Orders, Decorations and Medals

A rare Great War M.C. group of four awarded to Lieutenant T. A. Edwards, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Royal Naval Division - due to appalling casualties, he onetime commanded the Hawke Battalion as an Acting Lieutenant

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. T. A. Edwards, R.N.V.R.); Defence Medal 1939-45, good very fine and better (4) £1800-2200

M.C. London Gazette 15 February 1919:

‘In the attack on Niergnies on 8 October 1918, he displayed great skill in handling his company in a difficult manoeurve. After the objective had been taken the enemy made a determined counter-attack, supported by tanks, on the troops on the company’s right flank, as a result of which the latter were compelled temporarily to withdraw. Personally leading the operation he quickly formed a defensive flank, and by his cool courage and good leadership not only were severe losses inflicted on the enemy but an important tactical position was maintained which materially assisted in the reforming of the line at a critical period.’

Thomas Arthur Edwards, a native of Herne Hill, London, was commissioned as a Temporary Sub. Lieutenant in August 1915 and first went to France in July 1916, where he joined Howe Battalion, Royal Naval Division. Over the ensuing year and a half he saw much action, not least on the Ancre, and, in February 1917, following an attack against enemy trenches on the ridge commanding Beaucourt, in which the Brigade sustained casualties of 24 officers and 647 ratings, he was appointed Adjutant of Hawke.

Having then got married while on leave in the U.K. that July, he returned to the Battalion as an Acting Lieutenant in the following month and was back in action at Passchendaele in November - he was appointed second-in-command on the 11th, saw further action at Welch Ridge and returned to the U.K. on leave over Christmas.

He was, however, back in France by the time of the German Spring Offensive, again as second-in-command of Hawke, when the Battalion was forced to retreat from Bus to Barastre, and thence to High Wood and towards the Thirpval Plateau - and Edwards became C.O. when Commander B. H. Ellis, D.S.O., was mortally wounded on 26 February. Placed in command of ‘D’ Company when a new C.O. arrived in April, Edwards and his men remained actively employed in trenches opposite Hamel and on the Auchonvillers Ridge in May-July, and thence in the advance through Logeast Wood and Loupart Wood to the Bapaume Road - a group photograph of Hawke officers taken in June shows a haggard Lieutenant Edwards, who was sent home on a month’s special leave in August.

Once more rejoining his unit in the Field in September, Edwards won his M.C. for the above described deeds at Niergnies on 8 October - an engagement that made history, for the Germans made use of captured British tanks in their determined counter-attack. Notified of his award in Divisional Orders dated 18 December 1918, he ended his career as an Education Officer in the 63rd (R.N.) Division and was, appropriately enough, demobbed in March 1919 to pursue his civilian profession as a schoolmaster.