Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A scarce Great War M.M. group of three awarded to Able Seaman W. J. Cuss, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, attached Royal Naval Division

Military Medal, G.V.R. (R-418 A.B., Hawke Bn., R.N.V.R.); British War and Victory Medals (R-418 A.B., R.N.V.R.), good very fine (3) £700-900

M.M. London Gazette 20 August 1919.

William James Cuss, a baker from Forty Bridge, near Cricklade, Wiltshire, who was born in November 1899, enlisted in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in November 1916, and was posted as an Able Seaman to Hawke Battalion, Royal Naval Division, in France, in January 1917. That August, however, he was admitted to 149th Field Ambulance suffering from colitis and dysentery, and was duly evacuated to the U.K. Returning to active duty with Hawke Battalion in April 1918, Cuss was re-admitted to hospital at Rouen a few days later, this time suffering with a skin infection, and, having rejoined his unit in mid-May, again to 149th Field Hospital in August, suffering from influenza - here, then, the likely period in which he won his M.M. (i.e. May to August 1918), although he again rejoined his unit in the Field in mid-September. Demobilised in April 1919, Cuss acknowledged safe receipt of his award by post that September.