Medals, WW2, 'Lushai Scouts', V-Force Burma 'Behind Enemy Li...

Hammer

£1,100

Medals, WW2, 'Lushai Scouts', V-Force Burma 'Behind Enemy Lines' Posthumous Immediate Military Cross (recommended Colonel Ord Wingate), group of five, Captain J.G. Woods, Royal Scots Fusiliers, attd. Lushai Scouts 'V' Force, kia December 24th, 1944, MC, GVIR, 1945, original case of issue; 1939-1945 Star, Burma Star, Defence Medakm 1939-1945 War Medal - late issue box, named allocation slip, original carbon citation slip for MC, Royal Scots Fusilier's officer's two-piece brass cap badge, Lushai Brigade 'V' Force Commando cloth patch, extensive copied research including war diaries of 7 'V' Ops. unit under the command of Lt. Col. Ord Windgate of Chindit fame (later brigadier, and killed in an air accident), their plans, directives, selection and training, and the BBC WW2 People's War article L/G 28th June 1945 Citation: From 19th to 24th May (1944), Captain Woods led a patrol of two sections behind enemy lines to a depth of 35 miles, successfully ambushing a Japanese car within 300 yards of a large enemy lorry, and then getting his party back without a casualty and bringing with him three enemy native intelligence men as prisoner'. Date & Place of Action: 21st May, 1944 on Tiddim-Imphal Road 'This officer has on several occasion shows a high standard of courage and initiative'. Recommended: Lt. Col. W.A. ORD (Wingate), Commdg. 5 'V' Ops. Area, Brigadier P.C. Marindin, MC (later DSO), Commdg. Lushai Bgde., 25th Oct. 1944 ApprovedL Lieut. General W.J. (Bill) Slim, G.O.C.-in-Chief Fourteenth Army, 30th Nov. 1944 James Gerard Woods was born in Glasgow, Scotland on June 14th 1917, the son of John Woods, a restaurateur. After graduating from Glasgow University with an MA in 1940, he enlisted in the British Army and was commissioned as a wartime infantry officer with the Royal Scots Fusiliers (L/G May 30th, 1941). He served in India and Burma, having volunteered and been selected in March 1944 for the Lushai Scouts 'V' Force (attached to the 7th/14th Punjab Regiment), a commando force operating in Japanese occupied territory. The unit consisted of six British officer led by Major Jack Longbottom under Lt. Col. Ord Wingate, anf a force essentially of native soldiers locally recruited by Longbottom from the Lushai Hills in north-east India near the Burmese border tasked with halting the Japanese advance. Woods was awarded the MC for his actions on May 21st, 1944 on the Tiddim-Imphal Road, posthumously recorded in the L/G of June 28th 1945, when his ultimate superior Brigadier Marindin was awarded the DSO. After a further seven months of guerilla action, Woods was killed in action in Burma on December 24th 1944, aged 27, the only British office casualty of the Lushai Scouts, which was disbanded after only eighteen months in August 1945 at the end of hostilities. He is buried in the Rangoon Memorial cemetery.