Orders, Decorations and Medals

An exceedingly well-documented and poignant Great War group of three awarded to 2nd Lieutenant W. H. Blades, The Rifle Brigade, late Honourable Artillery Company (Infantry), who was killed in action in May 1917

1914-15 Star (4130 Pte., H.A.C.); British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut.), in their card forwarding boxes and registered envelope, virtually as issued (3) £2000-3000

William Henry “Harry” Blades was born in September 1897 and was employed as a clerk at a bank in Kensington on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914. Having then considered the merits of whether to apply for a commission, and indeed which regiment to join, he attested in the Honourable Artillery Company (H.A.C.) in August 1915, and was embarked for France as a Private in ‘C’ Company, 3rd H.A.C. Infantry Battalion, at the end of the year. For the first few months his unit was employed on garrison duty at St. Omer, but by the summer of 1916, his letters home reveal service of a more active nature on the Somme:

‘We are getting ready to spend the next few days in a manner not at all comfortable and free from care. I never knew I was so fond of life until recently, when there seemed a chance of losing it ... It seems absolutely absurd to think so many men should be formed up along the line trying to kill each other; and the sun shining overhead, birds singing and green woods in the distance ... The trench mortars are one of the most worrying inventions. They are fired from the trenches, and go high up into the air, dropping somewhere near the trench. You can see them dropping and have to run up and down dodging them, which might be quite interesting if the things didn’t explode with such force.’

Shortly after these operations, Blades applied for a commission and was despatched to a Cadet School, but fell ill with jaundice. It was not, therefore, until February 1917 that he was finally appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the 8th Battalion of his favoured regiment - the Rifle Brigade. And towards the end of the following month, his unit moved up to the front line:

‘Things are not so pleasant now; and in a few hours we shall be in the trenches, some of the many Fritz has presented us with. If they are the same as the villages he has left, he can keep them. I have just seen one of them, and it is as desolate a sight as one can imagine - not a vestige of a building - just a gate or railings here and there ... It is awfully noisy here ... This morning we had a unique and rather touching sight of an aeroplane catching fire. The pilot lived to reach the ground, but gradually the flames gained until the plane shrivelled up and dropped. We could see the pilot throw himself out ... My respect for the Church of England has gone; and with the influence of the War, I have become materialistic - everything is chance. If you and a shell arrive at the same place together, that is chance.’

At long last, for he had not been home to Gateshead since he had been embarked for France at the end of 1915, Blades was given 10 days leave at Easter 1917 - ‘I am glad I had leave,’ he wrote on returning to his unit, ‘It won’t be quite so bad now I have seen everybody I wanted to.’

Just a few days later, on 3 May, he led his men over the top in a dawn attack near Cheresy. On the 7th, his Company Commander, Captain W. A. Crebbin, wrote to his father:

‘It is with great regret that I have to inform you that your son is wounded and missing. Much as I should like to, I’m afraid I can’t give you any hope for his safety. The Battalion went into action on May 3rd and shortly after we advanced your son was wounded: one of my stretcher bearers bound up his wounds but the stretcher bearer informed me that Blades had been grievously wounded and that there was very little chance of his living.

The enemy counter attacked us heavily after our advance and we had to return to our original line and we were unable to get further information concerning your son. To be quite candid, though I hate being so, I’m afraid it is hoping against hope to think otherwise than that he has been killed in action. It is the best death that we are allowed out here, to fall at the head of one’s men; but it is those at home who have the biggest part of the war to bear, and their’s is the aftermath to suffer.

I was your son’s Company Officer and though I have only taken over the Company recently, I know his loss will be greatly felt. His men looked up to him, loved him and would have done anything for him. His will be a great loss to the company.

If I hear anything further concerning Blades I will contact you immediately, but in any case if there is any way in which I can help you, please don’t hesitate to write. I will do my best.’

Harry Blades has no known grave and is commemorated on the Arras Memorial. He was 21 years old.

In addition to the archive described below, his awards are also sold with a wonderful biography of some 30,000 words, written by his sister, in which she draws upon some of his correspondence, in addition to many other family sources. Perhaps most moving of all is her account of the occasion that her brother - on his last leave home - confessed that he would never return:

‘He sought her out in the drawing room, where she was sitting alone in the twilight in front of a glowing fire. He walked round the back of the settee and put his hand on her shoulder. As she clasped it in her own, he said slowly and distinctly, “I know that I won’t come back. I want you to remember me and tell your children about me.” The girl felt a lump rise in her throat and the hot tears well up in her eyes. She knew if she tried to speak she would burst into tears, and she must not do that at all costs. She clung to his hand and inclined her head in reply. Her brother waited for a few seconds, and then abruptly strode out of the room ... She felt she had somehow failed him in his hour of need, and that she ought to have been able to give him some words of comfort; but he had spoken with such grave conviction that no words of hers could have dispelled his gloom.’

It was not until September 1984 that she finally made the pilgrimage to see his name on the Arras Memorial.

The Archive:

(a) An impressive run of postcards, nearly 60, the whole to his family in Gateshead in the period 1913-15, written prior to his volunteering, and detailing his activities in London, not least many visits to the opera, art exhibitions and museums; together with three letters from the same period, with W. Kensington stamp marks, these dated 2 December 1914, 18 July and 21 July 1915.

(b) His enlistment form on joining the H.A.C. (Infantry) on 4 August 1915; his Soldiers’ Pay Book (Active Service), with entries ‘In the Field’ covering the period August 1915 to February 1917; his related discharge form on obtaining a commission and official notification for his appointment to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, dated 18 February 1918; together with some miscellaneous souvenirs from his time in France, among them a cinema programme from Rouen Camp, December 1915, a Christmas dinner menu 1916, signed by four Rifle Brigade officers, and detailed annotated maps of trenches and positions, both dating from January 1917, when he was attending a Cadet School for his commission.

(c) A quantity of letters home from the H.A.C. Training Camp at Richmond (9), dated between August 1915 and November 1915, and other examples sent from Kensington and Bisley in the same period.

(d) A superb run of letters home from France, approximately 60, covering the period December 1915 right through until his death in action in 1917, most of them in “On Active Service” green envelopes and similarly bearing “Passed by Field Censor” stamps, together with a silk embroidered H.A.C. postcard and the occasional field postcard, and, most poignantly, the telegram he sent home reporting his E.T.A. at Gateshead on his last leave, dated 2 April 1917, his last letter home dated 30 April 1917, and undated postcards of Montreuil to his sister and girlfriend, neither of them sent because of his death in action.

(e) An equally poignant quantity of correspondence and documentation dating from after his demise, the earliest being the War Office’s official telegram reporting him missing, believed killed, dated 12 May 1917, letters of condolence sent in May-June 1917 (11), a letter from his mother which was returned with his personal effects, dated 29 March, others from his Company Commander, erroneously dated ‘6 April’ rather than May (as quoted above), and his C.O., Major Sheepshanks, dated 8 May, and several more detailing the family’s desperate search for further information, these including a War Office letter quoting a fellow Battalion officer’s report on his loss, another dated 22 August reporting no further news, a Geneva Red Cross communication confirming that he had not been reported as a P.O.W., dated 19 September, and a War Office letter stating that his death was now certain, this dated 22 December - and later related death certificate, sent in April 1919.

(f) A General Post Office memorial scroll, dated in London 1918, and bearing the signature of the Postmaster General, in its original forwarding envelope; a photograph and inscribed folder of the Arras Memorial, including close-up of his name; a photographic souvenir of the Post Office War Memorial, again showing his name; and Buckingham Palace letter of sympathy.

(g) A fine studio portrait photograph of him in his 2nd Lieutenant’s Rifle Brigade uniform, and earlier picture postcard group shots from his H.A.C. days, including members of ‘C’ Company.

(h) An assortment of badges, including three H.A.C. and two silver Rifle Brigade examples, one of the former fitted with a brooch-pin for wearing; writing home in March 1917, Blades stated, ‘I am glad you received the badges safely. I have had the Grenade H.A.C. Badge since I joined. It has been everywhere with me, so it is not a bad souvenir’