A fine Great War Mesopotamia operations M.C. group of four awarded to Major A. S. McIntyre, Leicestershire Regiment

Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse privately engraved, ‘Major A. S. McIntyre’; 1914-15 Star (Lieut., Leic. R.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Major), mounted as worn, very fine and better (4)
£800-1000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to the Leicester Regiment and Yeomanry formed by the late Trevor Harris.

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M.C. London Gazette 22 December 1916:

‘For services rendered in connection with military operations in the Field in Mesopotamia.’

Arthur Seymour McIntyre, who was born at Odiham, Hampshire in May 1889, was first commissioned into the Militia as a 2nd Lieutenant in October 1907 and was advanced to Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment in January 1912. But it was with the 2nd Battalion that he first went to France at the end of 1914, the relevant War Diary referring to McIntyre’s subsequent gallantry in the battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915:

‘12 March: The enemy artillery shelled Port Arthur. On the 12th at 5.15 a.m. the Germans counter-attacked and ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies at D. were called up, but this counter-attack broke down on the right at 100 yards from our trenches. On the left they occupied the trench vacated by the 2/2nd Gurkhas, and advanced from there direct on the 2/3rd Gurkhas, but they were received with frontal fire from the Gurkhas and were enfiladed by a machine-gun and ‘B’ Company under Captain R. J. McIntyre [a relative of the recipient?], and a few returned to their trench. Then at 9 a.m. a white flag was seen in the trench and at 9.30 a.m. a company of 1/4th Gurkhas advanced, and, there being no further movement by the enemy, a party under 2nd Lieutenant A. S. McIntyre, under fire from the enemy behind the white flags, rushed the trench and assisted the Gurkhas in clearing it of the enemy, many of whom were killed and wounded, the remainder surrendering to the 1st Battalion, Highland Light Infantry further north.’

In November 1915, McIntyre - by now a Captain - and the 2nd Battalion embarked for Egypt and the Mesopotamian theatre of war, as part of Major-General Aylmer’s force assigned to the relief of Kut. He was subsequently present at the gallant attack launched against the Turkish positions near Shaikh Saad on 6-7 January 1916, during the course of which he was wounded, and, as recounted by a fellow Battalion officer, undoubtedly endured a difficult and painful time awaiting treatment:

‘It rained heavily and was freezingly cold and the mud was awful. Medical arrangements had completely failed and the sufferings of the wounded were horrible. At times men lay out all night in pitiless, icy rain, dying from exposure. Many were found dead without a mark on them; others were picked up and slowly jolted, petrified and sodden with freezing mud, in springless carts to the dressing station. Later a man arrived at Amara with wounds which for eight days had remained unattended - wounds which were putrifying, gangrenous and full of maggots ... ’

In addition to his M.C., McIntyre was given the Brevet of Major and was thrice mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 19 October 1916 (Force ‘D’ Mesopotamia), 12 March 1918 (Mesopotamia), and 22 January 1919 (Egypt)). He appears to have remained employed in General Allenby’s Palestine operations right up until the Armistice, one-time serving as C.O. of the 3rd Battalion but also on attachment to the 2/19th London Regiment.