A Fine Collection of Medals to Officers Who Died During The Two World Wars

Four: Captain G. H. Borrow, M.C., King’s Liverpool Regiment, late Royal Sussex Regiment, A.D.C. to Major-General Orde Wingate and killed with him when their B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed in Burma in March 1944

1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Defence & War Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf, together with named Army Council condolence slip (Captain G. H. Borrow, M.C.) extremely fine (4) £200-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Medals to Officers Who Died During The Two World Wars.

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George Henry Borrow was born at Brome, Norfolk, on 25 September 1921, son of Major Edward Borrow, D.S.O., and his wife Alys. After education at Greshams, Holt, and Selwyn College, Cambridge, Goerge joined the Army in 1941 and was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant into the Royal Sussex Regiment in March 1942. In May 1942, having volunteered for service overseas, he joined the 13th Battalion King’s Liverpool Regiment in India, one of the battalions of 77 Indian Brigade commanded by Brigadier Orde Charles Wingate. Despite suffering from jaundice, Borrow insisted in taking part in the first Chindit expedition as Intelligence Officer to Headquarters No. 2 Group. The recommendation for the Military Cross that he was subsequently awarded (London Gazette 16 December 1943) records: ‘The continued privations and hardships of the campaign prevented him from ever recovering his health in the course of it, and in the latter stages he suffered intensely from internal disorders, general weakness and a malady which attacked his legs and made marching extremely difficult and painful... His work as Intelligence Officer not only did not suffer from his bad state of health, but would have been remarkable for its thoroughness and efficiency in ordinary circumstances; while his behaviour under fire was exemplary. His high spirit helped immeasurably to carry the party with which he was travelling through the most arduous trials until the British lines were reached, when, after an example of steadfastness and endurance which cannot often have been surpassed, he finally collapsed.’

In November 1943 he became Wingate’s A.D.C. and Staff Captain to Special Force Headquarters, the force which Wingate was preparing for the second Chindit expedition, which was finally launched on 5 March 1944. The next 19 days were ones of constant movement for Wingate and Borrow, flying in and visiting forward troops.

On 24 March they flew in to Broadway where Wingate congratulated Calvert’s Brigade, flew on to White City, a second stronghold established by Calvert, then on to Aberdeen, a stronghold established by Fergusson. From there Wingate returned to Broadway and thence back to Imphal to confer with the Air Officer Commanding, Air Marshal Baldwin. He was flying in a B-25 Mitchell bomber of the U.S. Army Air Force, piloted by Lieutenant Brian Hodges with a crew of four. From Imphal Wingate decided to return to Lalaghat to see Colonel Cochrane, U.S.A.A.F., commander of the Air Commando, and left at 5p.m. With him in the plane, in addition to the crew and Captain Borrow, were two British War Correspondents who has asked for a lift to Lalaghat, Stuart Emery of the News Chronicle and Stanley Wills of the Daily Herald, a total of nine. Wingate was in the co-pilot’s seat, George Borrow and the journalists crouched uncomfortably in the back. Their plane crashed flying over the Bishenpur hills and all were killed. A search party on 29 March found the wreckage, dug 18 feet into the hillside, and identified it by, amongst other things, the remains of Wingate’s famous sun helmet. In July 1944, a second party visited the scene, led by the senior chaplain of Special Force, Stewart Preowne. The remains were collected and buried, a service held and a cross erected, inscribed with the nine names.

In 1947 on the orders of the U.S. government, the remains were exhumed and reinterred in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, U.S.A., where individual crosses stand in the names of Major-General O. C. Wingate, D.S.O., Royal Artillery, Captain G. H. Borrow, M.C., Royal Sussex Regiment, the two British correspondents, and the five American crew members.