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Auction: 18002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 175

The General Service Medal awarded to 2nd Lieutenant W. Young, West Yorkshire Regiment, who would surely have been involved in 'The Moorhouse Affair', the search for a brother Subaltern, kidnapped from the streets of Port Said and who died in captivity

General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Near East (2/Lt. W. Young. W. Yorks.), mounted court-style as worn, nearly extremely fine, together with the recipient's cap badge

W. Young was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Regiment on 6 October 1956 and served in Egypt during the Suez Crisis. He would have surely known 2nd Lieutenant A. Moorhouse, a fellow National Serviceman who landed at Port Said following the 7 November 1956 ceasefire. Moorhouse had led a raid on the premises of a Dentist which resulted in the arrest of 7 Egyptian Commandos on 10 December 1956 and returned to the scene the following day. On this occasion he was in plain clothes and without support. The locals soon identified him, took his pistol, manhandled him from his Land Rover and drove off with him in an unknown civilian car. Young would surely have assisted in the house-to-house search which resulted. The United Nations stepped in to try and assist, but it was all in vain. Colonel C. Banks, a Member of Parliament and former colleague of President Nasser, arrived in Egypt to arrange a meeting. Nasser told him on Christmas Eve 1954 that Moorhouse died of suffocation whilst held captive.

His body was returned for a Military burial at Lawnswood Cemetery, Leeds, where six fellow officers acted as pall-bearers.

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