Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Great War M.M. group of four awarded to Sergeant W. Williams, Machine Gun Corps, late Welsh Regiment

Military Medal, G.V.R. (19374 Sjt. W. Williams, 1/M.G.C.); 1914 Star, with clasp (10883 Pte. W. Williams, 2/Welsh. R.); British War and Victory Medals (10883 Sjt. W. Williams, Welsh R.), contact marks and polished, thus fine or better (4) £400-500

M.M. London Gazette 17 June 1919.

William Williams arrived in France on 13 August 1914, as a Private in the 2nd Battalion, Welsh Regiment, in which capacity he would have participated in the unit’s attack towards Chemin des Dames on 14 September - a memorable action in which one of his comrades, Lance-Corporal William Fuller, won the V.C.

By mid-November the Welch had sustained casualties of five officers and 197 other ranks killed; 16 officers and approximately 400 other ranks wounded, and one officer and 45 other ranks taken prisoner - to which should be added another 125 casualties sustained at Festubert on 21-22 December: Williams was among these casualties, for in early February 1915 the Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic reported that he had sustained a face wound and was in hospital at Rouen.

Transferring to the Machine Gun Corps in January 1916, and advanced to Sergeant, the notification of the award for his M.M. appeared in 1st Battalion, M.G.C’s war diary on 8 November 1918; sold with copied research, including portrait photograph feature form the Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic.