prisoners of War of the Great War, Delamain died on 6 March 1932.