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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Gold watch found in South Africa - Charles Oliver Dipper.


MikeyH

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A piece in our local weekly newspaper features the quest of someone in South Africa to locate any descendants of a Sergeant Major Charles Oliver Dipper, who served with the Northumberland Fusiliers.

The request concerns a gold watch found in a flea market and inscribed with the details of Sergeant Major Dipper, the finder a Mr. Geyser would like to reunite this to anyone with Dipper family connections. Before the war Dipper, who was born in 1897, lived here in Daventry Northamptonshire and worked as a machinist, he also served in the Second World War, was promoted to Major and then emigrated to South Africa.

He was awarded a DCM, for his part in actions at Olay-le-Verger on the 27th September and at Paillencourt on the 10th October 1918. The citation appearing in the London Gazette on Feb. 25th 1920.

The finder has been assisted in his researches by Major Chester Potts, chairman of the Fusiliers Association Northumberland.

Mike.

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  • 2 weeks later...

As a follow up to this story, someone has now come forward who is married to the great niece of Charles Oliver Dipper. Dipper never went to South Africa, so a mystery how the watch got there. He served in Germany until retiring from the Army as a Lt. Colonel in 1968 at the age of 72, dying in Lubbecke aged 83.

He won 'the Military MBE' at the Battle of Tobruk in the Second World War. Some of his descendants still live only four doors away from his original address.

Mike.

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Lancs,

Yes, a mystery indeed. Apparently he had a brother, they both went to enlist with a Northamptonshire Regiment, which his brother duly joined. Charles Oliver ended up in the Northumberland Fusiliers, as 'the Government were wary about groups of family members and friends being killed at the same time, leading to bad morale'. This was in 1914, when he was 17, I didn't think that this was an issue at that early period of the war, but only became military thinking later on in the conflict.

Mike.

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  • 3 years later...

Guys,

 

WE reunited the watch earlier this year to Dorothy his daughter at RHQ Tower of London. The watch ended up  in South Africa after being lost /stolen when the families of the 1st RNF were evacuated from Cairo in 1940 to Durban.

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Very well done.

 

Mike (o.p.).

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