Orders, Decorations and Medals

A rare Great War Royal Naval Division M.M. and Bar awarded to Leading Seaman W. Dudley, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, a Gallipoli veteran who won his M.M. for services in France with Nelson Battalion, and a Bar for like services in Hawke Battalion

Military Medal, G.V.R., with Second Award Bar (TZ-2023 L.S. W. Dudley, Nelson Bn. R.N.V.R.) minor official correction to surname, good very fine £1400-1600

M.M. London Gazette 9 July 1917.

Bar to M.M. London Gazette 11 February 1919.

Walter Dudley, a native of Blaydon-on-Tyne, entered the Tyneside Division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in November 1914, aged 21 years. Posted to Howe Battalion, R.N.D. for the duration of his training at Blandford, he transferred to Nelson Battalion in June 1915, with whom he served on the Gallipoli Peninsula, other than a period of hospitalisation in September-October of the same year. Then in May 1916, he was embarked at Mudros for Marseilles, for service on the Western Front, and it was while fighting with Nelson Battalion that he was awarded the M.M. by a Divisional Order dated 27 May 1917. In the same month he was appointed an Acting Petty Officer and, having transferred to Hawke Battalion, via appointments in Anson Battalion and the R.M.L.I., he was awarded a Bar to his M.M. by Routine Order dated September 1918. Dudley was demobilised at Ripon in January 1919.