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Allan Ker
Allan Ker VC.jpg
Born 5 March 1883 (1883-03-05)
Edinburgh, Scotland
Died 12 September 1958(1958-09-12) (aged 75)
Hampstead, England
Buried
West Hampstead Cemetery
Allegiance  United Kingdom
Service/branch Flag of the British Army.svg British Army
Rank Major
Unit Gordon Highlanders
Battles/wars First World War
Awards UK Victoria Cross ribbon bar.svg Victoria Cross
Hyde Park Corner, The Machine Gun Corps Memorial
The Machine Gun Corps Memorial, Hyde Park Corner
The grave of Allan E. Ker VC, Grange Cemetery
The grave of Allan E. Ker VC, Grange Cemetery

Major Allan Ebenezer Ker VC (5 March 1883 – 12 September 1958) was a Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Life

He was born in Edinburgh on 5 March 1883 the son of Robert Darling Ker WS (1853-1940) and his wife Johanna Johnston. The family lived at 14 Findhorn Place in the Grange district.

He was educated at Edinburgh Academy. He then studied law at the University of Edinburgh. Before the First World War he had his own legal practice at 5 George Street in the New Town and was living at "St Abbs", a villa on Russell Place in Trinity.

In 1908 he joined a territorial force: the Queen's Edinburgh Mounted Rifles. In 1914 he went to Aberdeen to settle the affairs of his cousin, Captain Arthur Milford Ker who had been killed in the first weeks of the First World War and Allan was persuaded to join his cousin's regiment; the Gordon Highlanders.

He was 35 years old, and a lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders, British Army, attached 61st Battalion, Machine Gun Corps during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.

On 21 March 1918 near Saint-Quentin, France, when the enemy had penetrated the British line, Lieutenant Ker, with one Vickers gun, succeeded in holding up the attack, inflicting many casualties. He then stayed at his post with a sergeant and several men who had been badly wounded, beating off bayonet attacks with revolvers, the Vickers gun having been destroyed. Although exhausted from want of food and gas poisoning, as well as from fighting and attending to the wounded, Lieutenant Ker only surrendered when all his ammunition was spent and the position overrun - he had managed to hold 500 of the enemy off for three hours.

He was however captured in the event and spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner-of-war only being released in December 1918. He was gazetted for the Victoria Cross on 4 September 1919 and was presented the medal personally by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 26 November 1919. On 11 November 1920 he was one of the 100 Victoria Cross winners chosen as the guard of honour, escorting the gun carriage to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey.

He later achieved the rank of major. He was demobbed in 1922 and went back to practising law, but in London rather than Edinburgh.

In 1926 he was one of four VC holders who laid a wreath after the dedication of the Machine Gun Corps Memorial at Hyde Park Corner. The others were Arthur Henry Cross, Reginald Graham, and William Allison White.

In the Second World War he served on the Directorate of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. His duties included attendance at the Potsdam Conference in July/August 1945.

He died at New Garden Hospital in Hampstead, north London, on 12 September 1958 aged 75. He is buried in West Hampstead Cemetery but was also memorialised in 2018 on his parents restored grave in Grange Cemetery in south Edinburgh.

Recognition

Anthony Powell later used him as the inspiration for the character of Colonel Finn in his novels The Soldier's Art (1966) and The Military Philosophers (1968).

A plaque was erected on his birthplace at 16 Findhorn Place in The Grange, Edinburgh in 2018.

Honours


UK Victoria Cross ribbon bar.svg
British War Medal BAR.svg Ribbon - Victory Medal MID.png Defence Medal BAR.svg Ribbon - War Medal.png
UK King George V Silver Jubilee Medal ribbon.svg UK King George VI Coronation Medal ribbon.svg UK Queen EII Coronation Medal ribbon.svg BRA Ordem do Merito Militar Cavaleiro.png

Ribbon Description Notes
UK Victoria Cross ribbon bar.svg Victoria Cross (VC)
  • 4 September 1919.
British War Medal BAR.svg British War Medal
Ribbon - Victory Medal MID.png WWI Victory Medal
  • With MID Oakleaf.
Defence Medal BAR.svg Defence Medal
Ribbon - War Medal.png War Medal 1939–1945
UK King George V Silver Jubilee Medal ribbon.svg King George V Silver Jubilee Medal
  • 6 May 1935.
UK King George VI Coronation Medal ribbon.svg King George VI Coronation Medal
  • 12 May 1937.
UK Queen EII Coronation Medal ribbon.svg Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal
  • 2 June 1953.
BRA Ordem do Merito Militar Cavaleiro.png Order of Military Merit

The Medal

His VC is on display in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum, London.

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