Medals from the Collection of the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum

Seven: Major I. C. Knight-Hall, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, who volunteered for service in the Special Operations Executive and undertook Commando raids on the French Coast from 1941 to 1942; and as a qualified parachutist in Italy, Greece and the Greek Islands, and the Cocos Islands, the latter for parachute insertion into Malaya and Burma. He served with S.O.E. in M.O.4, Force 133, Force 266, Force 399, M.O.1 (S.P.) and Force 136 and the S.O.E. Political Warfare Section, South East Asia Command

1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, S.E. Asia 1945-46 (Major I. C. Knight Hall, Oxf. & Bucks.); Efficiency Medal, G.VI.R., 2nd issue, Territorial (Lt. I. Knight- Hall. Oxf. & Bucks.) the EM officially re-impressed, minor edge bruising, otherwise very fine and better (7) £600-£800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum.

View
Collection

Ian Cunningham Knight-Hall was born at Harborne, Birmingham, on 3 October 1921 and attested for service in the Royal Artillery on 20 August 1939. Posted to 136 Officer Cadet Training Unit on 24 April 1942, he was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry on 20 August 1942.

Knight-Hall volunteered for service with the Special Operations Executive on 16 August 1940 and was selected for Commando raids on the French Coast from 1941 to 1942. He was promoted to War Substantive Lieutenant on 21 February 1943 and later undertook special forces training in close combat, Parachuting, Animal Management and attended the Special Forces Mountain Wing Ski School at the Cedars in Lebanon. He served with S.O.E. Branch MO4 (Middle East) and Force 133, based in Cairo and later in Bari which controlled the liaison officers attached to the Balkan guerrilla groups and Tito’s partisans. He served in S.O.E. operations in Italy, from May 1944 to July 1944, in Greece from July 1944 to December 1944, in Force 266 and Force 399 (formed out of Force 133) and staffed by S.O.E. and the United States Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.), with responsibility for supplying Tito’s partisans and Mihailovic’s cetniks.

Knight-Hall was later transferred to S.O.E. Far East Force 136, operating from the S.O.E. established forward base at the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, off the coast of Burma, for parachute drops on Malaya and Burma. Post-War he became a Staff Officer in the Political Warfare Division of South East Asia Command in November 1945. He was promoted Acting Captain on 21 June 1945, and Acting Major on 5 October 1945. He returned to the U.K. in June 1946, and was awarded the Efficiency Medal in 1948 (London Gazette 28 May 1948). He was granted a short service commission on transfer from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps on 4 April 1951, with seniority from 3 October 1948, and retired on 4 August 1958. He died in Nottingham in 1975.

The National Archives holds an S.O.E. Personnel file on Major Ian Cunningham Knight-Hall, covering the period from January 1939 to December 1946.

Sold with a portrait photograph of the recipient, and copied research.