War Medals

QUEEN'S SOUTH AFRICA MEDAL, IMPERIAL LIGHT INFANTRY, KILLED IN ACTION, SPION KOP 24 JANUARY 1900

Bar, 'Relief of Ladysmith', officially impressed naming - 33 Pte. D. TURNBULL, Impl. Lt. Infy. (Imperial Light Infantry) (DONALD TURNBULL - Born 1 September 1873 at Dumbarton, Scotland, enlisted in the newly formed Imperial Light Infantry on 8 November 1899 for service in South Africa. The Regiment had received comparatively little training and saw no fighting until it was thrown into the awful combat on Spion Kop on 24 January 1900. Ordered to reinforce the Regiments already on the summit the first two Companies reached the top of the "Kop" shortly after 10.00am. At this hour the enemy's fire was appalling, the hail of bullets and shells being ceaseless, but these untried volunteers pushed up to the shallow trench and the firing-line beyond it without flinching, although almost immediately they commenced to suffer very severe losses. Published at the time the casualties were given as: Killed - two Officers and twenty-nine Non-Commissioned Offers and men : Wounded - Three Officers and one hundred and ten Non-Commissioned Officers and men, with nineteen men missing. It was later discovered that most of the latter had been killed or wounded. The recipient was originally recorded as 'Missing' but subsequently accepted as having been killed.) : Sold with verification, copy Casualty Roll entry and other related research. Medal mounted on a long length of original silk ribbon. Toned EF - £985