The Collection of Medals to the Monmouthshire Regiment formed by Lt. Col. P. A. Blagojevic, O. St. J., T.D.

A fine Great War escaper’s M.M. group of four awarded to Lieutenant C. L. Y. Jolliffe, Herefordshire Regiment, late Monmouthshire Regiment: having received multiple shrapnel wounds in the action that led to his capture at Ypres on 8 May 1915, he had recovered sufficiently by October 1916 to make a successful bid for freedom

Military Medal, G.V.R. (225103 Cpl. C. L. Y. Jolliffe, Mon. R.); 1914-15 Star (906 Cpl., Monmouth. R.); British War and Victory Medals (906 Cpl., Monmouth. R.), together with a gold and enamel Chepstow Welcome Home 1914-19 Medal, the reverse engraved, ‘Lt. C. L. Y. Jolliffe’, and set of related miniature dress medals, the third with officially re-impressed naming, contact marks, otherwise generally very fine (9) £1200-1500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to the Monmouthshire Regiment formed by Lt. Col. P. A. Blagojevic, O. St. J., T.D..

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M.M. London Gazette 30 January 1920:

‘In recognition of gallant conduct and determination displayed in escaping or attempting to escape from captivity, which services have been brought to notice in accordance with the terms of Army Order 193 of 1919.’

Cuthbert Lovell Yorke Jolliffe, who was born in Chepstow in December 1891, originally enlisted in the Monmouthshire Regiment (T.F.) in March 1909. Appointed a Corporal in the 1st Battalion soon after the outbreak of hostilities, he was embarked for active service in mid-February 1915 and was wounded and taken P.O.W. at Ypres on 8 May 1915. The following extracts have been taken from his extensive account of his capture, captivity and subsequent escape (a copy of which is included):

‘On 8 May 1915, our regiment and others were shelled from daybreak until about 8 a.m. (3 hours). I was wounded four times, in the left thigh, right groin and twice in the back, all by shrapnel. The first wound was trivial but I was incapacitated about 7.30 a.m. We were surrounded by Germans, who were carrying machine-guns, and came up on our left flank ... Orders were passed to retire but owing to there being so many wounded we were unable to get down the communication trench, and then the Germans came down in front, along our trenches from the right, where the men surrendered ... During the evening a German officer came along and told us we should be carried away soon ... I remained there until the 9th, when at about 2 to 3 p.m. I was taken on a stretcher to their dressing station, and on arrival noticed Lieutenants Newland and Lowe. About 7 p.m. others and myself were taken to another dressing station, a khaki tent where I had my wounds attended to by a doctor and there I seemed to have lost consciousness until I arrived at Rouliers. Whether I was taken there by road or rail I have not the faintest idea, but sometime during the next morning I was taken from a church in Rouliers and put on an ambulance train where I stayed most of the day and then moved off for Germany and arrived at Duisburg at 8.15 p.m. on the 12th. We were taken out of the train and were then slung up in tram cars for the hospital. On the train I was given a large red sausage and some clear soup, and later on some biscuits, but I was too weak to eat either. I was in hospital from 12 May to 19 July ... ’

Jolliffe was taken to Camp II at Munster on being discharged from hospital, at which establishment he remained until mid-October 1915, when he was moved to Senne Lager III. Here he attended nearby working parties on local farms, but that December he was sent back to the main camp at Senne Lager to have a piece of shrapnel removed from his side, following which he was despatched to Soltau - ‘the worst camp I was ever in’ - but in January 1916 he joined a labour camp at Bexten Listrup, where he met “Hayon”, ‘a Belgian graduate of Liege with whom afterwards I escaped’. But before their successful bid for freedom that October, careful planning and preparations had to be made, Jolliffe meanwhile falling foul of a visiting German General when he told him a pair of boots sent out from home had been stolen by a camp officer, an accusation that won him three days in the cells on bread and water. Such interruptions aside, he and Hayon were ready by October to make their escape - Jolliffe’s account takes up the story:

‘On the afternoon of 12 October 1916, fourteen others and myself were sent down to Salbergen Station with a wagon to fetch the English and French parcels, and the supplies of French biscuits and German bread. Ten of these went back to the camp while the remaining five stayed behind to pack up the parcels for the men that were away on the farms. Hayon was acting as clerk. A second Belgian (Jardin) was helping a Frenchman to pack up the French parcels, and Lorimer and I were doing the English ones. Lorimer (a Gordon Highlander) had feigned sick in order not to be sent out to work, and had been put on light duty with us. We purposely took a long time over the packing so as to have it dark to go home. On the way back we asked the guard who was in charge of us to go into an hotel for six cigars, which he did willingly, as during the afternoon he had asked for some biscuits for his eleven children and we obliged him, as can be understood. Before going in, the guard asked us to wait outside. We promised, but when he was well inside, four of us took to our heels. We had thus saved swimming the river Ems which has all bridges guarded, and which we had had to cross during the afternoon to get to Salzbergen Station from the camp (Downing of the South Lancashires got away from an outlying portion of the camp, but although a strong swimmer, he was drowned in the Ems. We never heard whether he was entangled in the weeds, or had cramp, but the photograph taken of him when dead was produced to us for identification). The Frenchmen preferred to stay behind and go back to camp. As the other four of us ran off, we saw two civilians returning in the duck to Salzbergen from ploughing, but we rushed into a wood and we think they never saw us, though we heard the guard blow his whistle ... ’

By the end of their first night on the run, Jolliffe and Hayon were two-thirds of their way to the Dutch border, having crossed the river Weech and, although compelled to lie-up in the close proximity of German civilian farm workers on several occasions, remained undetected. In fact so swift was their flight that they crossed into Holland on the third evening, where they were looked after by a householder in Lutte. The following day they gave themselves up to the military authorities and, after being interviewed, were released into the care of the British Consul at Rotterdam, the latter arranging for Jolliffe’s onward journey to the U.K.

Subsequently commissioned from the O.T.C. into the Herefordshire Regiment as a 2nd Lieutenant in February 1918, he was advanced to Lieutenant in August 1919, having latterly been attached to the 4th Reserve Battalion, K.S.L.I. Jolliffe resigned his commission in December 1920 and returned to employment in his family’s business, Parsons & Jolliffe, chartered accountants of Chepstow, where he worked until his death.