A well documented 'Gordon Highlanders' overseas affiliate regiment Second World War Africa Service & Long Service Medal pair: Sergeant John Thomas Furness, Cape Town Highlanders

- Union of South Africa: Africa Service Medal 1939-45 (ACF 401 J. T. Furness)
- Efficiency Medal. GVI I with 'Union of South Africa' bar & clasp (No. 401 Sgt. J. T. Furness. C.T.H.)

Sold together with below following archive of original ephemera a/f: 

- Union Defence Forces: Medal transmittal letter marked for single medal ASM
- Letter fm CTH HQ forwarding EM clasp to EM
- Discharge Certificate: Shows entitlement to ASM & EM  medals 
- Membership Card (named) of CTH Sergeants Mess 1940
- 1943 dated letter forwarding 'Riband' of the ASM
- 2 x CTH Xmas / New Years Greetings Cards 1939-40 ex Sgt's Mess CTH (All serving Sgts named)
- 11 x black & white photographs all CTH related, inc with Piper's / members of CTH 
- Several documents pertaining to John's elder brother William Robert Furness

Photographs: In the attached images, the recipient is the person kneeling wearing a 'Hat - and holding a faucet tap!, taken at an inter-war Cape Town 'Highland Games'. The other image shows Sergeant Furness sitting in centre with a group of 'Jock's' in field service order, John wearing is Sergeants stripes, and various items of regimental pattern insignia

See also the Ancestry genealogical website for a family tree that includes further photograph and details about the recipient

Important: This the recipients complete medal issuance & entitlement. Although a long standing member of the volunteer Active Citizen Force, who took the 'Oath' to serve in Africa outside of the borders of the Union Of South Africa, he was never mobilized for full-time 'War Service' and never met the qualifying criteria for the award of a War Medal

Medals Verification: Both medals and the further service clasp are confirmed as entitled per the below referenced sources:

- Union of South Africa: Africa Service Medal 1939-45: Letter 11 October 1943 & Discharge Cert refer
- Efficiency Medal. GVI 1st 'Union of South Africa' bar: Discharge certificate refers
- Efficiency Medal 'Further Service Clasp': Issued 1957, accompanying letter refers

John Thomas Furness son John Furness (a Railway Fitter) a was a South African of  British ancestry, who was born in South Africa in 1899. On 7 July 1921, John joined one of his local Citizen Force (the equivalent of the British Army Territorial Army) regiments, the Cape Town Highlanders. Promoted to Sergeant, John was discharged rom the CTH on 23 July 1941, when he was discharged as 'Medically Unfit'. After the outbreak of the Second World War John had taken the 'Oath' to serve outside of the borders of the Union of South Africa, elsewhere in Africa. As things developed, John was never mobilized for full-time military service, and hence never qualified or received a War Medal, he did however qualify and receive a single Africa Service Medal for his volunteer services with the ACF in the period 1939-41. Documents with the medals show that the 'Riband' of the Africa Service Medal was issued on 11 October 1943, and sent to him at the 'Cardiff Castle Bar', Main Street, Newlands, Cape Town - where he was employed as a Barman. His Efficiency Medal was issued in January 1941, and the further service clasp to his EM was sent to him on 5 February 1957, at which time he was residing at, 48 Columbine Park, Gibson Road, Kenilworth, Cape Town

John's elder brother William Richard Furness (born 1893), was a former member of the 4th South African (Scottish) who served overseas in France during the Great War, and who was sometime a member of Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Volunteer Rifles, which ACF force unit was commonly referred to as 'The Dukes'. He married in England in 1917

Cape Town Highlanders: The regiment was established as the Cape Town Highlanders, The Duke of Connaught and Strathearn’s Own on April 24, 1885 and wears the Gordon tartan as a reflection of its historical regimental affiliation with the Gordon Highlanders of the British Army  

The regiment first saw action during the Langberg campaign of 1897 and was mobilised on October 16, 1899 for the Anglo South African War. They were only released from service seven month’s after that conflict’s end, on January 12, 1903, having served mostly as line of communications troops. Volunteers from the regiment formed A Squadron of Kitchener’s Horse in 1900

From 1913 to 1932, the CTH was known as the 6th Infantry, Active Citizen Force. The unit served through the Great War, firstly in the German South West Africa campaign and then on the Cape defences. It “then combined forces with the Transvaal Scottish to form a service battalion called the 4th South African Infantry (South African Scottish), which fought in the Senussi Campaign in North Africa and then went on to France, where it won undying fame at Delville Wood and many other battles between 1916 and 1918

During the Second World War, the CTH provided troops to No 34 Armoured Car Company (later part of 9th Recce Battalion) and contributed a battalion to 2 SA Brigade in North Africa. In mid-1941 it went briefly to Egypt to escort thousands of Italian prisoners of war to internment in South Africa, then returned in late June to join the newly arrived 1st South African Division in the Western Desert. It fought in all of the major battles in the Western Desert Campaign, all the way through to El Alamein; it is one of only three regiments in the world (all of them South African) to have not only the usual two Alamein battle honours ‘Alamein Defence’ and ‘El Alamein’ but a third, ‘Alamein Box’, resulting from a separate action during the initial defence which played a significant role in halting Rommel’s advance on the exhausted and thinned-out Eighth Army. In 1943 the CTH temporarily combined with South Africa’s senior Scottish unit, the First City Regiment, to form the First City/Cape Town Highlanders, which fought from Monte Cassino to the Alps, culminating in the heroic capture at bayonet-point of the strategic peak of Monte Sole. This broke the back of German resistance in Italy

An uncommon - and well documented Second World War era medal pair

Condition: Medals about EF

Code: 26092