General Service Medal (Clasp – Malaya) and Fire Brigade Long Service Medal Group – Gdsm. T.F. Hedgecock, 2nd Bn. Scots Guards and Essex Fire Brigade

A GSM (Malaya) and Fire Brigade Long Service medal group awarded to 22024689 Guardsman Terence Frederick Hedgecock, 2nd Battalion Scots Guards, who served in Malaya during the infamous ‘Batang Kali Massacre’ and was later a Fireman at Maldon Fire Station, Essex. 

General Service Medal (Clasp – Malaya) named to 22024689 Gdsm. T. Hedgecock. S.G. 
Elizabeth II Fire Brigade Long Service Medal named to Fireman Terence F. Hedgecock 
National Service Medal unnamed 

The medals are in good condition. 

Comes with Scots Guards cap badge and pair of cloth shoulder titles, Essex County Fire Brigade cap badge, boxes of issue for his Fire Brigade Long Service medal and National Service Medal and a photograph of Hedgecock. 

Included are copy service records which shows he was born in Maldon Essex in 1929. The 1939 register although shows a young Terence does list his service number in the end margin which obviously would have been added for some reason at a later date. Records show dates in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur etc.

The 2nd Battalion Scots Guards suffered a damage to their honour and reputation in Malaya and the years that followed. A Platoon of the battalion, brought disgrace to the regiment the and stained the reputation of the British Army, for their massacre of unarmed ethnic Chinese civilians at Batang Kali.

The military establishment and colonial governments attempts to cover-up and deflect from this appalling war crime, remain as as a black chapter in what was an otherwise a successful counter-insurgency campaign.

Newspaper reports in December 1948 differ in option as to whom wrote the articles. Two report a successful patrol at the killing, as reported in The Scotsman Monday 13 December 1948. The other also from December 1948 describes the incident in a different way.

Newspaper reports again hit the headlines in 1969/70 when one of the soldiers went to the papers. 

The Metropolitan police were tasked with the investigation by the DPP in March 1970 but was pulled by the Attorney General in June 1970 with the change of Government. See part of the Met CID police report pictured.

The Evening Express on Thursday September 10th 1992, refers to the BBC program In Cold Blood, where ex Major Campbell Graham SG dismisses the program and incident as lies.

More on this incident which happened at the time Guardsman Knapp was in Malaya with the 2nd Battalion can be found in the newspapers and through internet searches.