Orders, Decorations and Medals

Pair: Lieutenant D. B. Gill, West Yorkshire Regiment

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut.) nearly extremely fine (2) £100-140

David Brian Gill was born in 1896 and lived in Menston-in-Wharfdale, near Leeds. Educated at Leeds University, he was commissioned from the University O.T.C. in September 1914 into the 15th (Service) Battalion (1st Leeds) The Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) - being one of the original officers of the ‘Leeds Pals’. He did not serve with them in Egypt in December 1915 but joined them on attachment from the 19th (Reserve) Battalion in France in April 1916. He arrived to join the battalion, taking post with ‘A’ Company in the front line at Courcelles, 23 April 1916. Four days later he was severely wounded by a shell burst, causing his evacuation to England on 2 May. His hospital notes record, ‘Minenwerfer shell wounds in back and left leg’. Gill records in a letter, ‘I sustained between 20 & 30 small wounds to my back and left leg’. Gill convalesced at the Countess of Pembroke Private Hospital, Wilton House, Salisbury. Recovering from his wounds he was then posted to the 9th (Service) Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment in France. He was wounded a second time at Messines, on 13 June 1917 - ‘when going around inspecting posts at night, he was blown into a trench by a German shell which burst close to him, and fell onto the point of a British bayonet. The bayonet entered the front of the leg at its centre. He was also hit in the calf by two small shell fragments ....’ He recovered and on 25 May 1918 was posted to No. 3 O.C.B. at Parkhurst, Isle of Wight. Lieutenant Gill was discharged from the unit on 18 April 1919 and resumed his civilian occupation as a Textile Bleacher.

With copied m.i.c., service papers, war diary extracts etc.