Military Awards from the Collection of John Tamplin

The Great War and Northern Kurdistan operations group of six awarded to Brigadier Duncan Brown, C.B.E., Royal Army Ordnance Corps, late Royal Artillery

1914-15 Star (2.Lieut., R.F.A.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Major); General Service 1918-62, 2 clasps, Iraq, Northern Kurdistan (Lieut.); Iraq, Order of Al Rafidain, 4th class, Military division, breast badge, silver-gilt and enamels, some chips to enamel; Iraq Active Service Medal, clasp ‘Barzan 1932’, mounted as worn, very fine or better and very rare (6) £600-700

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Military Awards from the Collection of John Tamplin.

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See Colour Plate VIII

C.B.E. (Military) London Gazette 10 April 1945: Lieutenant-Colonel (temporary Brigadier), Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

M.I.D. London Gazette 7 July 1919.

Order of Al Rafidain London Gazette 20 January 1933.

Duncan Brown was born on 27 August 1896, son of Lieutenant-Colonel Oscar Brown, D.S.O. (1917), of the Army Ordnance Department. He was educated at Dover College, from where he went to Woolwich in 1914 and was granted a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery Special Reserve of Officers. He served in France and Belgium from 7 October 1915 to October 1916, and again from October 1917 to the end of the war. He was wounded twice. He took part in the operations in Iraq during 1919-20 (Medal with clasp), and joined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in 1923.

On 14 October 1927, Brown was seconded for service with the Royal Air Force in the Middle East as a Temporary Ordnance Officer, 3rd Class, and Major, R.A.O.C. From 9 September 1929 he was appointed to the Iraq Army as Inspector of Ordnance Services. Here, he took part in the operations in the Barzan Area, or as the British liked to call it, Northern Kurdistan, from March to July 1932. For these services he received the clasp to his General Service Medal, one of only a small handful of Army recipients, and was awarded the 4th Class of the Order of Al Rafidain. He also received the Iraq Active Service Medal with clasp for ‘Barzan 1932’, one of only nine British recipients.

For his services as a senior Ordnance Officer during the Second World War, Brown was created a C.B.E. (Military) in 1945, and at the time of his death he was Director of Ordnance Services with the British Army of the Rhine. Brigadier Duncan Brown, C.B.E., died on 19 October 1946, at Deal, aged 50. Sold with detailed research.