Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Major A. G. White, 126th Baluchistan Infantry, Indian Army

1914-15 Star (Capt. A. G. White, 126/Baluch. Infy.); British War and Victory Medals (Maj. A. G. White.); India General Service 1908-35, 3 clasps, Mahsud 1919-20, Waziristan 1919-21, North West Frontier 1930-31, third clasp unofficially attached (Maj. A. G. White, 2-127 Baluch L. Infy.); Defence Medal, mounted court-style, contact marks, nearly very fine and a scarce combination of clasps to the IGS (5) £300-£400

Archibald George White was born in Peshawar, India, on 21 October 1884, the son of Colonel G. A. White, South Lancashire Regiment. Educated at Sandhurst, he was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Middlesex Regiment on 13 August 1904, from which he was appointed to the Indian Army on 12 January 1906, and was posted to the 126 Baluchistan Infantry on 1 May 1906.

White served with the 126th Infantry during the Great War in Egypt from November 1914 to March 1915; in Muscat from March to June 1915; and in Aden from June 1915 to February 1916, during which, in early January 1916, four companies of the 126th were part of a Movable Column that attacked the Turks at Hatum Ridge. After a while, Brigadier Walton decided that the Moveable Column had achieved all that it reasonably could do, and ordered a return to Sheikh Othman. The Mobile Column withdrew in good order; another enemy attack was repulsed at 4:30 p.m. but after that the Turks were disinclined to follow-up the British withdrawal. White remained with the 126th Infantry when it returned to India, March to August 1916, before serving on the Nushki-Seistan Line, August to December 1916.

White was subsequently attached, with the rank of acting Major, to the 130th Baluchistan Infantry as Second in Command and served with that unit in East Africa from February to October 1917, and then in Egypt from May 1918 to January 1920. The Battalion was attached to the 181st Brigade as part of the 60th Division and fought at the Battle of Sharon, 19-21 September 1918. The Battle of Sharon, 19-25 September 1918, was the opening set-piece of the Battle of Megiddo, 19 September to 1 October 1918, which proved to be the culminating victory in British General Edmund Allenby's conquest of Palestine during the Great War.

White was subsequently attached to the 127th Baluchistan Regiment as Second in Command, and served in Waziristan from January 1920 to May 1921, being appointed acting Lieutenant-Colonel while temporary in command of the battalion (23 February to 5 March 1921). He also served on the North West Frontier from April 1930 to January 1931, at the Shagai Fort, located 13km from Jamrud in Khyber Tribal Areas, within the qualifying area for the ‘North West Frontier 1930-31’ clasp to his I.G.S., and is is mentioned a number of times in the Regimental War Diaries.

White’s younger brother, Geoffrey Stewart Augustus White, South Lancashire Regiment, was killed in action during the Great War on 10 September 1914, and his elder brother, George Arthur Wellesley Halifax White, Canadian Expeditionary Force, was also killed in action during the Great War on 28 April 1917.

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