Orders, Decorations and Medals

Six: Squadron Sergeant-Major J. T. Hawkins, 7th Battalion, Royal Tank Corps (Royal Armoured Corps), afterwards an Inspector in the West Riding Special Constabulary, who was taken P.O.W. at Tobruk in June 1942 and, following the Italian capitulation, made an unsuccessful bid for freedom

India General Service 1908-35, 1 clasp, North West Frontier 1935 (7883721 Pte. R.T.C.), fixed suspension; India General Service 1936-39, 1 clasp, North West Frontier 1937-39 (7883721 L./Cpl., R.A.C.), fixed suspension; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; War Medal 1939-45; Special Constabulary Long Service, E.II.R., with Bar “Long Service 1970’ (Sergt. John T. Hawkins), this last in its box of issue, together with a pair of West Riding Special Constabulary badges, the first two later but official issues with corrected initials, good very fine (8) £400-500

John Thomas Hawkins, who was born in Maybole, Ayrshire in July 1909 and enlisted in the Royal Tank Corps in October 1932, served in India from September 1934 until April 1939, and was transferred to the strength of the Royal Armoured Corps shortly before the outbreak of hostilities. A brief spell of active service ensued with the B.E.F. in France in May 1940, following which, that August, he was embarked for the Middle East, and it was here at Tobruk on 20 June 1942, while serving as a Squadron Sergeant-Major in 7th Batttalion, Royal Tanks (R.A.C.), that he was taken P.O.W.

Incarcerated in Campo 82, near Florence, he made a bid for freedom on the Italian capitulation, while being marched to the railway station for transportation to Germany - ‘I managed to hide in a farm on the roadside, waiting for the column to pass, but the old Italian farmer saw me and called the German guards’. Latterly incarcerated in Stalag IVB at Muhlberg, he was liberated by the Russians in May 1945 and discharged in the following year.

Post-war, Hawkins joined the West Riding Special Constabulary in January 1952, transferred to the West Yorkshire Special Constabulary in October 1968, and was released in the rank of Inspector in August 1972, having qualified for a Bar to his Long Service Medal in 1970.

Sold with a large quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s pre-war Soldier’s Service and Pay Book; his later Regular Army Certificate of Service, which confirms all of his campaign awards; his 1st Class Army Certificate of Education, dated at Quetta in October 1936; a wartime portrait of him in uniform, oils on canvas, most probably painted by a fellow P.O.W.; a quantity of official communications relevant to his time as a P.O.W., including R.A.C. Record Office letters reporting his capture and subsequent transfer to camps in Italy and Germany; a letter home from the recipient, dated 22 May 1945; two or three photographs; his Special Constabulary Certificate of Service for January 1952 to August 1972, and his Special Constabulary torch.