£3,000
Auction: 22 July 2015 at 11:00 BST
Cased George Medal, a modern set of miniatures includes WWII service medals, various badges, buttons, his Glengarry with regimental badge, miscellaneous ephemera to include; Infantry Roll book; service and pay books; an interesting group of photographs of Masson and regiment whilst in Jerusalem and Palestine; many annotated with names, dates and places; documents include, citations, letters of awards, congratulatory letters etc.
In David Wilson's book - The Sum of Things he writes: "We had an excellent Pioneer Platoon Commander, James Masson, who quite irregularly (It was well outside his normal duties) became an expert in sniffing out and dismantling bombs and booby traps of all sorts. He was joined by a Sergeant Smith of the Palestine Police, an ex Royal Marine, together they did a remarkable job and they must have saved many lives
One day there was a report from Jerusalem Railway Station that a suspicious suitcase had been left in the waiting room. Messrs Smith and Masson were soon there and discovered that it was rather more than suspicious - there was a steel lining inside the leather. Together they removed the suitcase from the building, carried it out into the car park and considered what should be done. At least if it went up the station would be undamaged. Smith then did a very remarkable and courageous thing. He ordered everyone out of harm's way, saying that he would tackle it himself, and that there was no sense in anyone else getting hurt if things went wrong. He would out whatever he was doing, and one of his constables under cover in a ditch would take notes. When Jimmy Masson protested, , Smith said that though he may be the senior, Jimmy had dealt with the last booby trap and now it was his turn. Sadly, something went wrong, and the suitcase blew up with tremendous force. Smith was killed instantly; all the others - and the station - were safe.
When I had the full report I decided that I would put in Smith for a George Cross. This is not an easy process. As for the Victoria Cross you need three independent witnesses to submit statements, but these we had. i submitted the dossier through Nicol Gray, the Head of the Palestine Police and a highly decorated Royal Marine commando in his day. perhaps I am not much good at writing citations; Smith got a posthumous King's Service medal for Gallantry, in the Colonial Police Services the next highest award; Jimmy Masson received the George Medal which was nearly unique among the Argylls. It Can be sometimes easy to be brave when the blood is up and battle on, but the cold-blooded courage of dealing alone with booby traps and high explosive is something very special. It was a privilege to have known such men.