Auction Catalogue

31 March 2010

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

British and World Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

Lot

№ 807

.

31 March 2010

Hammer Price:
£2,700

A rare Great War M.C. group of three awarded to Sub. Lieutenant A. M. Perry, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, attached Royal Naval Division, who was decorated for his bravery with Hawke Battalion at Passchendaele in November 1917 and later taken prisoner during the German spring offensive

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; British War and Victory Medals (S. Lt. A. M. Perry, R.N.V.R.), contact marks, very fine or better (3) £1800-2200

M.C. London Gazette 18 January 1918:

‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He led his platoon in an attack on a hostile post, surprised the enemy and captured the garrison. The success was largely due to the sound preliminary arrangements and skilful leading.’

Arthur Morson Perry, a native of Pendlebury, Manchester, who was born in March 1897, entered the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in December 1915, when he commenced training with the Royal Naval Division in the U.K. Commissioned as a Sub. Lieutenant in April 1917, he joined Hawke Battalion in France in July 1917, and, as cited above, was decorated for his part in an attack at Passchendaele on 1 November of the same year, an incident described in Jerrold’s history of the Royal Naval Division:

‘The actual attack was carried out by Sub. Lieutenant Perry with one and a half platoons, which advanced in three detachments directed against the front and the flanks of the position. In the darkness there was no anger from the enemy machine-guns; the situation was far too obscure for either side to risk firing without a target. Movement was safe, and the parties made their way forward through the mud in good order until they came up against the enemy’s wire. Here the centre party halted, while others worked round the flanks and rushed in with bombs. Surprised on both sides, the enemy surrendered; nine men and a machine-gun were captured and a number more killed or wounded.’

Perry was taken prisoner at Ribecourt on 21 March 1918, during the German spring offensive, an incident described in Hawke Battalion’s history:

‘The first waves of the attack had, indeed, found no gap in the Naval Division front, and the shock which broke our line to north and south, and threatened the Allied cause with disaster, yielded the enemy here only a few posts in our outpost line at the junctions of 190th Brigade and ‘C’ Company of the Hawke Battalion. Here, Sub. Lieutenant Perry and some 60 men were cut off and killed or captured, but the main line of resistance was not even reached and ‘A’ Company who held the right of Hawke outpost line, hardly lost a post.’

Perry was repatriated on 18 December 1918 and finally demobilised in January 1919.