Medals from the Collection of Peter Duckers

Three: Gunner O. T. Stephenson, Volunteer Artillery Battery

1914-15 Star (No. 21 Gnr. O. T. Stephenson. Vol. Arty. Bty.); British War and Victory Medals (21 Gnr. O. Stephenson. Vol. Arty. Bty.) number corrected on both BWM and VM, very fine and rare to unit (3) £100-£140

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of Peter Duckers.

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The Volunteer Artillery Battery was raised in 1915 for service in the Mesopotamia Campaign as part of the British Army’s Royal Field Artillery. The unit was drawn from members of the Bombay, Madras, Karachi and Burma Artillery Volunteers and such was their initial inexperience that a certain improvisation in their training methods was required, as related by the Adjutant of the Battery:

‘During the trip across to Basra in the monsoon, those that were not half dead from sea sickness were drilled hard on 15-pdrs. chalked on the deck and lectured on gunnery, knotting, lashing, military discipline and sanitation. The infantry officers did all they could in teaching the men musketry and even bayonet fighting.’ The Formation of a Battery by Lieut. Col. K. F. Freeland, R.A in the Journal of the Royal Artillery.

On arrival in Mesopotamia, the battery was equipped with anything that could be found –generally old and worn – but even then, once the gun teams had had some opportunity to practise with real guns, these were withdrawn and given to another R.A. battery. Eventually equipped and after training at Amarah, the Volunteer Artillery Battery was divided into two sections, one proceeding up the Euphrates and the other up the Tigris River. The battery took part in Townsend’s advance towards Baghdad, seeing action at Nasiriya, Es Sin and the Capture of Kut. They were one of the units which, after the pyrrhic victory at Ctesiphon in November 1915, fell back to Kut-al-Amarah and, apart from those who remained on the lines of communication further south at Azizieh, took part in the siege. Using the bayonet they served shoulder to shoulder with the Oxford Light Infantry until the fall of the town in April 1916 when Stephenson perhaps became a prisoner along with the rest of the garrison. Of the 67 men of the Kut contingent, 38 became casualties. 45 were taken Prisoner of War, with 18 dying during captivity.