Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Private H. N. Morris, Royal Regiment of Canada, killed in action during Operation Jubilee, the Dieppe Raid, 19 August 1942

1939-45 Star; Defence Medal, Canadian issue in silver; Canadian Volunteer Service Medal, with Overseas Bar; War Medal 1939-45, Canadian issue in silver; together with the recipient’s Canadian Memorial Cross, G.VI.R. (B67189 Pte. H. N. Morris) with transmission slip, in case and outer card box of issue, replacement ring suspension to the Memorial Cross, otherwise nearly extremely fine (5) £200-240

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to Second World War Casualties.

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Henry Noel Morris was born in Winnipeg, Canada, on 7 April 1913, and attested for the Canadian Active Service Force at Toronto on 16 September 1939. He served with the Royal Regiment of Canada during the Second World War, and was killed in action during Operation Jubilee, the ill-fated Dieppe raid, on 19 August 1942. As Ronald Atkin, in his book Dieppe 1942, wrote, ‘The Canadians who had been itching to get into action for two years were flung into battle ill prepared and inadequately armed, reduced to overcoming concrete and barbed wire with little more than sheer courage. Of the 5,000 men who took part almost 3,500 were killed, captured, or wounded, and many of those who returned were never actually landed on French soil. Casualties in some Canadian sections were higher than ninety percent. On that one August morning the Canadians alone suffered 906 men killed, and lost more as prisoners than in the whole 20 months of the Italian campaign. Not since the Somme in 1916 had a Canadian military formation suffered such shattering losses.’

Morris had married five months previously on 31 March 1942, and was killed leaving behind a 29 year old widow. He is buried in Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery, France.