Medals to The Gordon Highlanders and Associated Units from the Collection of A.J. Henderson

A superb Second World War escaper’s D.C.M. group of three awarded to Private H. Lovegrove, The Gordon Highlanders, who was lucky to return from internment in Soviet Russia after treating his captors with open contempt: he had already knocked out a German guard in order to escape from a working party from Stalag XX A

Distinguished Conduct Medal, G.VI.R. (6137165 Pte., Gordons); 1939-45 Star; War Medal 1939-45 the first with contact marks and severe edge bruising, otherwise very fine, the campaign medals added for display purposes and extremely fine (3) £2800-3200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals to The Gordon Highlanders and Associated Units from the Collection of A.J. Henderson.

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D.C.M. London Gazette 4 November 1941.

Hubert Lovegrove, who was from Bromley, Kent, was captured near Asche in Belgium on 18 May 1940, while serving with the 4th Gordons, and sent to Stalag VI F at Bocholt, and thence to Stalag XX A. Whilst there he was sent on a working party to Grupa, 35 miles to the north of Thorn and, on 28 August, managed to escape his captors. Lovegrove takes up the story in his M.I. 9 report:

‘Private John Finley, Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment, and another Private (name and regiment unknown), agreed to escape and join me at a selected rendezvous. On 28 August 1940, I knocked out the solitary guard who was watching us working, walked through the barracks and across the road into some woods, from where I made for the rendezvous and found my two companions waiting. We had as equipment a map and a compass, given to me by a Polish professor, who was employed as a labourer by the Germans.

We cut across country to the River Vistula, but here my companions lost courage and left me, as they had decided that it was impossible to swim across the river. This, however, I managed to do and, having dried my clothes, then went on, heading for Russia.

Before my first meal at Lwalle, I went three days without food or water. At Lwalle I stayed two days at an address given to me by the Polish professor at Grupa. My journey from that point, towards the Russian frontier, was approximately Soldau, Groudenz and Ostrelenka to the River Bug. I found the frontier heavily wired with a sentry posted every 1,000 metres. At dusk I managed to get through the wire but a few hours later I was picked up by a posse of Cossacks. I spent the next five months in one prison or another, under appalling conditions. In February 1941, I was interned at Smolensk and remained there until the end of June, when I was taken to a hotel in Moscow and, a week later, handed over to our embassy.’

The story of Lovegrove’s time in Soviet Russia remained shrouded in secrecy until 1955, when a fellow captive, James Allan, published his memoir No Citation. It was not until 1990, however, that the official records dealing with Lovegrove and 15 other British servicemen, who had suffered at the hands of their brutal N.K.V.D. guards, were finally released into the public domain - one of their number, Petty Officer Maurice Barnes of H.M. Submarine Seal, had been murdered. The following extracts have been taken from Allan’s No Citation:

‘After three days in Room 96 we were all taken out and locked in the lavatory for a quarter of an hour. Then we were led into Room 97. I have said that this room contained Frenchmen, but we had also learned from the Morse that it held two Britons as well. It was exciting to meet two more fellow countrymen.

Their names were Hubert Lovegrove, a Private in the R.A.S.C. (sic) and George Briggs, a Sergeant-Major of the 15/19 Hussars. The latter was obviously the Briton I had been told about in Minsk. Lovegrove, small and thin, greeted us in a strong cockney accent: “Welcome to bleeding Butyrka!” It was the first time I had heard the name of the jail.

The cell at once broke up into groups, the twenty-three Frenchmen, and we five Britons. I was immediately drawn to Briggs, although in the ordinary run of things I had no love for Sergeant-Majors. Briggs, who was about my age, was amiable but very shrewd. He told me that he and Lovegrove had been in Room 97 for nearly two months. In this time their enthusiasm for the comparatively decent treatment in Butyrka had worn thin. They were seething in fact, because all their demands for freedom or permission to contact the British Ambassador in Moscow had been turned down flat during repeated interrogations. Briggs, it was very clear, had no love at all for the Russians: “They just like to keep people locked up,” was one of the first things he said to me ...

Briggs and Lovegrove told us how the interrogators had made innumerable promises to them on condition that they would sign statements that they had been sent to Russia to spy for the Germans. They had been offered freedom, the chance to write to relatives in England and to the Ambassador, and all manner of things. But they had refused to sign. “You can’t trust the bastards,” Lovegrove was always saying. But Lovegrove was always light-hearted - he was the sort of man who would crack a joke if the world was going to end tomorrow. In many ways he was the complete opposite to me; I tried all the time to think of ways out of our troubles, and guess what would happen next.

Lovegrove took every hurdle when he saw it right in front of him. If something vexed him he would shrug and say: “There’s going to be a bull-and-a-cow about this ’ere.” He was a great one for the Londoner’s rhyming slang, and “Bull-and-a-cow” (row) was one of his favourite expressions ...

Lovegrove was full of fight, in his devil-take-the-hindmost way. He never tired of confusing the guards with his rhyming slang. Thy would listen to him, then give up and say “Thank you” solemnly and go out. He was a plasterer by trade, and would look up at the ceiling of Room 97 and remark: “Now, what we could do with up there is a nice bit of moulding.”

... One day Lovegrove decided to show the Russians what he really thought about being kept in jail. When the dinner had been brought in, and we were all about to eat, he got up, and taking his plate with him, rang the buzzer on the door. We watched, curious. The guard opened the flap, and without a word Lovegrove brought up the plate and threw the whole meal in his face, through the grill.

The guard shouted in fury and surprise, and slapped the flap shut. Lovegrove stood there with the plate in his hand. He was grinning, but we were all flabbergasted. Torrents of French came from the far end of the room, and I wondered myself if the Butyrka would not fall down in ruins from the shock.

A few minutes later, Lovegrove was marched out. “Good luck,” we said. “Don’t you worry about me,” he replied, and then the door was slammed shut. We all four were very upset. Would we ever see Lovegrove again? One Frenchman drew his forefinger across his throat. “Fini,” he said. That nearly started a fight.

To our amazement and relief, Lovegrove was brought back again about two hours later. He looked no different, and we crowded round him to ask what had happened. “Got blasted up and down the hill by one of our gaffers,” he said. “Got any grub left?” We found him some bread which we had saved up, and he sat down on his bed and ate it. We stared at him, hardly able to believe what had happened. Hubert himself seemed less impressed than any of us.

From then on we began to talk over what we could do next. If Lovegrove could get away with throwing his food at the Russians, we might be able to take a chance on something else. It was Hubert who came up with the next idea. He had told us before how he had gone on a hunger strike in Minsk Jail, and how after ten days he had been so weak that they had to carry him to the train which had brought him to Moscow.

“Let’s have another go,” he suggested. “I shan’t be all on my own this time.” ’

And so they did, eventually compelling the Russians to improve their conditions. It is also clear from Allan’s account that Hubert Lovegrove suffered badly as a result of his second hunger strike, but his humour never departed him. When they were both called before a woman doctor shortly afterwards, he turned to Allan and said “Don’t stand sideways, or she’ll think your not ’ere.”

Upon the invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany in the Summer of 1941, as a result of which Great Britain became allied to the Russians, Lovegrove was repatriated with his comrades to the United Kingdom via Sweden.

In September 1990, The Daily Mail ran a special feature reporting on the release of the official records, Lovegrove’s daughter stating that her late father never spoke of his experiences: ‘For the rest of his life he despised the Russians. When he came home he would wake at night screaming’.

Sold with relevant photocopied newspaper articles.