Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family Group:

Eight: Captain G. R. Strachan, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Indian Army, and Union Defence Force, who was wounded in actin at the Battle of Arras on 13 April 1917, and died on Active Service in South Africa on 26 September 1943
British War Medal 1914-20 (Capt. G. R. Strachan.) officially re-impressed naming, India; Victory Medal 1914-19 (Lieut. G. R. Strachan.); India General Service 1908-35, 1 clasp, Afghanistan N.W.F. 1919 (Lieut. G. R. Strachan, 2/129/Baluchis.) ‘129’ of unit officially corrected; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Iraq (Lieut. G. R. Strachan.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; War Medal 1939-45; Africa Service Medal, the Second War awards all officially impressed ‘61832 G. R. Strachan’, good very fine

Service Medal of the Order of St John, with four Additional Award Bars (S.A. 471 K. M. Strachan 1956) very fine (9) £300-£400

George Ross Strachan was born in 1897 and was commissioned temporary Second Lieutenant in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on 5 August 1916. He served with the 10th Battalion during the Great War on the Western Front, and was wounded in action at the Battle of Arras on 13 April 1917. Transferring to the Indian Army on 26 March 1918, he was posted to the 129th Baluchis, and was promoted Captain on 5 May 1921. He relinquished his commission in the Indian Army on 24 August 1923; subsequently emigrating to South Africa, he served with the Union Defence Force during the Second World War, and died on active service in South Africa on 26 September 1943. He is buried in Muizenberg Cemetery, Cape Town, South Africa.

Sold with the recipient’s original Commission Documents appointing his a Second Lieutenant in both the British and Indian Armies; Officer’s Record of Service document; and various other official documents and photographs, all housed in an Indian Army folder; and a St John Re-Examination Medallion, the reverse engraved ‘S.A. 2906’; a Great War metal wound stripe; an Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders collar dog; a Madras Regiment badge; and a South African S.S.B. Badge.

Kathleen May Renn Strachan (1905-1977), wife of the above, served as an Ambulance Sister, Muizenberg Nursing Division, St. John Ambulance Brigade.