Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Private W. G. Gooderson, South African Medical Corps, late South African Irish Regiment

1914-15 Star (Pte., S.A. Irish Regt.); British War and Victory Medals, bi-lingual issue (Pte., S.A.M.C.) good very fine (3) £60-80

William George Gooderson was born in Sydney, Australia in 1895 and enlisted in the South African Irish Regiment in early October 1914. Embarked at Cape Town in late December of the latter year, the Regiment went on to serve with distinction in German South-West Africa, Gooderson and his comrades having their first brush with a German patrol just one day after landing at Walvis Bay. In February 1915 the Northern Force came under the command of General Louis Botha and as a result of the re-organization of the Active Citizen Force and the S.A. Irish, Gooderson was discharged that August. Subsequently re-enlisting in the South African Medical Corps, he served at the S.A. General Hospital in Abbeville, France between October 1916 and September 1917, and thereafter, with intermittent periods in hospital as a result of illness, with the 1st S.A. Field Ambulance. He was finally discharged back at Johannesburg in April 1919; sold with two contemporary photographs.