GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
In the drawing-room the two men discovered Miss Wexler's body, a heavy blanket wrapped about her head. In the forehead were deep gashes which apparently had been inflicted with a small beer bottle lying close by. A terrific struggle evidently had taken place between the attractive young woman and her murderer, causing her dress to be torn and the furniture to be displaced. It appeared that she had finally been suffocated under the thick blanket.
The room-boy who had been in the flat when Miss Wexler arrived had disappeared. His description was broadcast by the Police last night, and all wharves were being watched lest he attempt to leave Shanghai. The suspect being from Ningpo, special attention was paid to jetties from steamers leave for the Chekiang coast.’
If the loss of Miss Wexler was hard to take, Smyth soon faced further challenges, namely the Shanghai Emergency of 1937, during which the Japanese formally seized the Nationalist Chinese areas of the City, but not the International Settlements - though the latter did not escape the attention of Chines bombers, some 2000 being killed. Meanwhile the local population swelled from 1.5 million to 4 million as a result of the influx of refugees, around 100,000 of whom would died in the harsh winter conditions. Smyth, however, clearly rose to the challenge, being appointed O.B.E., but the political situation continued to deteriorate, the Japanese establishing a puppet regime under the traitor Wang-Jing_Wei, who established a secret service to terrorise his opponents - as a result, murder, kidnapping and terrorist bombs became commonplace and an attempt was made to assassinate Deputy Commissioner D. R. Yorke of the Special Branch.
By the time of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai and the various Treaty Concessions in December 1941, Smyth was Acting Commissioner of Police, which position he occupied August 1942, during which time he remained in command of the Shanghai Municipal Police working in conjunction with, and under the direction of the Japanese occupying forces. Here, then, the moment he once found himself under orders to arrest eight British nationals for anti-Japanese activities, an order declined. Then as a result of a special arrangement made with the Japanese, Smyth and over 100 senior Shanghai Municipality Civil Servants and Police Officers were repatriated to the neutral Portuguese colonial port of Lorenco Marques.
Military Intelligence
An attempt by Tony Keswick, the “taipan” of Jardine Matheson, to recruit Smyth to S.O.E. in East Asia having failed, the latter was appointed to the Military Intelligence Department M.I. 6, and given the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He then departed England by flying boat, arrived at Karachi on 7 June 1943, and proceeded to Chungking, China’s wartime capital. And according to Empire Made Me, by Dr. Robert Bickers, Smyth then made his way to one of the liberated areas in Chekiang province, behind Japanese lines.
At the end of the War, he served in Germany, first as a member of the Berlin Military Government 1945-46, and later with the Special Police Corps Germany, 1946-49. Smyth died in July 1963.
Sold with a large file of research.
1192
An M.B.E. group of six awarded to Sergeant H. Dyche, Royal Air Force, late Royal Navy
THE MOST EXCELLENT ORDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE, M.B.E. (Military) Member’s 2nd type breast badge, silver; BRITISH WAR AND VICTORY MEDALS (M.22097 S.B.A., R.N.); DEFENCE ANDWAR MEDALS, unnamed; ROYAL AIR FORCE L.S. & G.C., G.V.R. (352428 Sgt., R.A.F.) good very fine 6)
£250-300 M.B.E. London Gazette 7 June 1951. ‘Warrant Officer Harold Dyche, R.A.F.’
Harold Dyche was born in Stafford on 25 November 1893. He entered the Royal Navy as a Sick Berth Attendant in August 1916. Served in the Royal Navy until June 1922. Awarded the R.A.F. L.S. & G.C. in 1936 and the M.B.E. in 1951. With copied gazette extracts
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