AN INTERESTING "MEDICAL SERVICES" DISTINGUISHED SERVICE ORDER
&
1914-15 STAR TRIO (M.I.D.) General Haig
TERRITORIAL DECORATION


&
ITALIAN Armata Altipiani Medal, Battle of the River Piave,1918.
To:
Capt, JOHN ORLANDO SUMMERHAYES.
Baluchistan Volunteer Rifles, INDIA.

Lt, Capt, Major, 1/4th OX & BUCKS L.I.

Lieut Col ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS.
C.O. of (1/1 South Midland Field Ambulance)


[BIOGRAPHY]
Born on 19th March 1869. On 19 January 1895, John Orlando Summerhayes, MRCS, LRCP, eldest son of William Summerhayes, MD, FRGS, of Brightling, Sussex, then aged 25 married Lucy Alexa Heathcote Currie, eldest daughter of the late Robert George Currie, Bengal Civil Service, and Fanny Catherine Ouseley Macrae, at Agnala, Punjab, in the presidency of Bengal, India.
Lieutenant Colonel Summerhayes was registered as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) and as a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, London (LRCP). He gained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel while serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC).
His address was, at one time, recorded as being Saxonholme, Newhaven, Sussex. He entered France in March of 1915, and as a brilliant surgeon of much repute he was decorated on 1st January 1917 with the award of Companion of the Distinguished Service Order for his dedicated medical work and in particular his operative endeavours with seriously wounded soldiers.
John and his wife Lucy had spent some fourteen years in India prior to WW1. John had worked as medical director of a mission hospital and Lucy, as a missionary teacher. They therefore probably returned to England and settled in a house called Red Holme in Thame, Oxon in around 1909.

According to an article in the Sussex Express on Saxonholme, a house in Newhaven, Suffolk, was home to John and Lucy after they left Thame.

The London Gazette tracks John Orlando Summerhayes’ military career as follows:
A late captain in the Baluchistan Volunteer Rifles, INDIA.
He was appointed a Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, on 1 June 1909 (24 May 1910);
a Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps on 8 February 1913 (4 February 1913);
a captain on 6 December 1914 (supplement, 5 December 1914);
and a major on 25 April 1915 (supplement 24 April 1915).
He received the DSO on 1 January 1917 (supplement, 1 January 1917).
The National Archives’ Medal Index Cards 1914-1920 record for John Orlando Summerhayes (WO 372/19/108108) states that he served with the 1/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry successively as a Lieutenant, Captain and Major, and with the 1/1 South Midland Field Ambulance as a Lieutenant Colonel.


[1/1st (SOUTH MIDLAND) FIELD AMBULANCE HISTORY]
1st South Midland Field Ambulance was a territorial unit of the Royal Army Medical Corps. When war broke out in 1914 they were based at The Barracks, Great Brook Street, Birmingham. They served with 48th (South Midland) Division. The South Midland Division was a formation of the Territorial Force formed in 1908 The units had just departed for their annual summer camp when war broke out in August 1914 and they were at once recalled. They mobilised for war service on 5 August 1914 and moved to concentrate in the Chelmsford area by the second week of August 1914 and commenced training. They proceeded to France in March 1915 with the Divisional HQ, the Gloucester & Worcester and South Midlland Brigades embarking from Folkestone and sailing to Boulogne whilst the remainder sailed from Southampton to Le Havre. The Division had concentrated near Cassel.

In 1916 they were in action in the Battle of the Somme, suffering heavy casualties on the 1st of July in assaulting the Quadrilateral (Heidenkopf).

They were also in action at The Battle of Bazentin Ridge, capturing Ovillers, The Battle of Pozieres Ridge, The Battle of the Ancre Heights and The Battle of the Ancre. In 1917 the Division occupied Peronne during the The German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line and were in action in the Third Battles of Ypres. On the 21st of November 1917 they entrained for Italy. In 1918 they were involved in the fighting on the Asiago Plateau and The Battle of the Vittoria Veneto in the Val d'Assa area. Lt /Col Summerhays received his medal for this action. At the Armistice the Division had withdrawn and was at Granezza. Demobilisation began in early 1919..

[THE END OF THE GREAT WAR]
From the end of WW1 John Orlando Summerhays was the head of the British Military Mission in Vienna ( 11th November to February 1919) with particular responsibility for the location, welfare and repatriation of British Prisoners of War held in camps in the former Austro-Hungarian Territories. Also with regard to POWs of other Allied nationalities.

The I.W.M. holds a file of comprehensive papers comprising: Laissez-passer, transport and travel documents issued in connection with the work of the Mission;

Various items of official correspondence pertaining to the work of the Mission; reports by Summerhays and others on the situation in various POW and internment camps in Austria, on the disposal of non-distributed British POW parcels which had accumulated in the Sigmumdsherberg camp, and on civilian property in Vienna and Prague in early 1919;
Personal letters from British and Austrian nationals in Vienna requesting assistance from the Summerhays Mission, particularly in relation to the acute shortage of foodstuffs and other necessities in the immediate postwar period;
Two issues of Viennese newspapers carrying photographs of the Mission, and photostat copies of a few further photographs. John Summerhays served as Medical Officer with the R.A.M.C. and Oxford & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in France and Italy during The Great War.


[THE PROTECTION OF THE HABSBURG ROYAL FAMILY]
‘During the winter of 1918–19 King George V arranged for two Colonels, one of which was John Orlando Summerhayes, then aged 49, to give support to the exiled Habsburg royal family when Austria–Hungary collapsed after the First World War. Colonel Summerhayes was appointed as Ehrenkavalier (Honorary Cavalier) and in February 1919, arrived at Eckartsau, a town in Lower Austria, to protect the imperial family. Being a doctor, John Summerhayes was elected to accompany the sick three year old Felix Habsburg to Switzerland for medical treatment, a decision which probably saved his life.


[THE ITALIAN AWARD]
This is the Armata Altipiani Medal (Silver for Officers) of 1918. It was a commemorative medal of the Battle of the River Piave which was largely fought by Italian, French & British troops between 15th & 24th June 1918. This was known as one of the bloodiest battlefields in history and was on the Italian Front in World War I
John Orlando Summerhays died in 1942 aged 73.


( SOLD)
(Wanted RFC & RAF medals of all types)