An extremely rare and important group of medals together with a large amount of letters from the front for a Captain in the Kings 1st battalion and subsequently 4th extra reserve battalion of the Kings liverpool battalion who was killed at the Battle of Ypres on 1st May 1915. Captain David Aitken Lumsden’s medals consist of a 1914 star a British war Medal and victory medal. All are correctly named. He is lieutenant on the 1914 star and captain on the victory and war Medal. Captain Lumsden was from Dundee and the letters and telegrams are all addressed to his then girlfriend an Eleanor Lockhart also from Dundee. It is a most poignant story of love and a man vying for the attentions of a Companion in the midst of war. Some of the letters are written on kings liverpool headed notepaper and others are written on paperwork obviously scavenged from wherever the captain could. It gives an amazing insight into both the social etiquette of the time and general day to day life in the war. One letter states “we’ve really got in the neck again, 392 casualties and 190 from my own battalion” Another letter “all my officers have been hit bar one but luckily I haven’t been hit yet” A week after he wrote that he was dead. I have carried out a small amount of quick research via the Internet and found the copy of the paper cutting which is the last photo. I haven’t got a copy but it can be printed or applied for easily enough from the imperial war museum. It states that Captain Lumsden was a colour Sgt in his otc was sent to the front wounded sent home and then sent back out when subsequently he was killed when his commanding officer seeing some men “held up” the commanding office stated he was going to see what was happening, captain Lumsden replied no sir, I will do it. Captain Lumsden stood up and got out of the shell hole and went to the aid of these men when he was shot In the head. An amazing grouping with so much history. You do get a huge insight into captain Lumsden and his funny personality from the letters. You can also see how the longer he spends in the trenches his writing suffers and he says he wishes he could get a wound and go to see his girlfriend but not that he was not enjoying the “show” ie the war. His last contact with home is sadly a hastily written field postcard which shows how short time must have been and how bad thing had become. I wish I could keep the set. Thanks for looking and any questions please ask. The item “Ww1 1914 star & medals to a captain kings liverpool regiment + letters. Kia 1915″ is in sale since Friday, August 05, 2016. This item is in the category “Collectables\Militaria\World War I (1914-1918)\Medals/ Ribbons”. The seller is “bigpickledegg” and is located in Tredegar. This item can be shipped to United Kingdom, to United States, to Canada, to Ireland, to Australia, to Germany, to France.
- Conflict: World War I (1914-1918)
- Type: Medals & Ribbons
- Era: 1914-1945
- Service: Army
- Country/ Organization: Great Britain
- Issued/ Not-Issued: Issued