The exceptional Great War Western Front 21st Division Signalling Company Officers June 1919 Distinguished Service Order and June 1916 Military Cross, Second World War Balkans 1944 to 1945 Order of the British Empire, and Sudan Public Works Department Egyptian Order of the Nile group awarded to Colonel H.E. Hebbert, D.S.O., O.B.E., M.C., Royal Engineers. Hebbert was a pre-war regular officer, who then saw service out on the Western Front from May 1915, initially with the 12th Divisional Signalling Company, he was then appointed second-in-command and subsequently commanding officer of the 21st Divisional Signalling Company. Awarded the Military Cross in June 1916, when the 2-i-c, he went on to participate in the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Third Battle of Ypres. 1918 is an interesting year as his wonderful archive of letters form this period is now housed in the Cambridge University Library. He participated in the retreat after the German March Offensive, experiencing aerial strafing, and then fought in the Battle of Lys, and then in the retreat to the Aisne. This was followed by the Battle of Amiens and the Battle of the Hindenburg Line followed by the final advance in Picardy, much of which he details in his letters home. His time spent in command of his Company led to the award of the Distinguished Service Order in June 1919. Hebbert worked for the Sudan Public Works Department from 1924 to 1939 when on attachment to the Egyptian Government. He was the District Engineer in Khartoum, the District Engineer at Port Sudan, the Divisional Engineer at Port Sudan when in charge of the Red Sea Province, extending from the Egyptian border to the Eritrean frontier, being appointed to the Order of the Nile 4th Class in June 1935, and was ultimately the Divisional Engineer at Khartoum from 1935 to 1939, and then the Director of the Post and Telegraph Department from 1939 to 1944, service for which he was upgraded with the award of the Order of the Nile 3rd Class in June 1945. However with the Second World War he returned to uniform circa 1944 as a Lieutenant Colonel, and was employed as a Chief Staff Officer to the Operations and Plans Branch for Military Headquarters in the Balkans during 1944 to 1945, seeing service alongside the Yugoslav partisans. For his work in connection with Greece, Jugoslavia and Albania in the period which saw the outbreak of the Greek Civil War, he was appointed an Officer of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire in December 1945.
Hebbert then remained employed out in Egypt and Sudan, and served as Divisional Engineer at Port Sudan from 1931 to 1935 when in charge of the Red Sea Province, extending from the Egyptian border to the Eritrean frontier. For his valuable services, Hebbert was decorated by His Majesty the King of Egypt, on being appointed as an Officer 4th Class of The Order of the Nile, the award being published in the London Gazette for 25th June 1935.
He became Divisional Engineer at Khartoum from 1935 to 1939. Hibbert then became Director of the Post and Telegraph Department from 1939 to 1944, giving him responsibility for the whole of the Sudan. Hebbert officially reminded in this post through to his retirement in 1945, however in the meantime he had also returned to uniform during the Second World War. However it was for his services as the Director of the Post and Telegraph Department in the Sudan that Hebbert was then further decorated by His Majesty the King of Egypt, on being appointed as a Commander 3rd Class of The Order of the Nile, the award being published in the London Gazette for 8th June 1945.
Group of 11: Distinguished Service Order, GVR cypher, version with crown, cypher and wreath in gold, otherwise silver-gilt and enamels, complete with top bar, this amended to facilitate mounting with pin removed; The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Officer, O.B.E., 2nd type, Military Division; Military Cross, GVR GRI cypher, reverse engraved in serif capitals: ‘LIEUT. H.E. HEBBERT R.E. 1916’; 1914-1915 Star, sometime gilded; (2.LIEUT. H.E. HEBBERT. R.E.); British War Medal, some silvered, and Victory Medal with Mention in Despatches Oakleaf, both medal and emblem sometime gilded; (MAJOR H.E. HEBBERT.); 1939-1945 Star; Italy Star; War Medal with Mention in Despatches Oakleaf; Egypt - Kingdom of: Order of the Nile, 3rd Class Commander Grade neck badge, silver, gilt and enamels, bearing Egyptian hallmarks and Arabic makers mark to reverse, complete with length of neck ribbon and ties as worn; Egypt - Kingdom of: Order of the Nile, 4th Class Officer Grade breast badge, silver, gilt and enamels, bearing Egyptian hallmarks to reverse of crown, and ‘Lattes’ of Cairo makers mark to reverse of badge, complete with original ribbon with attached rosette.
Condition: some medals sometimes gilded / silvered as described individually, light enamel loss to first on wreath, to one arm on tenth, and cabochon of last, overall Good Very Fine.
Together with the recipient’s mounted group of miniature medals and remnants of First World War service tunic medal ribbon bar.
Together with a large number of typed up and printed copies of his letters home to his family, covering his service during 1918. These all taken from the ‘H.E. Hebbert Collection’ as now housed in the Cambridge University Library. These make for very interesting reading, and in some cases are exceptionally detailed.
Henry Eric Hebbert was born on 20th September 1893 in Dalhousie, Punjab, India, and having been sent to England, was then educated privately in Reigate, Surrey, followed by Crowthorne in Berkshire, before attending Wellington College in Somerset. He then proceed to the Royal Military College at Woolwich, before being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the Royal Engineers on 17th July 1914, and just prior to the outbreak of the Great War.
Hebbert was present out on the Western Front from 29th May 1915 with the 12th Divisional Signalling Company, and saw service out there throughout the war, being promoted to Lieutenant on 9th June 1915. From circa September 1915 he was on service with the 21st Divisional Signalling Company. The 21st Division completed its concentration at Tilques on 13th September, and was soon afterwards thrown into the Battle of Loos, when initially a part of the reserve for the first day on 25th September, it then advanced on the following day, whereupon it suffered over 3,800 casualties for very little gain.
Hebbert was appointed to temporary Captain on 27th February 1916 and was appointed as second-in-command of the 21st Divisional Signalling Company, being awarded the Military Cross in the King’s Birthday Honours List as published in the London Gazette for 3rd June 1916, this being for unspecified gallant and distinguished services on the Western Front. He held his temporary rank through to 27th January 1917, in which period he had fought through the Battle of the Somme, and having relinquished his position of company 2-i-c, he was then made an acting Captain from 3rd to 10th February 1917, and again from 29th August to 2nd November 1917. Promoted to Captain on 3rd November 1917, he held the rank of Acting Major from 24th January 1918 onwards, having in the meantime fought through the Battle of Arras and the Third Battle of Ypres. On his promotion to Acting Major he assumed command of the 21st Divisional Signalling Company.
During 1918 he present during the German March Offensive. He wrote to his mother on the 20th March, the day before the offensive noting that there was nothing of interest to tell. Then on 23rd March, two days after the offensive began he wrote: ‘I should think the for speed Mons wasn’t in it. So far it is a rather awful debacle but I dare say it will all work out all right. These things of course mean days without sleep…’ Then on 28th March he further wrote: ‘We are just out of it all we believe and not crying about to either. I hope that we shall have a really good sleep this evening another thing we shan’t be sorry for. I personally have don better the last few nights as I have had about 3 hours per night. However, one takes no rest about food. It is a trying affair but by no means a debacle. The Germans put in about 100 divisions into the line, one after the other and they were held by the British Divisions which originally held the line. When I say held up, I mean unable to make a breach, tho’ for the three days those divisions had to withdraw from one place to another. This div. tho not mentioned by English papers was the only one mentioned in the German wireless.’ His letter home written on 30th March finally gives more detail. He mentions the fog which had aided the German advance, but the the same fog had meant the German artillery had not been able to zero in on key positions, such as divisional headquarters. He mentions the withdrawal back to a place on the old Somme battlefield which occurred on the 23rd March, and that there was no option but to withdraw, but that the men did not break and it was an organised withdrawal. He however then mentions: ‘While at the village in the Somme desolation I experienced for the first time a form of amusement our own airmen are very fond of, machine gunning from aeroplanes. There were six Hun machines firing at us off and on for an hour with machine guns.’ On the 24th March he is believed to have been in Clery sur Somme, and finally got into proper accommodation from which all the civilians had fled. It was on this day that his company brought down a German aircraft ‘which came too low which of course pleased them mightily.’
Hebbert went on to participate in the Battle of Lys and the retreat to the Aisne. Of the retreat he wrote: ‘The sad sight of course is the mile after mile of refugees with all their cattle and household goods, sometimes cheery, sometimes sad, sometimes cursing.’ As of 20th July 1918 he wrote that ‘we have got all sorties of wonderful signalling things to look after nowadays. Rcckets for carrying messages anything up to 2000 yards. Sheets and signs for signalling to aeroplanes. Little wireless sets that you can almost put in your pocket and send a good distance. Pigeons, instruments for pumping electricity into the ground and bringing it up elsewhere. Messages dogs and so on. I have to be a sort of Jack of all trades.’
Hebbert then participating in the Battle of Amiens. He noted that ‘Signals have not gone very well this show. Everything seems to have worked out wrong. Will you pray for this as it makes a tremendous difference to the whole work of the Division. It is very sad especially as eventing has been so very satisfactory in the past.
He participating in the Battle of the Hindenburg Line and the final advance in Picardy. On 12th November 1918 her wrote home: ‘It is almost impossible to believe that there really is an armistice and that in all probability one won’t hear another shell coming for years if ever again.’
With the end of hostilities, Hebbert remained command of the 21st Divisional Signalling Company as a Captain and Acting Major, before relinquished the rank of Acting Major on 21st January 1919, on which occasion he handed over command of the 21st Divisional Signalling Company. For his distinguished services in command of the company, he was awarded a Distinguished Service Order in the King’s Birthday Honours List as published in the London Gazette for 3rd June 1919.
As a Captain once again, Hebbert was appointed a Royal Engineers Instructor on 27th September 1920, and then second-in-command and subsequently in charge of the program for training Sapper Officers in Cambridge. As such he then spent four years at Cambridge University as a member of Gonville and Caius College, taking an Honours Degree in Engineering, and gaining his Masters in 1924. He relinquished his appointment to the School of Military Engineering on 17th August 1924.
After Cambridge he took up a position with the Sudan Public Works Department from 1924 to 1939 as a regular soldier on attachment to the Egyptian Government. He was the District Engineer in Khartoum between 1924 and 1925, and District Engineer at Port Sudan from 1925 to 1930. In this period he was promoted to Major on 1st June 1929, and officially retired from the Royal Engineers on 15th July 1929. He however was then re-employed as a Major in the Royal Engineers on the Regular Army Reserve of Officers from 15th July 1929, with seniority backdated to 4th June 1928.
Hebbert then remained employed out in Egypt and Sudan, and served as Divisional Engineer at Port Sudan from 1931 to 1935 when in charge of the Red Sea Province, extending from the Egyptian border to the Eritrean frontier. For his valuable services, Hebbert was decorated by His Majesty the King of Egypt, on being appointed as an Officer 4th Class of The Order of the Nile, the award being published in the London Gazette for 25th June 1935.
He became Divisional Engineer at Khartoum from 1935 to 1939. Hibbert then became Director of the Post and Telegraph Department from 1939 to 1944, giving him responsibility for the whole of the Sudan. Hebbert officially reminded in this post through to his retirement in 1945, however in the meantime he had also returned to uniform during the Second World War. However it was for his services as the Director of the Post and Telegraph Department in the Sudan that Hebbert was then further decorated by His Majesty the King of Egypt, on being appointed as a Commander 3rd Class of The Order of the Nile, the award being published in the London Gazette for 8th June 1945.
Recommissioned as a war substantive Lieutenant Colonel (No.8400) and temporary Colonel, he was employed as a Chief Staff Officer to the Operations and Plans Branch for Military Headquarters in the Balkans during 1944 to 1945, and saw service alongside the Yugoslav partisans.
It was for these services that Hebbert was recommended for an award within the Order of the British Empire, the recommendation being made on 24th May 1945 and reading as follows: ‘Colonel Hebbert has been Chief Staff Officer throughout the period of Military Liaison operations in Greece, Jugoslavia, and Albania. Due to frequent visits to the Balkan countries by the Commander unusually heavy responsibilities have been placed on this officer, particularly during the period of hostilities in Greece. At all times, but especially during this critical period, Colonel Hebbert has displayed a highest example of initiative and energy, and has been particularly successful in his relations with American officers. There is no doubt that his contributions to the success of Military liaison operations in Greece, Jugoslavia and Albania has been in every way outstanding.’
The recommendation had been made by Major General later Sir Ivor T.P. Hughes, K,.C.V.O., C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O., M.C., who was in command of Military Liaison Forces in the Balkans, who originally put Hebbert forward for appointment to be a Commander Grade, C.B.E., within the Order of the British Empire, however this was downgraded to Herbert’s appointment as an Officer of the Military Division of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, the award being published in the London Gazette for 13th December 1945.
Having exceeded the age limit for service with the Reserve of Officers, Hebbert officially retired on 9th March 1946, being granted the honorary rank of Colonel. Having married one Anne Matthews back in 1933, he retired to the family home in Somerset, and died on 15th March 1980.