Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Great War M.C. group of six awarded to Lieutenant M. G. Anderson, 20th Battalion, Canadian Infantry, late Canadian Engineers, who was twice wounded in 1916, again at the time of winning his decoration on Hill 70 in August 1917 - by a gunshot to the face - and yet again in the fighting at Drocourt-Queant in September 1918, when he fell victim to a gas shell attack

Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse privately engraved ‘Lieut. M. G. Anderson, Hill 70, August 15th 1917’; 1914-15 Star (6 L. Cpl. M. G. Anderson, Can. Eng.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. M. G. Anderson); Coronation 1937; Coronation 1953, very fine or better (6) £1600-1800

M.C. London Gazette 7 March 1918:

‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. During the assault on enemy trenches, he led his platoon to the capture and destruction of two hostile guns and their crews, and, although severely wounded, showed great courage later in the day by personally directing his men in repelling an enemy counter-attack. His complete disregard of self and coolness under all conditions were of the greatest possible value in steadying his men.’

Melville Gordon Anderson, a native of Goderich, Ontario, was born in December 1891, and attested for the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force in January 1915. Embarked for England, he first went out to France as a Lance-Corporal in the Canadian Engineers that September, where he served in the 4th Field Company and in the 2nd Entrenching Battalion, and was wounded in the right forearm in March 1916, and in his back in July of the same year.

Subsequently commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in early 1917, he joined the 20th Battalion, Canadian Infantry out in France, and was similarly employed at the time of winning his M.C. on Hill 70 on 15 August 1917, on which occasion he was severely wounded by a gunshot to the face and evacuated to No. 20 Casualty Clearing Station. Having then returned to his unit in the Field, Anderson was gassed in the fighting at Drocourt-Queant on the Canal du Nord on 14 September 1918, and evacuated to No. 5 British Red Cross Hospital at Wimereux, and thence to England. He was discharged in Ottawa in March 1919, and died there in October 1963; sold with copied research, including the recipient’s service record.