Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War 1917 ‘Ypres’ M.M. group of three awarded to Sergeant H. R. Mayberry, 6th Australian Field Artillery Brigade, Australian Imperial Force, for keeping lines of communication open between Infantry and Artillery lines around Hooge, during six hours of heavy shelling, and despite being partially buried as consequence of aeroplane bomb

Military Medal, G.V.R. (8425 Sapr. H. R. Mayberry. 6/A. Bde: Aust: F.A.); British War and Victory Medals (8425 T-Sjt. H. R. Mayberry. 6 F.A.B. A.I.F.) light contact marks overall, therefore very fine (3) £700-900

M.M. London Gazette 12 December 1917. The original recommendation states:

‘On the 25th September 1917, at Hooge, the enemy which had attacked our lines, was shelling the valley between Hooge and Halfway House very heavily. For six hours these two men [Mayberry and Sapper P. M. Coghlan] worked backwards and forwards on the line between the artillery and the infantry, in this valley, being almost continuously under shell fire and in endeavouring to keep the line in action narrowly escaped with their lives. They were on one occasion partly buried by an aeroplane bomb but continued with their work and eventually finding it impossible to keep the line in repair reported at the Infantry Headquarters and brought in by hand from the Liaison Officer an important despatch through the heavy fire which was then existing. Their conduct throughout was an excellent example of courage and determination.’

H. R. Mayberry was born in California Gully, Bendigo, Australia, in 1894. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in the town of his birth on 16 July 1915. He initially went to Egypt in May 1916, and then on to the UK in August of the same year. He served with the 6th Australian Field Artillery Brigade in the French theatre of war, and was awarded his M.M. for gallantry in operations in and around Hooge, 25 September 1917. The unit’s War Diary for the latter date gives the German artillery barrage as ‘hostile artillery extremely active. 112C 118A shelled with gas in the early morning. During the day the enemy actively shelled over all our font with guns of all calibre and with apparent aerial observation.’ It also lists the full citations for Mayberry and Coghlan’s M.M.s.

Mayberry returned to Australia in H.M.A.T. Borda, and was discharged 11 August 1919.